This site is designed to inform and bring about health care change. It is an interactive site in that we want you to participate in collecting data that demonstrates the inequalities in health care and how we can change the system and the people within it so that everyone receives equal care and support everywhere.

We live in an extraordinary era. We have the knowledge and skills to end poverty, most violence, and war. We have the knowledge and skills to provide excellent health care, education and social and community supports so that our children and grandchildren, our parents and our friends can all reach their potential and receive excellent health care.

Health care is the easiest system to change. We know what to do. There is no doubt. We must meet the needs of patients and their families at the time of birth to their natural end. We have lost our way. We have concentrated on creating systems of care that meet the needs of the providers and funders but not enough care to meet the needs of patients. We have history to show us how to make the changes. Local changes in the health care systems are easiest. The better care is locally the greater chance that this model of care becomes a reality nationally and globally.

Every time we see a patient receiving poor or negligent care, we are a witness to an injustice. As June Callwood said, “once you witness an injustice, you are no longer an observer but a participant.” Together we can change the health care system so that no one lives or dies poorly. It is inevitable that these changes will occur. The only question is how long will it take us to make the necessary changes we know are needed?

This web site will look at health care in general with special emphasis on hospice palliative care. Why? The hospice palliative care movement has the best health care model of any speciality in health care today, save perhaps home maternity care and small localized programs in community health. These models have at their core a belief in providing physical, emotional, spiritual and information care and supports to patients and families. They combine the best of modern health care with the tradition of patient-centered, home-based (when possible) systems of community and family care.

We have failed to meet the needs of all patients. We have not created the political and social will to ensure that all people receive the care they need equitably. We have not done enough. We know how to make the changes. We need the will and research data to support that will. This website collects some of that data to help those who want to make the changes.

We will have a special emphasis on pain and symptom management. This is an area where we know everything we need to know to ensure that no one experiences unbearable pain or suffering -- no one! We choose this as well because it is so easy to record how well we do in improving pain and symptom control. Once we have worked out the systemic and individual changes needed to provide excellent  pain and symptom management, we will have a current and practical example of how to make further changes for more equitable health care for everyone.

Our hope? That the inevitable ending of unbearable pain and suffering occurs quickly. There is really no excuse that it has taken so long when we have all the knowledge and skills right now to make the difference. The site, we hope, will give individuals, organizations and the media a place to come to for information to support their efforts at improving equal care for everyone, everywhere.