A Call to Action

The CEO of Pfizer takes you to the front lines of the worldwide battle against epidemics

Whether it's AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa, or SARS in China, the effects of epidemics are rarely limited to their countries of origin. In today's global village, no society or national economy is spared the devastation these epidemics wreak. For the most part, the management of global health crises has been left in the hands of elected officials and non-governmental organizations such as the United Nations. But, as Pfizer chairman Henry A. McKinnell clearly demonstrates in this learned and controversial book, a problem of such magnitude is simply beyond the scope of politicians and underfunded nonprofits.

A Call to Action reframes the health care debate, arguing that the focus should be on the benefits of wellness to society; a more productive society leads to a more robust economy, increasing the quality of life for communities and the companies that serve them. The book also provides a sobering assessment of the threat of global disease epidemics and offers a prescription for what business leaders--who, the author believes, are best equipped to address the problem--can and must do to contain it.

Writing from his experience as a 32-year veteran of the war against disease, McKinnell:

• Assesses the impact epidemics have on political, social, economic, and business environments
• Describes successful initiatives at Pfizer to stem the tide of disease
• Tells business leaders why making a commitment to fighting global disease epidemics a core corporate value is morally and ethically correct, and good for business

Groundbreaking and provocative, A Call to Action reframes the dialogue on healthcare and offers people a way out of the zero-sum, win-or-lose game they now encounter. Distilling more than 30 years of experience in global healthcare, McKinnell provides concrete action steps to build cost-effective, inclusive healthcare that he believes can extend millions of lives and save billions of dollars over the next generation. He addresses:

• A new, prevention-based approach to employee healthcare
• Why pharmaceutical companies have lost trust, and what they must do to regain it
• Why Americans pay more for prescription drugs than people in Canada and Europe
• How competition can spur the healthcare industry to improve services and contain prices
• How new technologies can reduce medical errors and improve the dialogues between patient and doctor
• How we might lose the race between the world’s most insidious virus and the world’s best researchers
• How we can take more responsibility for our health

McKinnell also assesses the global challenge of infectious disease, particularly the pandemic of HIV. He demonstrates why this pandemic –the worst in human history –is beyond the scope of governments acting alone —and how, even in the face of devastating global catastrophes, public-private partnerships can deliver real hope.

The healthcare crisis can be brought under control. Sick-care systems can be changed to put patiens over payers. In this book, McKinnell offers a compelling case for change, and a plan of action to make healthcare systems work for us and our children.

"Is our healthcare system really in crisis?" <P>That's a question Hank McKinnell, one of the world's most influential coporate leaders, encounters every day. His answer may surprise you. While McKinnell agrees that there is a crisis, he doesn't think the problem is with "healthcare"--rather, he asserts the crisis is in "sick-care."<P>Healthcare systems around the world, McKinnell argues, are focused on sickness and its management rather than health. As a result, dialogue about how to sustain health now takes a back seat to arguments about cost--containing it, avoiding it, or shifting it to someone else. The result? A near-universal belief that healthcare is becoming unaffordable, fragmented, and impersonal. "Focusing only on the cost of care is looking at the healthcare problem though the worong end of the telescope," says McKinnell, the chairman and CEO of Pfizer. "The real focus should be on the horrific cost of disease." In America, the "sick-care" system delivers the world's most sophisticated procedures, while skimping on vaccines, hampering the fight against AIDS, and intruding into one of life's most personal relationships - doctor and patient.