Featured Speaker Liz Helms, President & CEO of the California Chronic Care Coalition, on New Voices of Change Podcast Episode
January 8, 2021
January 8, 2021
Get the Medications Right Institute’s Voices of Change Podcast features leaders who have knowledge, experience and ideas to solve the urgent need to getting the medications right.
With rising costs and added barriers for both patients and the healthcare system, patient advocates are pushing for transformative medication use reforms such as the implementation of comprehensive medication management. Comprehensive Medication Management, or CMM, is the assessment of a patient’s medications to determine safety, efficacy, and suitability for their treatment plan. A recent report uncovered an estimated $528 billion in waste from non-optimized medication therapy. In addition to the considerable financial cost, patients are suffering unnecessary and sometimes dangerous adverse outcomes including non-adherence and drug interactions.
Hosted by Katherine Capps, Co-Founder and Executive Director of the Get the Medications Right Institute, California Chronic Care Coalition’s President & CEO Liz Helms illuminates the concept of CMM and its importance for the patient. She offers a vital patient perspective to the process of CMM and recounts stories of the consequences of non-optimized therapy. Liz explains how CMM could improve patient comprehension, increase likelihood of adherence, and lower costs for the individual and the system. Further, she describes how patients can become empowered advocates that are aware of this practice and its utility.
“Patients are the biggest stakeholders. Because their lives are on the line, they have the most to lose and gain.” Liz Helms, Blueprint for Change
President & CEO, California Chronic Care Coalition
Liz Helms has been a leader within the patient’s rights movement since the mid- 1990s. Her vision, breadth of knowledge and unwavering commitment to coalition building, grassroots advocacy, strategic planning, and policy development has earned her immense recognition and respect throughout California and nationally. Liz was instrumental in bringing the clinical pharmacist on the care team through the Right Care Initiative which won her the Michelotti Public Health Prize from the CA Pharmacy Foundation. She is also the founding director of the Chronic Care Policy Alliance, a network of state and regional advocacy organizations advancing public policy that improves the lives of those living with chronic conditions and diseases and the author of Healthcare Unhinged: The Making of an Advocate. As an executive member of GTMRx, Liz is very involved in the Institute’s work, and recently contributed to the Blueprint for Change – A Guide for Medication Management Reform.
About the Get the Medications Right Institute (GTRMx)
The GTMRx Institute is a catalyst for change that brings critical stakeholders together, bound by the urgent need to get the medications right. We are physicians, pharmacists, nurses, patients, health IT innovators, drug and diagnostics companies, consumer groups, employers, payers—aligned to save lives and save money through comprehensive medication management. By showcasing evidence and innovation, we motivate practice transformation and push payment and policy reform. Together, we ACT to champion appropriate, effective, safe and precise use of medication and gene therapies. Learn more at gtmr.org.
About the California Chronic Care Coalition
The California Chronic Care Coalition (CCCC) is a unique alliance of more than 40 leading consumer health organizations and provider groups that promote the collaborative work of policy makers, industry leaders, providers, and consumers to improve the health of Californians with chronic conditions. We envision a system of care that is accessible, affordable, and of a high-quality that emphasizes prevention, coordinated care, and the patient’s wellness and longevity. You can find us at californiachroniccare.org, @CAChronicCare, and info@chroniccareca.org.