Patient advocates band together

#IHI Back in July, I wrote about a new effort by IHI to help patient advocacy organizations. The summary:

Here's how it will get started. IHI wants to invite 35 to 50 patient advocates to its Annual Forum this December in Orlando, FL. The invitees will attend a special session at the beginning of the conference, and then they will attend the entire Forum as the week progresses. Their conference fee and travel expenses will be completely borne by IHI.

Our hope is to provide these folks with a terrific educational experience, but also use this first get-together as an organizational session for a "trade association" of patient advocacy groups. With planning and luck, we think we will be able to build an organization that will provide technical, educational, and marketing support to these small non-profits.

Well, thanks to the generosity of a number of hospitals and others, the group assembled today for the first time in a "Leadership Summit for Patient Activists and Partners in Quality and Safety." I have dropped by for part of the session. On the right, you see Dr. Steve Pratt, from BIDMC, who worked with Linda Kenney from MITSS, on the concept for this session. He is accompanied in this picture by Dale Ann Micalizzi.

The meeting started with a "tweet" from each attendee, telling their personal story that led to their current patient activities. Among them was Helen Haskell, Director of the Empowered Patient Coalition and Mothers Against Medical Error, seen here (right) with IHI's Madge Kaplan (left).

The person in the picture at the top of this post, Regina Holliday, is a medical advocate muralist. She is using paint and brushes to promote health reform and patient's rights. She was on hand to memorialize today's session.