Top 5 Most Influential People in Healthcare

There are a whole bunch of top 10, top 50, and top 100 lists going around right now. It’s always interesting to browse through these lists. If you’re on the list, you love seeing your name or organization’s name in lights. When someone makes a list, you can almost always disagree with something on their list, which drives a good conversation.

As I was thinking about all these lists, I saw one that listed the 100 most influential people in healthcare. As I looked through the list, I didn’t really agree with the list. I knew where they were coming from, but everyone on their list was on a macro level. While those people have influence over the healthcare system as a whole, I think there are much bigger influences over the healthcare we receive.

Here’s my list of the top 5 most influential people in healthcare:

  1. The Patient
  2. The Parent of a Child
  3. The Caregiver for a Senior
  4. The Spouse of the Patient
  5. The Patient Advocate

That’s right. The patient and the people who care about and advocate for that patient are the most influential and powerful people when it comes to the healthcare you receive. There is literally nothing more powerful in healthcare than this.

This applies to patients getting care from the existing healthcare system, but also applies to the broader terms of health and wellness. Nothing is more powerful than a patient that cares about their health and wellness. The only thing that comes close is a loved one who cares about that patient. It’s a powerful force and one that we haven’t leveraged enough in healthcare.

Sure. The big names in healthcare that make huge sums of money in high profile roles have an impact on the overall state of healthcare. However, even they aren’t stronger than an empowered patient.

About the author

John Lynn

John Lynn is the Founder of HealthcareScene.com, a network of leading Healthcare IT resources. The flagship blog, Healthcare IT Today, contains over 13,000 articles with over half of the articles written by John. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 20 million times.

John manages Healthcare IT Central, the leading career Health IT job board. He also organizes the first of its kind conference and community focused on healthcare marketing, Healthcare and IT Marketing Conference, and a healthcare IT conference, EXPO.health, focused on practical healthcare IT innovation. John is an advisor to multiple healthcare IT companies. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can be found on Twitter: @techguy.

3 Comments

  • Great message John. So often we think about influential as being the movers and the shakers within a particular field. When we do this with healthcare, we are forgetting about the patient and those who care for the patient. I feel we are getting so caught up in the best EHR, the best Portal, the best CIO, who comes up with whatever best app, that the one person who makes it all possible and deserves the most recognition, is the patient.

