We found that people who were passive tended to get shunted toward second-class care or didn t get the treatment that experts recommend. Those who were assertive, even aggressive, in finding out about the best treatments, generally received the best care.
Patients have to become their own advocates.
For many, good information on health care is a life or death issue. Medicine s best kept secret is the quality gap. While it has pioneered quality improvements such as mass screening for colon cancer and team care for HIV patients and diabetics Kaiser is at a crossroads, struggling to survive tough competition. It also examines two programs trying to provide a partial safety net. Medicine s Secret Killer examines the large gap between best practice and the care most people get and what is being done to reduce the more than 90,000 deaths caused each year by medical errors.