Description
Dear Colleague,
November 2016
NEJM Catalyst was launched by NEJM Group in late 2015 to bring health care executives, clinician leaders, and clinicians together to share innovative ideas and practical applications for enhancing the value of health care delivery. Through daily digital publication and quarterly live-streamed events, NEJM Catalyst offers original content, expert dialogue, and insightful analysis from a network of top advisors and experts.
Patient engagement has emerged as a mantra for many health care professionals, a welcome concept for patients and their families, and, sometimes, a buzz phrase that obscures an essential fact: what patients really want is health rather than health care. NEJM Catalyst has worked with Kevin Volpp, MD, PhD, who is Director of the Center for Health Incentives and Behavioral Economics at the Perelman School of Medicine of the University of Pennsylvania, to create new and important contributions on patient engagement. The enclosed collection of original content from our site includes an account of how Kaiser Permanente addresses social needs to engage the 1% of its patients who incur 23% of its total health care spending; a case study of how outpatient pharmacy services can ease the lives of parents of sick children; a blog post on how patients prefer their providers to dress; a first-person account of the requirements to become a “patient-researcher”; an interview with the Chief Experience Officer of Cleveland Clinic; a chart that shows at a glance how behavioral interventions can have very different effects in different portions of the population; and an NEJM Catalyst Insights Report on patient engagement, drawing from our proprietary survey.
We invite you to join NEJM Catalyst and stay informed on how patient engagement can fulfill its promise.
Edward Prewitt
Editorial Director, NEJM Catalyst
