The Need for Healthcare Experience Literacy

As an advocate and carepartner for over 20 years, I have seen things I can not unsee. I have experienced things I can not forget. I have heard things I can not unhear. I have come to understand all of my experiential learnings as reflection of a single, major omission in US healthcare. We don't teach anyone how to be a proactive member of the US healthcare system. I'm not just talking about patients or their carepartners. What about healthcare policy decision makers? How about those within pharma designing new medications? What about innovators creating new solutions to advance healthcare?  Shouldn't we all have the same foundation of knowledge to be members of our healthcare system? How are we preparing the next generation for healthcare?

Our pre-K through grade 12 public education is lacking severely in healthcare experience literacy. Literacy alone is not enough. Health literacy not enough. This is a call-to-action for healthcare experience literacy. Imagine the possibilities of ingraining the essentials of the healthcare system incrementally from early childhood through young adulthood! See my latest publication for more details: 

https://medium.com/savvy-cooperative/conquering-the-next-frontier-healthcare-experience-literacy-97eb5f0ffd8d