Our reasons for gathering

• To explore alternative scenarios for health and health care futures in the U.S. in 2032 with participants bringing diverse perspectives.

• To share a vision that represents the aspirations guiding the symposium.

• To agree on a small number of high value opportunities that participants can recommend to the nation based on the exploration of alternative futures. (Although the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation is hosting this symposium, the opportunities developed during the symposium are not directed toward RWJF. Rather, they are directed toward the nation in general.)

• To identify specific actions, programs, and organizations aligned with the high value opportunities for improving the nation’s health and health care.

Focus

• We expand the discussions to address health as well as health care. Though health care at its best fully supports health, we need to understand how and where health is distinct from health care. 

• We seek multiple perspectives informed by the different knowledge bases of nurses, doctors, social scientists, biomedical scientists, spiritual healers, policy makers and business people. 

• The nation most needs confidence that there is a way forward for health and health care. The integrated view of health and health care explored at the meeting will speak to the future as well as what we need to do today.

• Personal objectives in the room (described in the participants’ survey) align with the objectives set for the Symposium: Money and economic limits are viewed as the principal drivers for health care. For health, the key driver appears to be behavior for many people, particularly as it relates to chronic disease, obesity and life expectancy. Other drivers identified are systems biology and other new knowledge that will become embedded in technology systems to support health.

Rules

• Learn from the scenarios and from each other

• Use active listening

• Chatham House rule: all statements are confidential unless participants give permission to be quoted

• Cell phone ringers off except during breaks 

• Participate as individuals rather than representatives of organizations

Four Scenarios

1. Slow Reform, Better Health
2. Health If You Can Get It
3. Big Data, Big Health Gains
4. The New Ethics of Health

We will hear stories about the future that will help us with vision and aspirations so we can chart a course to the future.

We need to be in a future mind-set for the task ahead: Identifying opportunities in the context of these alternative futures.


Seven Timeline Keys

We will explore seven types of events that are the timeline “keys”:

• Laws / Policy / Regulations / Governance (symbol= scroll)
• Science &Technology (symbol = arrow)
• Health Trends/Events (symbol = apple)
• Economy (symbol = green)
• National Events (symbol = star)
• Social/Cultural change (symbol = butterfly)
• Health Care Trends and Events (symbol = flower)

The objectives of Timelines session include:

1) developing each scenario as a distinct alternative with additional content drawn from the scenario team members;

2) immersing the teams in the scenarios so that they better understand their scenario, can “step into it” and assume that the scenario circumstances are possible;

3) identify new forecasts consistent with the scenario and important for tomorrow’s goal of developing recommendations.