Collaboration and Community Engagement: Two Powerful Ways to Improve Health

"The educated patient is the empowered patient, and the empowered patient has a better health outcome," says patient advocate Lynn Abbott-McCloud.

The National Academy of Medicine agrees. Engaging patients and communities, the Academy says, plays a critical role in developing healthcare solutions that work for them and improve their well-being.¹ They go on to say that meaningful patient engagement often involves partnerships and coalitions.

This philosophy is part of what drives Amgen's work with LiveLung, the lung cancer patient advocacy organization where Abbott-McCloud is Programs Director, and the more than 60 other patient advocacy organizations that came together recently for a two-day summit hosted by Amgen.

You can hear more from advocacy leaders about how Amgen supports patient-focused programs and this powerful summit in the below video.

Michelle Carillo, Amgen's associate vice president of Corporate Affairs, says the company's engagement with patient advocacy groups plays a unique role in its ability to deliver for patients. "When Amgen engages with the advocacy community, we hear what is important to people, where there are unmet needs and how we can collaborate to improve the lives of those we all serve," she says.

Jeff Todd, president and CEO of Prevent Blindness, says with Amgen's support, their ASPECT program has been a gamechanger, engaging patients in their work to advocate for better outcomes for people with vision loss. They describe the patients as the "greatest untapped resource in healthcare," and call patient engagement "the blockbuster drug of the century."

Joe Nadglowski, president and CEO of the Obesity Action Coalition, echoes the value of working together and listening to patients. "We have to listen to lots of different voices. That's going to help us move forward and make a big difference in people's lives. Through partnerships like this we can make sure people are delivering patient-based, solid, accurate medical information."

There seems to be little doubt among experts, healthcare advocates, patients and pharmaceutical companies, if Amgen is any indicator, that patient input is a vital component in improving health outcomes for all.