E DI T OR I AL
da Vinci Revisited: Building Momentum for Action
E
veryone in healthcare should watch Morgan Gleason’s “I Am the Patient and I Need to Be Heard” videos.1 They offer compelling, straightforward examples from the perspective of a 15-year-old about how to improve care. Listen to me; talk to me. Let patients in hospital sleep. Rethink IV pumps that beep loudly and continuously in a patient’s room without notifying staff that there is a problem. And more. Thanks to the reach of social media, Morgan’s story and call to action have spread across borders. Viewed thousands of times on YouTube, her videos have been tweeted and retweeted, shown at conferences and prescribed as compulsory viewing for staff in some hospitals. Word is getting out, and the videos are moving hearts and minds. The challenge now, as always, is to translate that discussion and momentum into concrete action – let’s walk the talk. A frivolous, but timely, analogy: it’s sweet that #hardtotrashtalkSweden was trending on Twitter in Canada and #hardtotrashtalkCanada was trending in Sweden during the men’s gold medal hockey game,2 with many tweeting that both countries should share a beer to celebrate a great game. But the Molson Canadian beer fridge has not, at the time of writing, been reprogrammed to accept Swedish passports. (Featured in a range of advertisements and on-site in Sochi, the fridge requires a Canadian passport to open.) The need to drive to action is by no means new. It’s been hundreds of years since Leonardo da Vinci is supposed to have said, “I have been impressed with the urgency of doing. Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Being willing is not enough; we must do.” Like modern researchers, da Vinci often used empirical and observational approaches to learning. And, as in his time, translating the resulting evidence into concrete, sustainable action that changes policy or practice is challenging. Sharing research evidence through publication is an important first step in the process. With this idea in mind, this issue of Healthcare Policy / Politiques de Santé features papers that illuminate the perspectives of patients and front line primary care teams, as well as research that explores important healthcare issues, such as predicting which patients are at risk of becoming high-cost users of the health system, variations in coverage of care for survivors of paediatric brain tumours and the effect of communities of practice in local public health services. Rounding out the issue are discussion and debate pieces on the extent to which amenable mortality is a good measure of health system effectiveness, as well as on regional investment in health research.
[8] HEALTHCARE POLICY Vol.9 No.3, 2014
Whatever your role in the health sector, I hope that you will find much food for thought, as well as fuel for action, in this issue of the journal.
JENNIFER ZELMER , BSC, MA, PHD
Editor-in-chief
References 1. http://morgangleason.com 2. http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2014/02/23/hard-to-trash-talk-sweden_n_4841988.html. HEALTHCARE POLICY Vol.9 No.3, 2014
[9]
da Vinci Revisited: Building Momentum for Action
E
veryone in healthcare should watch Morgan Gleason’s “I Am the Patient and I Need to Be Heard” videos.1 They offer compelling, straightforward examples from the perspective of a 15-year-old about how to improve care. Listen to me; talk to me. Let patients in hospital sleep. Rethink IV pumps that beep loudly and continuously in a patient’s room without notifying staff that there is a problem. And more. Thanks to the reach of social media, Morgan’s story and call to action have spread across borders. Viewed thousands of times on YouTube, her videos have been tweeted and retweeted, shown at conferences and prescribed as compulsory viewing for staff in some hospitals. Word is getting out, and the videos are moving hearts and minds. The challenge now, as always, is to translate that discussion and momentum into concrete action – let’s walk the talk. A frivolous, but timely, analogy: it’s sweet that #hardtotrashtalkSweden was trending on Twitter in Canada and #hardtotrashtalkCanada was trending in Sweden during the men’s gold medal hockey game,2 with many tweeting that both countries should share a beer to celebrate a great game. But the Molson Canadian beer fridge has not, at the time of writing, been reprogrammed to accept Swedish passports. (Featured in a range of advertisements and on-site in Sochi, the fridge requires a Canadian passport to open.) The need to drive to action is by no means new. It’s been hundreds of years since Leonardo da Vinci is supposed to have said, “I have been impressed with the urgency of doing. Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Being willing is not enough; we must do.” Like modern researchers, da Vinci often used empirical and observational approaches to learning. And, as in his time, translating the resulting evidence into concrete, sustainable action that changes policy or practice is challenging. Sharing research evidence through publication is an important first step in the process. With this idea in mind, this issue of Healthcare Policy / Politiques de Santé features papers that illuminate the perspectives of patients and front line primary care teams, as well as research that explores important healthcare issues, such as predicting which patients are at risk of becoming high-cost users of the health system, variations in coverage of care for survivors of paediatric brain tumours and the effect of communities of practice in local public health services. Rounding out the issue are discussion and debate pieces on the extent to which amenable mortality is a good measure of health system effectiveness, as well as on regional investment in health research.
[8] HEALTHCARE POLICY Vol.9 No.3, 2014
Whatever your role in the health sector, I hope that you will find much food for thought, as well as fuel for action, in this issue of the journal.
JENNIFER ZELMER , BSC, MA, PHD
Editor-in-chief
References 1. http://morgangleason.com 2. http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2014/02/23/hard-to-trash-talk-sweden_n_4841988.html. HEALTHCARE POLICY Vol.9 No.3, 2014
[9]
