A Call to Action: Taking Back Healthcare for Future Generations Book

"Is our healthcare system really in crisis?" That?s a question Hank McKinnell one of the world?s most influential coporate leaders encounters every day. His answer may surprise you. While McKinnell agrees that there is a crisis, he doesn?t think the problem is with "healthcare"?rather, he asserts the crisis is in "sick-care." Healthcare systems around the world, McKinnell argues, are focused on sickness and its management rather than health. As a result, dialogue about how to sustain health now takes a back seat to arguments about cost?containing it, avoiding it, or shifting it to someone else. The result? A near-universal belief that healthcare is becoming unaffordable, fragmented, and impersonal. "Focusing only on the cost of care is looking at the healthcare problem though the worong end of the telescope," says McKinnell, the chairman and CEO of Pfizer. "The real focus should be on the horrific cost of disease." In America, the "sick-care" system delivers the world?s most sophisticated procedures, while skimping on vaccines, hampering the fight against AIDS, and intruding into one of life?s most personal relationships ? doctor and patient. Groundbreaking and provocative, A Call to Action, reframes the dialogue on healthcare and offers people a way out of the zero-sum, win-or-lose game they now encounter. Distilling more than 30 years of experience in global healthcare, McKinnell provides concrete action steps to build cost-effective, inclusive healthcare that he believes can extend millions of lives and save billions of dollars over the next generation. He addresses: A new, prevention-based approach to employee healthcare Why pharmaceutical companies have lost trust, and what they must do to regain it Why Americans pay more for prescription drugs than people in Canada and Europe How competition can spur the healthcare industry to improve services and contain prices How new technologies can reduce medical errors and improve the dialogues between patient and doctor How we might lose the race between the world?s most insidious virus and the world?s best researchers How we can take more responsibility for our health McKinnell also assesses the global challenge of infectious disease, particularly the pandemic of HIV. He demonstrates why this pandemic ?the worst in human history ?is beyond the scope of governments acting alone ?and how, even in the face of devastating global catastrophes, public-private partnerships can deliver real hope. The healthcare crisis can be brought under control. Sick-care systems can be changed to put patiens over payers. In this book, McKinnell offers a compelling case for change, and a plan of action to make healthcare systems work for us and our children. Hank A. McKinnell joined PfizerJapan in 1971 and, in 2001, was named as the twelfth chairman in Pfizer?s 156-year history. McKinnell?s illustrious career at Pfizer spans four decades and has brought him from a country manager position in pre-revolutionary Iran to leadership of the world?s largest pharmaceutical company. Along the way, he received accolades for both his leadership ability and business acumen. In 2003, McKinnell was honored with the United Nations Association of America's Global Leadership Award and, in 2004 he was counted among America's most powerful business leaders by Fortune magazine.Read More