A Call to Action: Taking Back Healthcare for Future Generations by Henry A. McKinnell with John Kador
Henry McKinnell, former chairman and CEO of Pfizer, wanted a book about healthcare and the action steps he believed are necessary to put the healthcare systems of the world on a more solid footing. The result, published by McGraw-Hill in May 2005, is A Call to Action: Taking Back Healthcare for FutureGenerations. The recent debate on healthcare reform in the U.S. owes much to the progressive ideas advanced in this book. I was originally engaged as a ghostwriter, but in his generosity, Hank McKinnell allowed me cover credit.
Groundbreaking and provocative, A Call to Action reframes the dialogue on healthcare and offers people a way out of the zero-sum, win-or-lose game they now encounter. Distilling more than 30 years of experience in global healthcare, McKinnell provides concrete action steps to build cost-effective, inclusive healthcare that he believes can extend millions of lives and save billions of dollars over the next generation. He addresses:
A new, prevention-based approach to employee healthcare
Why pharmaceutical companies have lost trust, and what they must do to regain it
Why Americans pay more for prescription drugs than people in Canada and Europe
How competition can spur the healthcare industry to improve services and contain prices
How new technologies can reduce medical errors and improve the dialogues between patient and doctor
How we might lose the race between the world’s most insidious virus and the world’s best researchers
How we can take more responsibility for our health
McKinnell also assesses the global challenge of infectious disease, particularly the pandemic of HIV. He demonstrates why this pandemic–the worst in human history–is beyond the scope of governments acting alone—and how, even in the face of devastating global catastrophes, public-private partnerships can deliver real hope.
The healthcare crisis can be brought under control. Sick-care systems can be changed to put patients over payers. In this book, McKinnell offers a compelling case for change, and a plan of action to make healthcare systems work for us and our children.