By----Terri Bernacchi, PharmD, MBA, Health Advisory Professionals
It’s my birthday tomorrow (10/11), and I’m 54 years old!! It seems like only yesterday when I had my first really “hard” birthday (when I turned 30) and the thought of ever hitting 50 was absolutely terrifying. But as I mark this small milestone and look at what lies behind me, I find myself just being thankful. I am healthy and in a good place, in general, in this tumultuous time. While I don’t know what lies ahead, I see so much opportunity and so much talent around me that it is hard to stay pessimistic for long.
Particularly in the business of health care, there is SO much promise. For the last five decades, the strides made in US health care has made us live better and longer, and our expectations for progress have created a societal willingness to push ahead against the forces of “status quo”.
I have been in health care since I was about 16 years old, starting as a clerk in a pharmacy and doing various other things along the way: a housekeeper and then a nursing assistant in a skilled nursing home, a pharmacy intern and then a hospital pharmacist for almost nine years, a professional sales representative in a varied hospital, trade, government and managed care territory for the manufacturer that launched Cipro, a hospital administrator in charge of “physician relations” providing support to vital medical practices, the director of pharmacy for a large Midwest Blues Plan, and the founder of a company that worked in the environment of drug and medical data processing and validation. My company was acquired a few years ago and I remain with the company that acquired it.
I’ve seen a lot of things from a lot of vantage points, up and down the food chain that is the complex ecosystem of US health care. Regardless of one's political perspective or the depth of one's understanding of economics, few could argue that we are sitting on the precipice of a financially disastrous future as we try to “fix” challenges in health care. Even without the mistake that is “Obamacare”, we were headed for the catastrophic collision of an aging populace with limitless demand but a lack of enthusiasm to understand or deal with the actual cost burden of our choices.
This blog is dedicated to the future of US health care and our hopeful return to the values that brought us here: quality patient care, personal compassion, and abundant but personal choices. My colleagues and I will discuss today’s issues, whether they center on the Patient, the Payer, the professional Provider, Pharma or Device Manufacturers, the Government, or the Technology that drives and connects them. I can’t promise that we will steer clear of opinions that raise your eyebrows (or your blood pressure) but the views contained here are not those of our employers. We certainly don’t agree with each other frequently, but always our dialogue bears fruit and the listening to the other guy helps us better understand ourselves and the patients and clients we support.
Hopefully, by the time I turn 94, we will have learned a lot from each other!
Terri currently works for a large health sciences firm serving payers, pharmaceutical and device manufacturers and other stakeholders in health care as a Senior Principal in Managed Markets. The thoughts put forth on these postings are not necessarily reflective of the views of her employer nor other Health Thought Leader colleagues. Terri has had a varied career in health related settings including: 9 years in a clinical hospital pharmacy setting, 3 years as a pharmaceutical sales rep serving government, wholesaler, managed markets and traditional physician sales, 3 years working for the executive team of an integrated health system working with physician practices, 4 years as the director of pharmacy for a large BCBS plan, 12 years experience as founder and primary servant of a health technology company which was sold to her current employer three years ago. She has both a BS and a PharmD in Pharmacy and an MBA.
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