What is The Prepared Patient® Forum?

The Prepared Patient® Forum is an interactive website, created and maintained by the Center for Advancing Health, designed to help people find good health care and make the most of it. The Forum offers a place for people to read and share experiences about seeking health care; it provides links to trusted and helpful resources; and it publishes the latest news about research related to the decisions people must make about their health and their care.

Do you have questions about how to find the right doctor or trustworthy information about your diagnosis? About getting the most out of your doctor visits or organizing your mom's return home from the hospital? The Prepared Patient® Forum has answers. And our bloggers discuss the latest health news as it relates to what it takes to get good care and how to benefit from it.

We do not provide personal medical consultation. Questions about your unique medical condition symptoms or treatment plans are best answered by your personal physician.

Why was the Prepared Patient® Forum created?

Because most of us are mostly healthy most of the time, we have little experience with finding and using health care, a process that seems to be getting more complicated all the time. Although there have been amazing advances in treatments and technology that promise longer and healthier lives, many of these advances require us to take on additional responsibilities in order to benefit from them.

Think about it: innovations in surgical care mean that we return from the hospital quicker but sicker and have to follow drug, wound-treatment, dietary and rehabilitation recommendations at home — often on our own — if we are to heal optimally. Similarly, new drugs and devices make it possible for those of us with chronic conditions to live long and well, but only if we are able to manage the demands of often complex medications and change life-long habits. And increases in the number and kinds of physician specialties, care delivery sites, diagnostic tests and treatments mean that not only do we have to make more choices that have real consequences, but we often find that we have to coordinate our records, our tests and our treatments for ourselves and our loved ones.

Many of us are unprepared to take on these new responsibilities — sometimes because we didn't realize we have to, sometimes because doing so can be complicated, and sometimes because it feels too difficult because we are sick.

The Prepared Patient® Forum aims to address the challenges we face finding the best care we can and then making the best use of it.

Where does the Prepared Patient® Forum Information Come From?

Much of what appears on the Prepared Patient® Forum website has been developed and published by the Center for Advancing Health (CFAH) and our Health Behavior News Service.

CFAH was founded in 1992 with support from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the Nathan Cummings Foundation to ensure that we are all prepared to live healthy lives and make good choices about our health and health care.

We accept no advertising or corporate sponsorship.

For more information about CFAH, visit: www.cfah.org.

What do people like me do on the Prepared Patient® Forum site?

The Prepared Patient® Forum is a place where people interested in finding and using safe, decent care can learn, share, and develop skills that will help them benefit from health care available to them. We invite all comers to participate in this site, but imagine that it will be particularly interesting to people with two kinds of interests.

The first are those who are in the midst of finding and making use of health care for themselves, a family member or friend. This site contains information and resources to help you. The Forum is also a safe place for you to discuss your own experience as a patient or caregiver and to learn from the experiences of others.

The second need this site addresses is that of people are concerned with the growing burden for care that is placed on individuals and families and are working in various ways to lighten that burden. Some of us work through our own individual efforts as members of families and communities, we work as doctors and nurses, or we advocate for changes in the way that care is delivered and professionals are trained and compensated.

We have much to learn from one another.

How does the Prepared Patient® Forum make money?

The Prepared Patient® Forum is a member of the family of programs of the Center for Advancing Health (CFAH). CFAH was founded in 1992 with support from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the Nathan Cummings Foundation to ensure that we are all prepared to live healthy lives and make good choices about our health and health care.

We accept no advertising or corporate sponsorship. Today, CFAH receives financial support from philanthropic organizations — principally the Annenberg Foundation the W.K. Kellogg Foundation — and individuals.

For more information about CFAH, visit: www.cfah.org.

A list of our funders can be found here: http://www.cfah.org/about/funders.cfm.

To read more about our bloggers, columnist and science-writers, click here.