Friedell Committee for Health System Transformation

Friedell Committee for Health System Transformation

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Welcome to The Friedell Committee for Health System Transformation

The Friedell Committee for Health System Transformation is a grassroots, citizen-based organization whose mission is to improve the health of Kentuckians by promoting an effective, values-based health system, advocating for community action, and measuring the system's performance.

For a downloadable PDF file detailing our mission, objectives, accomplishments, and membership, please click here.

Kentuckians Uniting for Healthy Communities

Photo courtesy of the American Cancer Society's Hope Lodge in Lexington, KY, and Shaun Ring, photographer

Executive Director

Welcome Executive Director

The Board of Directors of the Friedell Committee has selected Richard Heine, Ph.D. to serve as the Executive Director of the Friedell Committee.

The Friedell Committee for Health System Transformation is a grassroots, citizen-based, non-profit, non-partisan organization whose mission is to improve the health of Kentuckians by promoting an effective, values-based health system, advocating for community action, and measuring the system's performance. The committee is a statewide organization based in Lexington.

“Dr. Heine is an excellent choice to lead the committee,” said Dr. Gil Friedell, president of the board. “He has a long-term commitment to the organization and brings a vast array of experience in health policy to this position.”

As one of the original committee members, Dr. Heine has served on the board of directors for several years including the role as treasurer of the organization.

“We know that Kentucky has some major challenges in health and health care,” said Dr. Heine. “Our objective is to identify actions which citizens can take that will improve both their personal health and the health of the community. Specifically we are currently focused on public health and chronic disease and strategies to bring about coordinated care.”

Dr. Heine retired from state government after 30 years of service in planning, programming, policy analysis, information systems and evaluation of human service programs. His positions included Director, Division for Quality Improvement, Department for Medicaid Services, and Research Psychologist, Kentucky Cabinet for Human Resources, Department for Mental Health and Mental Retardation Services, Division of Mental Health.

He is married to Cindy Heine, who is the Interim Executive Director of the Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence. They have a son and daughter and three grandchildren.

Gilbert H. Friedell, M.D., is Director Emeritus of the Markey Cancer Center, Professor of Pathology Emeritus, and Professor of Behavioral Science at UK in Lexington. He has been a member of the Advisory Committee of the UK College of Social Work since 2005.

Dr. Friedell was the first Director of the Markey Cancer Center in 1983, the founding director of the Kentucky Cancer Registry, the Principal Investigator of the NCI Mid-South Cancer Information Service, and Co-Director of an expanded statewide cancer control outreach program. In 1990, he stepped down as Director of the Cancer Center to become Director for Cancer Control. He co-founded Kentucky Homeplace, a lay health worker program funded by the General Assembly to facilitate access to healthcare services for the underserved in rural counties across the state.

Among his honors is a Special Recognition Award from the Appalachian Regional Commission in 2003 for “untiring commitment, dedication and leadership in improving the health and well-being of the people of Appalachia.”

120 Counties Project

The Friedell Committee for Health System Transformation needs your help. We want to identify successful examples of community solutions to community issues/problem/needs. Do you know of a model “health system transformation” that reflects an improvement at the community level and that reflects a change in keeping with the Friedell Committee’s Ten Principles? Our goal is to identify 120 examples: one in each county of Kentucky.
Help us get started by filling out our downloadable questionnaire and returning it to Director@FriedellCommittee.org, or by mail to P.O. Box 910953, Lexington, KY 40591.

From the Lexington Herald-Leader, 6-14-10, "Health reform is just beginning," by Tom Eblen:

Just thinking about America's health care and insurance system can make your head hurt.

Our system costs too much, doesn't work well enough and leaves too many people out. The new reform law includes more people, but it doesn't do enough to improve care or rein in costs. It was little more than a first step in what is sure to be a long journey toward making health care more effective and affordable.

What should the next steps be? That is what the Friedell Committee for Health System Transformation is trying to help Kentuckians figure out.

The committee is named for and headed by Dr. Gilbert Friedell, director emeritus of the University of Kentucky's Markey Cancer Center. It hopes to do for health care reform in Kentucky what the Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence did for education reform: engage Kentuckians, not just experts, in finding better ways to do things.

To see more about the Friedell Committee in the news, click on the "Media" link above.

HAI Material Available

A 2005 report from the Center for Disease Control (CDC) noted that HAI alone afflicts nearly 2 million patients and kills approximately 90,000 people annually. This is more than diabetes or influenza/pneumonia. In addition, because the average hospital stay for HAI patients is extended between 7.4 and 9.4 days, approximately $40,000 is added to the cost of these patients, and the overall cost is estimated to be between $4.5 billion and $7.4 billion per year. For more on this topic, click here.

From The Lexington Herald-Leader, August 30, 2010:

Have you have tried telling a story about your latest frustration as an airline customer? Lost luggage. A long delay on the ground. A meal that consisted of five peanuts The indignity of a search.

No matter the topic, after you finish be prepared to get a horror story back from your listener. Everybody has had a bad day at the airport.

The same thing happens if you tell a story about getting an infection at the hospital. We all know someone who went in for a minor procedure expected to require a day or two in the hospital and instead required a week or longer because of a "hospital acquired infection" or HAI.

The difference is that while a lost-luggage story is about inconvenience, the other is about a life-threatening event.

What's more, HAIs are common enough in all health-care settings, not just hospitals, to warrant a name change. They are now recognized by the Centers for Disease Control as "health care associated infections." The name change may seem innocuous, or perhaps a bit defensive on the part of hospitals sensitive to public relations. But on a deeper level, it's disturbing that rather than defeat the infection threat, we've renamed it to capture its expanding footprint.

The Friedell Committee

P.O. Box 910953

Lexington, KY 40591

Director@FriedellCommittee.org