DECEMBER 2011


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Care Jam 2011 Launches Community-based Health Initiative


By David Lillard Care Jam 2011, a community


forum on local healthcare reform, takes place December 15 at the Op- era House in Shepherdstown. Jefferson County physician


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Dave Didden has been practic- ing medicine for more than a de- cade, long enough to see what’s working in modern medicine as well as where the opportunities for improvements lie. One of the biggest holes in the system, according to Didden: In an age of miracle drugs and cutting- edge treatments and proce- dures, most people still don’t feel empowered to take charge of their own health. This obser- vation is all the more startling in a time when the internet provides almost limitless ac- cess to information. At the heart of the problem,


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says Didden, is the way health- care is “delivered” today, a top-down approach in which harried doctors are given lit- tle time—and no incentive—to communicate with patients as persons. That’s because most approaches to managing the escalating costs of healthcare in the United States focus on medical efficiency, rather than on improving the health of people in the community. The price of those marginal cost- containment measures is often the loss of the doctor-patient relationship. “When you try to manage


that relationship with efficien- cy, and try to apply a factory model to care delivery,” said Didden, “you’re completely missing the nature of the re- lationship. And you’re forcing people to behave in ways that are unnatural.” Didden has a two-part solu- tion-oriented idea to address the challenge. The first part is to create a neighbor-to- neighbor network within one community, Shepherdstown. The second part is to retool his medical practice into more of


an education center, “a place that offers more access to in- formation, more time to listen, more education, more explana- tions about concepts like risk versus benefit,” said Didden. “We need the opportunity to explain things that don’t often get explained in a traditional clinical setting.” Didden stresses the “edu-


cational doc’s office is not a replacement for diagnostic or therapeutic interventions that are needed. “There’s a lot of good that gets done in hospi- tals and doctors’ offices and nurse practitioners’ offices,” he said. But by empowering peo- ple with information, Didden thinks we can reduce the cost of healthcare by cutting down on unnecessary access to the system—while also improving overall community health. That’s where the idea of a neighbor-to-neighbor network comes in, and the impetus for Care Jam 2011, a community fo- rum on local healthcare reform. The event is scheduled for De-


cember 15 at the Opera House in Shepherdstown, 6–9pm. The evening is free and open to the public; donations to the East- ern Panhandle Free Clinic will be accepted. The event will include


healthy foods and acoustic mu- sic by local musicians Sam Jan- notta, Lisa Lafferty, and Steve Cifala, followed by a dialogue facilitated by Didden. It is billed as more of a house party than a forum—just the way Didden in- tends it. “I just want everyone to have a conversation, to hear from one another about what their needs are,” said Didden. What does Didden hope will


come of the conversation? “We have so much talent in this re- gion. It’s amazing the number of people with healing wisdom, the number of people who are in caring roles,” he said. “Not just in their families, but in their work, in the community and in how they interact with people. It’s phenomenal. We have the resources to be able to come together and start some-


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