The Patient Revolution

The Patient Revolution is the backbone of a global movement for care that turns away from industrial healthcare and turns towards careful and kind care for all. We have engaged more than 2,000 people who know that the status quo is unacceptable and have ideas for improvement and change. Our work is to inspire, equip, and convene community members to help accelerate their ideas for change and engage in critical discussions about how to transform healthcare to a model that is centered on care. 

These care activists are civically-minded individuals who are patients, family members, caregivers, health system leaders, doctors, nurses, educators, and more, who are distraught by the current state and want to be part of a different healthcare future. Some have institutional affiliations at places like Cleveland Clinic, Mayo Clinic, and Johns Hopkins, and some are working alone, or in small groups “outside” of healthcare. 

We believe that healthcare as it is currently designed, delivered, and financed is humanly unsustainable. The current focus on productivity, efficiency, and profit, while important strategies for eliminating waste and optimizing financial investments, are squeezing care out of healthcare for all. As a result, patients are disengaged from their own care and distrusting of healthcare systems. More than 40% of patients say that their concerns are not addressed adequately in their healthcare visits. Too many people with complex disease and chronic illnesses are languishing and dying needlessly. More than 40% of clinicians say they have an intent to cut back or leave the profession overall. 

We call it the industrialization of healthcare. While industrialization is definitely a good thing for manufacturing and other companies, it does more harm than good in the healing profession of healthcare. Incremental improvement is not enough. Radical change is needed. 

Our goals 

The United States in particular is world-renowned for technological advances and life-saving cures. While cures for acute illness and traumatic injury are indeed accelerating, care is disappearing. The goal of The Patient Revolution is to inspire, grow, and nurture a global movement for care that minimizes the impact of the industrial forces that insist on productivity and profit above all else, and lift up careful and kind care for everyone. 

Our framework calls for health systems that support: 

● Unhurried conversations between patients and their clinicians; 

● Care that focuses on the patient's biology and biography–getting to know them as a person; and, 

● Care that fits into each person's lifestyle and doesn’t create an untenable burden. 

We are not an improvement organization that tells leaders, practitioners, and others how to make this happen. All healthcare is local and it is the local experts in partnership with patients and families who know what is needed. 

We are a catalyst for radical change, providing education, training, information, community, thought leadership and evidence. We will advance our goals through our School, our Community, and our Greenhouse.

The School: We educate and train patients, clinicians, leaders, and other stakeholders to speak, think, and act differently about the centrality of care in all healthcare systems, processes, policies, and spaces.

The Community: We convene and support like-minded care activists including patients, clinicians, researchers, educators, and leaders around the globe to foster solidarity, exchange best practices, and advocate for careful and kind care.

The Greenhouse - A Think and Do Tank: We convene thought leaders to inform, equip and influence care activists, policymakers, and others based on robust research, expertise, evidence, and stories. We partner with individuals and teams of care activists inside and “outside” of health systems, academic institutions, and healthcare non-profits to support and advance mini revolutions.