Synopses & Reviews
This is the saga of how a few hundred ordinary citizens from Seattle-area granges, labor unions, and consumer cooperatives joined with a group of idealistic physicians and nurses to transform the American system of healthcare. On January 1, 1947, Group Health Cooperative of Puget Sound began a new kind of health service. Consumers paid flat monthly dues for comprehensive care. Members elected the board of trustees and bought bonds to fund new facilities. Doctors and nurses devoted as much energy to promoting wellness as they did to treating illness.
Group Health Cooperative physicians and nurses pioneered preventive health services and made "family practice" a respected medical specialty. Innovative researchers laid the scientific foundation for scores of new procedures and therapies. Trustees and administrators devised new ways to make duality healthcare more affordable and efficient. Today, Group Health Cooperative ranks as America's largest-consumer-controlled healthcare system, and one of the nation's largest health maintenance organizations. And Group Health is considered an important model for comprehensive healthcare reform.
Synopsis
Prepaid care, group practice, preventive medicine, consumer control, health maintenance...
Half a century ago, these were daring, even dangerous ideas. But the founders of Group Health Cooperative of Puget Sound believed that such concepts offered a democratic prescription for a new, more accessible, and more effective kind of healthcare. So, a few hundred workers, farmers, and members of consumer cooperatives united with a handful of visionary doctors and nurses in a common cause "to serve the greatest possible number."
From a tiny downtown clinic and an aging hospital in Seattle, these pioneers built up a billion-dollar healthcare system that now cares for more than 650,000 people. Group Health's members and staff had to overcome determined opponents and competitors at every step, and they agonized over how best to achieve their dreams without compromising their principles.
To Serve the Greatest Number is the biography of a unique democratic institution and a community of courageous men and women who set out to change the face of American healthcare and succeeded.
Description
Includes bibliographical references (p. 260-280) and index.