Dear Friend,

Much of the national conversation on healthcare focuses on payment for medical care. While that is a critically important consideration, it is not enough. We also need a focus on creating health.

Earlier this year I had the honor of hosting an event that broadened the discussion on healthcare to address the rising costs of our current system and the need for its reinvention and transformation.

My team and I helped organize a Learning Session as part of my role in managing the health portfolio of the Samueli Foundation.

For more than two decades, Susan and Henry Samueli have been champions of evidence-based integrative health. Through the Samueli Foundation, they have supported its scientific exploration—applying academic rigor to research on healing, well-being, and resilience. Their latest gift to the University of California, Irvine, to create a new College of Health Sciences is their latest example of that commitment. Its vision is to become a national model for healthcare education and delivery by advancing integrative health approaches across the health sciences disciplines of medicine, nursing, pharmacy, and population health.

This learning event helped guide discussions on what philanthropists and the giving community can do to enhance health and wellbeing in our nation and beyond.

Called Saving the Nation from Healthcare: How Integrative Health and Whole Systems Approaches Can Improve Outcomes, Lower Costs and Foster Health Equity, the two-day event in Southern California gathered leading experts in healthcare from the across the country.

Experts included economists, clinicians, researchers, insurers, employers, community leaders, and representatives of our federal government and military medical systems.

Watch this short recap video to see why the experts and I are optimistic about current opportunities and the coming changes.

PLAY VIDEO

Together we see a potential to expand our current healthcare system to include not just disease treatment and injury repair but to also include disease prevention, health promotion, health equity, and fostering well-being for all. We hope you enjoy the video.

Be well.