(as of April 2006)
Remaking American Medicine™…Health Care for the 21st Century is a four-part primetime television series intended for broadcast on PBS in the September 2006. The award-winning documentary filmmaking company, Crosskeys Media®, is producing the series. Public television station KQED in San Francisco is the presenting station.
The series and the campaign are made possible through lead corporate sponsorship by the Amgen, Inc. Foundation with major underwriting from The Robert Wood Foundation®. The Nathan Cummings Foundation and The Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation have also made grants. Additional resources to support the campaign have also been made available through the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.
This four-part series will tell stories of change. The goal is to inspire and empower viewers, both members of the general public and health care professionals, to join in efforts to transform American health care.
Drawing on unprecedented access to health care institutions across the nation, the series will present detailed and emotionally engaging profiles of individuals struggling to fix our broken health care system. The stories will be told through the eyes of doctors, nurses, administrators and patients, showing their struggles, their setbacks and their victories.
"Silent Killer" - Every year at least 98,000 Americans are killed die – and countless more are injured – as a result of medical errors. This program begins by profiling the efforts of Sorrel King, whose 18-month daughter diedwas killed at Johns Hopkins Hospital, one of the most respected health care facilities in the world. King has gone from grieving victim to engaged activist, partnering with Johns Hopkins to make safety a top priority at the institution. Now she has joined forces with Dr. Don Berwick, a nationally recognized patient safety advocate, to save 100,000 lives in American hospitals.
"First Do No Harm" - This program focuses on efforts to address medication errors and infections in two hospitals, and follows physicians who are challenging their colleagues to live up to their oath to First Do No Harm. In Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, chief of medicine Dr. Richard Shannon is confronting an epidemic of hospital-acquired infections that are shattering the lives of its victims. In New Jersey, Hackensack University Medical Center is engaged in an effort to transform the way the institution delivers care through the use of cutting-edge information technology. The goal of both efforts is to ensure that the people trusted to provide safe and effective medical treatment do not harm patients.
"The Stealth Epidemic" - Chronic diseases like diabetes and congestive heart failure affect nearly 100 million Americans, and treatment of these illnesses consumes nearly 70% of all health care resources. Yet doctors are often unable to prevent needless suffering or even death, and their failures are threatening the viability of our entire health care system. This program looks at initiatives in two very different communities: Los Angeles, and rural Whatcom County in the state of Washington. These groundbreaking efforts are fundamentally transforming the physician-patient relationship, and offer a glimmer of hope for those across the country who are struggling with their chronic conditions.
"Hand in Hand" - As medicine continues to become more and more technologically sophisticated, and the systems that deliver medical care become increasingly complex, the relationship between providers, patients and families is more important than ever. This final program tells the story of patients and families who have formed a unique bond in a teaching hospital in Augusta, Georgia, transforming the institution into a nationally recognized facility where partnership is a guiding vision to the care it delivers.
A national public engagement campaign is now underway that will help
spread the word about the pioneering work being done in improving health
care, and at the same time will attract a substantial viewing audience to the
series. As of January 2006, 44 national organizations have signed on as
National Partners, representing health care providers, purchasers,
consumers and patient advocates, health care experts and government and
regulatory groups. These organizations are alerting their members and
encouraging them to participate in community-based activities designed to
draw public attention to improving health care quality. Collectively, National
Partners can reach more than 100 million Americans.
In many regions of the country, local efforts are being led by the nation’s Medicare Quality Improvement Organizations (QIOs) that are forming coalitions comprised of others who are equally committed to improving health care. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, has approved QIO involvement in Remaking American Medicine and the outreach campaign. CMS made the decision to authorize QIO involvement because of the unique opportunities the series and the campaign present to promote quality improvement, which is central to the missions of QIOs. Each QIO is assessing the best ways to use the series and campaign to forge deeper relationships with affiliates/members of National Partners and others devoted to quality health care.
Remaking American Medicine will challenge viewers to examine the quality of their own health care, and to discover their role in remaking medicine in their own communities. The series and the public engagement campaign will provide them with the tools to accomplish those objectives.
