I was saddened to see our most commonly searched terms within The Wellness League's FindHelp tool. We know the community is fragile and has many health issues but nearly 53% said food was their biggest concern. Imagine that, in a society where excess calories are our biggest driver of long term illness, the unwell struggle with food issues.
As we enter the holiday season it is also time to reflect on what has been and what may yet be. As patients with serious illness, the day to day is ordinarily punctuated by the loss of friends and loved ones but that has been greatly magnified by covid within the patient community. If there is a bright spot in the trauma we have been through it is to make clear that despite many pockets of excellence our healthcare system fails us frequently. A common threat has forced us all to at least be aware of the system and its value to us as well as the challenges of accessing care.
For me, in my role as an advocate for better patient care, I think about how to change the system to give everyone a fair chance to not die prematurely or to suffer from being overlooked. I struggle with the ethical challenge of who gets care. Medicine is a miracle for some who receive enormously expensive care and are truly blessed but many more suffer and die even though modest efforts at the right time could have saved them.
The finger of fate is not fair as it plucks those who will benefit greatly from the cauldron and watches those less fortunate be consumed. I value the friendship of those who have been fortunate but mourn the loss of the unlucky and wonder how we might become more fair.
Here is a link to some of the things I'm thinking about as we enter the holidays.
We were honored to be invited to present our strategy for serving patient needs at the recent AASLD conference and we gave a demo of The Wellness League which will be the main patient outreach platform for us in the future. It is a short, 30 minute, description of our strategy for delivering patient support. Click the link below to watch it.
CLICK TO VIEW THE WELLNESS LEAGUE DEMO
Patient care and therapies are changing fast and keeping you informed is an important part of our job. In future blogs I will tell you about new testing for liver disease that is going to be available to us as well as updates on the potential drugs working their way through the clinical trial process and the FDA.
