Improving the health of individuals and communities depends on the productive evolution of our systems of care.
This will be the difference between success and failure, understanding and confusion, hope and despair for our nation’s future.
There’s endless debate about healthcare in the U.S. system—how much it should cost, who should pay for it and, frighteningly, who should receive the highest quality care, and when. The only thing we do seem to agree on is that the system isn’t working.
I believe there is a social imperative to equitably improve and sustain the quality of health of all citizens. Period.
The capacity of individuals to contribute emotionally, socially, and economically as active, productive members of family and community is grounded in their quality of health...this needs to be the imperative for our systems of care, their organizing principles, and interaction design.
Care Evolution: Essays on Health as a Social Imperative
This book has its roots in the earliest days of my medical career, when it was clear that healthcare rarely looked outside its own walls for evidence and best practices. I was told I didn’t fit in when I questioned how things were done and shared my ideas on how to do them differently. Despite a recent willingness to explore new ideas, our systems of care remain fundamentally challenged to do more than manage disease.
Care Evolution is a road map to the future of healthcare for policy-makers, physicians, healthcare administrators, government officials, CEOs, and anyone else with a stake in the system.
Having worked in a broad array of industries in the private and public sectors, I lay out a path for the positive and productive evolution of our systems of care, and how to revitalize and humanize the experience and transformative power of care for both patients and professionals. This book provides new perspectives on the forces that have shaped and continue to influence our current healthcare system and shares powerful principles and practices to improve the quality of health, and enhance the capacity of individuals to contribute emotionally, socially, and economically as active, productive members of family and community.
– Kirkus Reviews
Hi, I’m Dr. Steven Merahn
My life has been an adventure, and I’m most grateful to family, friends, and educators who encouraged my curiosity, energy and passion for learning.
They all had a role in my recently founding a non-profit, Union In Action, a 501(c)3 charity whose mission is to enhance the capacity of our systems of care to equitably improve the quality of health of individuals and communities using the principles of integration, collaboration, and orchestration.
I am a physician by training, but an artist by inclination, an educator by temperament and a parent by desire. I tend to work at the boundaries between diverse and not always apparently related, disciplines.
I try to live my life by the principles of personal integrity, relentless intellectual vigor generosity, forgiveness, courage, commitment, and play. I believe that by trying new things, looking at ideas and established precepts in fresh ways, we evolve.
I’m always open to forming new partnerships and relations so that, together, we can achieve equitable health for all our citizens and improve their capacity to contribute emotionally, socially, and economically as active productive members of family and community. Learn more about Dr Steve here
