Dr. Paul Grundy often leads with this question when he keynotes major international medical conferences.
“In every society, who would you say holds a high position of trust?
“It’s several people,” he begins. “It’s family. It’s somebody who could give you guidance on what happens to you in your afterlife. It’s somebody who you turn to when the chips are down. We all know instinctively that we are going to get sick; we all know we are going to die. We try to deny that, but we know it.
“There arises the power of that person in that position in society, the traditional healers, Trusted Healers. In every culture on earth, the healer and the preacher are held in highest esteem,” Paul says.
You may not know of Dr. Paul Grundy, the world’s most powerful advocate for the Trusted Healers and godfather of the medical home concept. In 2018, he retired as IBM’s global director of healthcare transformation.
Paul set his IBM mantle aside, but his work advocating for global healthcare reform remains robust as has his legacy.
The global societal sea change quietly happening over the last decade continues to be been instigated by Paul. The primary care medical home crusade led by Paul and IBM, glimmering subversively for years, has found its time thanks to the continuous devotion and credibility of this fascinating physician and to the believers who listened and affected change.
John F. Kennedy asked individuals to step up; Ronald Reagan admonished communists to join the free world; Winston Churchill vowed never to surrender. We are reminded of these most powerful anthems of change and invoke another to precipitate a healthcare revolution.
“I have a dream…”
“Ask not…”
“Tear down…”
“We shall fight on the beaches . . .”
We inject two more words that can transform society:
“Trusted Healers.”
Sounding the Trusted Healers mantra has been Dr. Paul Grundy. His crusade to transform healthcare has awakened millions of people to the vital importance of having a familiar physician.
Paul’s aspiration, his vision, calls for every citizen to have a Trusted Healer and a medical home.
In the world of providing medical care, everyone matters. Paul inspires nations toward this philosophy and understands the discipline it takes to affect change over time. Affecting change is both an immediate and long-term goal.
We will share much more about the medical home in the pages that follow, a delivery model that ensures that we receive the necessary care when and where we need it, in a manner we can understand, by a Trusted Healer and care team that invests the time in getting to know us.
One day we all will be getting better healthcare because of this brilliant Quaker physician who has made global impact in helping improve patient care around the world. His crusade may be peaking at just the right time.
Paul envisioned a world where your Trusted Healer, a physician who knows you or has been your personal caregiver for years, stands by your side—physically, virtually, emotionally, and spiritually. The relationship between the caregiver and the patient becomes very personal.
For more than a decade, I had the honor to work with Paul as he championed the Trusted Healer and the medical home, a twenty-first century model of how primary care can create great healthcare that empowers the relationship of a doctor and a patient. This quirky, genius, fearless, rumpled, visionary doctor served on my elite team for over a decade at IBM. I was so taken with Paul’s work and medical care vision that I decided to assist Paul in carrying it forward after we both left the company.
For me, the concept of personal healthcare seemed so simple on its face, but it is so antithetical to how modern medicine has evolved. Paul’s inspiration is very much a back-to-basics approach but with a modern-world application.
Under Paul’s vision, your Trusted Healer glances at your chart and knows all about you, asks about your family, helps you make good medical decisions, creates a medical partnership based solely on your needs, and how you want to lead your life. The relationship with your healer is intimate. Your healer serves your interests—not an insurance company or hospital. Your doctor’s success is yours as well. It can be easily proven that better medical decisions result from such a powerful relationship.
Trusted Healers does not offer a view of a single solution, or point of view on what to do about our broken US healthcare system. We all know the temper of our times is strident and divisive. We have been pitted against each other and our institutions. Medicine, especially primary care, is treated as a commodity.
Doctors are often reduced to mechanics, meeting a patient-load quota. Insurance companies decide levels of care, or as Patrick J. Kennedy so rightly points out, no care at all. Paul, IBM and scores of conscientious providers around the world, strive to re-instill patient trust into medical care. A lot of people around the world are pulling for us.
Anne Altman and Dan Pelino, both retired top executives at IBM, Co-Founders of Everyone Matters.
