“Not your father’s CMS”

I just returned from my first HICPAC meeting….and no, I won’t risk being thrown off the committee for discussing all of our deliberations on this blog (at least right now I won’t). However, I did want to point out a fun moment from a presentation by John O’Brien from CMS. John gave an update on the CMS Partnership for Patients, which we blogged about earlier.

The PFP is still nascent, and we’ll see how much of an impact it has on the ground. But the presentations by Joe McCannon at SHEA and this one from John O’Brien were both encouraging, and almost certainly reflect the impact that Don Berwick has had on the culture there. The photo above was taken at the break after John’s lecture. As you can see, there is a painting on the back of his suit jacket, depicting patient safety themes. During his talk he briefly discussed this “walking art”, and how it helps start conversations in airports, at conferences, etc. The painting is the work of Regina Holliday, a Washington DC-based patient rights arts advocate. The full story and explanation of the images on the jacket can be found on her blog, here.