Healthcare Professionals for Healthcare Reform

Healthcare Professionals for Healthcare Reform (HPfHR), is group of physicians, nurses, public health experts, healthcare economists, health information technologists, business leaders, hospital administrators, politicians, patients and many others who developed a 3 tiered healthcare system reform plan for the United States called The EMBRACE Healthcare Reform Plan (an acronym for Expanding Medical and Behavioral Resources with Access to Care for Everyone). The group claims that they are politically non-partisan.

Co-founded by physicians Kimberly Yonkers, Charles Landau and Gilead Lancaster in 2007, the group initially wanted to come up with solutions to the current healthcare system from the point of view of the patient and doctor. They felt that the only effective solution required a complete restructuring of the healthcare system from top to bottom and that systems from other countries as well as single payer plans proposed in this country would never be accepted by the American public or the US Congress.

The group identified five important parts of the American healthcare system that needed to be addressed. These included the inefficiencies in medical offices and hospitals, the need to cover the entire population for basic healthcare services and keep the great quality of the current delivery of healthcare, promote and integrate scientifically validated diagnostic and therapeutic modalities and most importantly, to depoliticize healthcare and allow for a more manageable way to finance it. In addition, it was important that the plan was completely portable throughout the country and did not depend on income, age or employment status.

The group started with an evidence-guided tiered system of healthcare delivery based on the question, “why can’t we build a healthcare system that covers everyone for life saving or death preventing services, and allows them to ‘buy up’ to higher levels of coverage if they want it.

The plan continued to develop, as the group grew and attracted people of many disciplines involved in the healthcare system. As the distance between members grew, discussions were mostly conducted by email, blog posts and telephone. Among the many issues that were discussed during this time, many felt that the plan should have a catchy name. Several proposals for names were submitted and the group voted for Dr, Kimberly Yonkers’ contribution: The Expanding Medical and Behavioral Resources with Access to Care for Everyone (EMBRACE) Health Plan.

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Wikipedia