… Health Care in America: The Experience of People with Serious Illness, a project of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, the New York Times, and the Commonwealth Fund, is examining the experiences of Americans with serious illness — the sickest of the sick — and those who help care for them. Our goal is to understand whether our health care system is doing all it can do not just to treat illness but to help people cope with illness. Where is the system failing to meet people’s needs? How is it adding to already heavy burdens? Can the most seriously ill Americans afford the care our health system delivers?
To help answer these and other questions, we surveyed nearly 1,500 Americans with serious illness and the friends or family members caring for them. We considered someone to have serious illness if, within the past three years, they had two or more hospital stays and visits with three or more doctors. Below we discuss what we found. We then point to opportunities to help ensure that American health care not only saves people but also supports them in their time of need. CONT.
Commonwealth Fund
