Today, we spent some time with the Boston University Evaluators hired by Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Their job is to evaluate and learn from our transformational experience in Pursuing Perfection. They asked us: How will we sustain the effort beyond the initial funding...in light of the expectation that RWJF will reduce support signficantly in Phase 3. Our answer was we weren't sure...the path was not clear before us. No payers were coming to the table, offerring money and resources for a newly designed set of services aimed at preventing complications and the high costs of complications. I wonder if it was difficult to people to get on the ships to sail to the New World? How many had to be asked before a few signed on....
And I thought not just about financial sustainability but also what we would do to sustain the spirit and heart of what we are doing. That truly is the challenge. If we cannot capture the hearts and minds of a community, how will we maintain the intent/vision of a perfect healthcare system? If we rely only on healthcare professionals in isolation from the larger community...we will not transform the system. We need a space where everyone contributes to the whole and understands their role in promoting health and managing the challenges of chronic illness. Patients and family members need to be invited and welcomed in to the help create those solutions. We live in a community and we need the community to be partners who can lead the way. When we have engaged others outside healthcare, I have been amazed at their resourceful, creative ideas and very mindful of the costs. They want to be part of the solution.
As we talk about sustainability, we need to consider both...it will take both heart and money to truly transform a system. As a community we have so much to gain...