  • I beg to differ with you. Many injured worker patients are treated with disregard, disrespect and many are victims of criminal activity pitted against the injured worker. I am told that crimes against injured workers by medical provider’s, insurance carriers, attorney’s, employers have been going on for 20 plus years.
    CRIMES COMMITTED AGAINST INJURED WORKERS IN THE WORKERS COMP SYSTEM! I am an injured worker who has been deliberately maimed and battered by the medical provider(s) in the workers compensation insurance carrier’s “network of medical providers”. After filing a workers comp claim, injured workers seek treatment. Unfortunately, some injured workers are maimed and battered by the very medical provider(s) that they are sent to. Deliberate harm to a patient is called medical battery and is happening to injured workers. Some of the medical providers offices are “workers comp insurance mills”, wherein most of their patients are injured workers. In order for the Doctors to keep their place in the network, they must comply with the insurance carriers and/or employers “needs” so to speak. I was forced under anesthesia for simple lumbar epidurals.
    At the 2nd epidural procedure, after objecting to anesthesia, I was told I had no choice, that it was the policy of the surgery center that all patients must undergo anesthesia. I awakened from that with severe neck pain and slight left arm pain. My Doctor had injected my neck, left side of my spine, left leg with some sort of chemical that tingled and popped like Alka Seltzer. In fact, the tingling went from my lower left lumbar down my left leg all the way up my back and felt like a popping sensation in my head. I was there to receive a lumbar steroid epidural injection and “trigger point shots” in the left side lumbar area. The next epidural procedure, I made it clear I that I did not want to be placed under anesthesia not only on the phone (a day prior to the procedure) but also before the procedure in pre-op and I re-stated the same in the operating room for everyone to hear. I restated that I was to get a local pain blocker (just as I had during the first lumbar epidural). Instead, my Doctor abruptly shoved the needle into my back without any pain blocker whatsoever. I could feel the needle going through the textures of my back (not precisely or with care into the spinal area where the disk is). My head flew up as I screamed “Wait!” or “Stop!”. He would not relent! As my head hit the operating room table (where a towel and prop to lay my head was), he moved the needle inside me to the nerve in my back next to my spine and held it against the nerve! The pain was so excruciating that I bit into the towel that was for my head to rest on and screamed with the towel in my mouth. Pure agony! He would not stop! I had no choice once again but to give into anesthesia. When I awakened, I thought to myself, Oh my God, they didn’t! I had injuries now throughout my back, neck, shoulders and arm. I could feel the nerves firing all over my back and next to both sides of my spine from the injections of some sort of chemical (the Alka Seltzer feeling again) that over the coming months, burned and corroded the ligaments in my spine, tendons and muscles in my back. It felt as though I was being burned from the inside out. PAIN from burning, PAIN from damage and maiming! I can now and then could feel that some of the tissue/muscles were pushed away from my spine creating the feeling of divots or holes on both sides of my spine. I could feel what seemed to be a muscle pushed away and hanging down on to the right mid side of my person. The ligaments that are in my neck and run up into my skull feel damaged, sore. My spine felt “chiseled” in specific areas most prominently in the top of my back and neck and the bottom near the lumbar sacrum area. I now have instability in my spinal column. I can feel the vertebrae in my spinal column moving not in sync with the other vertebrae. There is much more damage that I could continue to describe but will refrain.
    In order to get treatment, I had to see the AME designated for my WC case. I demanded to see him. Efforts to delay that ensued. Eventually, I was able to see him on August 12, 2013, more than 2 months after the procedure described above after my insistent efforts to move the date up from what I was originally informed was the earliest available date of September 9, 2013. Incidentally, I contacted the AME’s office and spoke to the appointment desk myself, I was told that there were dates available in July and August however, the insurance carrier and MY attorney agreed that I wasn’t to see the AME any sooner than August 26, 2013. Odd? After seeing the AME on 2 occasions and describing to him and his historian what happened to me verbally and via color sketches and in written description, his report indicates, Yes, somehow my neck was damaged during the procedure(s) however, the pain, the holes etc, that I describe in my back and spine is “medically improbable”! Above, is just a little of the battery that has occurred.
    COOPERATION OF MEDICAL PROVIDERS: Not only was the Ortho Surgeon involved. It was also the surgery centers and the anesthesiologists and others that have been involved. After informing my then attorney via e-mail and several conversations, the attorney who runs the WC division in that law office, called me on the phone and asked me not to file a grievance with the California Medical Board and allow him and the AME to handle this! Then, later he called me again and told me to file for permanent disability right away! My attempts to get help through other means have been stalled. What has been done to me and the continued efforts to interfere as I try to seek treatment even outside of the WC system, has been a well-orchestrated effort on the part of more than just the medical providers. Through injured workers associations, I have come to find out that what has happened to me has happened to many other patients through the years but is being ignored due to the outrageous and maliciousness of the crime. To think that a field of medical professionals would participate in the maiming and battery of patients is something out of a movie, but it does exist! My medical records, surgery reports and other documents have been falsified as well. I was deceived when presented with anesthesia paperwork at the 3rd epidural, the top page was marked “local anesthesia” pain blocker, but the copies underneath were marked “monitored anesthesia”.
    HELP STOP MEDICAL BATTERY: Now, I’m trying to prevent what has happened to me from happening to others. 1. Please support a medical battery disclosure and law in all workers comp cases! Only a few states have a medical battery law or disclosures. I wish that I had been presented with a disclosure indicating something to the effect of: “Some injured workers have reported having been harmed, maimed or battered while receiving treatment for their injury. The injured worker is advised to educate themselves regarding the prescribed treatment and the results of said treatment.” 2. Please support a law that provides the option for an injured worker to require a patient advocate to be present (NOT AN ADVOCATE FROM THE INSURANCE CARRIER’S MEDICAL PROVIDER NETWORK) should the need for anesthesia arise. I wish I had known that I had the right to remain awake during the 2nd epidural. The third epidural wherein I was forced brutally to accept anesthesia, I don’t know what I could have done differently. I couldn’t scream loud enough that he (the Doctor) would stop pressing the needle against the nerve in my back! I couldn’t get off the table with the needle in my back either. My back is ruined. I have gone to law enforcement 5 times wanting to file a complaint against the Doctor, Anesthesiologist, surgery centers etc. I have contacted the FBI several times. The OC DAs response to the maiming and battery, falsified surgery reports, documents changed over and above my signature and much more was “Unfortunately, your case is not unique”.
    I attend Saddleback Church occasionally and have spoken to the Pastor of the Day and the Pastor who handles conflict within the church. The Pastor of the day was surprised to hear that my case is still in denial but I have had treatment 3 epidurals. I said “Exactly!” Clearly a fraud on the part of the defense has occurred by “creating the look of a condition(s).” Since my 3rd epidural, the AME’s has said that I now have Degenerative Disk Disease! I didn’t have it before the 3rd epidural or the 2nd epidural! I had demanded to see the AME because I had been forced under anesthesia, maimed and battered! The AME knew this so out of concern for himself, he had his “office manager” present during the 2 office visits after the 3rd epidural! I brought a family member with me to act as my “patient advocate”, the Doctor objected and said that he would not proceed with the office visit unless my family member / patient advocate left. The partner in the law firm that represented me back then (September 2013) told me to file for permanent disability right away. So, he must know what they have done to me. I recently e-mailed him to find out if he reported the wrongdoing in my case. He very formally said that he wasn’t present during my epidurals so he didn’t have to report the maiming and battery! I have tried to get help outside of WC. I have been met with bizarre situations and the Doctors through Medi-cal “doctoring” my medical record. I am amazed at the power that the insurance carrier and the attorneys have over medical staff. But I’ve been told that this has been going on for years. If you are an injured worker over 40 with a back injury, you (as I am) may be a target of maiming and battery to create the look of a condition, so that later the case can be litigated and the “condition” can be added and considered as apportionment. I would rather that there not be the tool of WC. I certainly wouldn’t be as bad off as I am now physically! Corrupt attorneys, Doctors, medical staff, surgery centers, and insurance carriers abound in the WC system.

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