Jessie Gruman is president and founder of the Center for Advancing Health, a nonpartisan, Washington-based policy institute which, since 1992, has been supported by foundations and individuals to work on people’s engagement in their health care from the patient perspective. Dr. Gruman draws on her own experience of treatment for four cancer diagnoses, interviews with patients and caregivers surveys and peer-reviewed research as the basis of her work to describe and advocate for policies and practices to overcome the challenges people face in finding good care and getting the most from it.
Dr. Gruman has worked on this same set of concerns in the private sector (AT&T), the public sector (National Cancer Institute) and the voluntary health sector (American Cancer Society). She holds a B.A. from Vassar College and a Ph.D. in Social Psychology from Columbia University and is a Professorial Lecturer in the School of Public Health and Health Services at The George Washington University. She currently serves on the boards of the Center for Medical Technology Policy, VillageCare in New York City and the Sallan Foundation.
Dr. Gruman has received honorary doctorates from Brown University, Carnegie Mellon University, Clark University, Georgetown University, New York University, Northeastern University, Salve Regina University, Syracuse University and Tulane University, and the Presidential Medal of The George Washington University. She was honored by Research!America for her leadership in advocacy for health research, is a fellow of the Society for Behavioral Medicine and the New York Academy of Medicine and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Council on Foreign Relations.
Dr. Gruman is the author of AfterShock: What to Do When the Doctor Gives You – or Someone You Love – a Devastating Diagnosis (Walker Publishing, second edition, 2010); The Experience of the American Patient: Risk, Trust and Choice (Health Behavior Media, 2009);Behavior Matters (Health Behavior Media, 2008) as well as scientific papers and opinion essays and articles. She blogs regularly on the Prepared Patient Blog and tweets daily @jessiegruman.
How Easily We Can Misinterpret the Benefits of Patient-Centered Innovation!
May 8, 2013
Here's the bad news: We will not benefit from the health care services, drugs, tests and procedures available to us unless we pay attention, learn about our choices, interact with our clinicians and follow through on the plans we make together.
The "True Grit"-tiness of Sharing Health Care Decisions with Our Doctors
May 1, 2013
In the Coen brothers remake of the 1969 movie True Grit, Mattie Ross, an intrepid 14-year-old, is determined to hunt down and kill the man who murdered her father. To accomplish this, she hires U.S. Marshal Rooster Cogburn, (played by a mumbling Jeff Bridges) a rough, one-eyed veteran of many such quests then announces that she plans to come along. She figures she is prepared.
Bad Language: Words One Patient Won't Use (and Hopes You Won't Either)
April 24, 2013
When I read Trudy Lieberman’s post yesterday, I was reminded that the highly charged political debates about reforming American health care have provided tempting opportunities to rename the people who receive health services. But because the impetus for this change has been prompted by cost and quality concerns of health care payers, researchers and policy experts rather than emanating from us out of our own needs, some odd words have been called into service.
Whose Patient Engagement Goals Are We Talking About?
April 17, 2013
What we look for when we participate actively in our health care differs from what our clinicians, employers and health plans believe will result when we shift from being passive to active participants. We don't have the same goals in mind. Does this matter?
Has Patient Engagement Stalled?
April 10, 2013
A few discouraging reports on patient engagement have skittered across my desk in the past few weeks. What's going on? Why are so many of us so slow to engage in our care when it is increasingly clear that we will do better if we participate more fully? Here's what I suspect...
