Do you really understand what a patient is going through?

The world is filled with "live a day in my shoes" stories. Think Trading Places and Undercover Boss.

The latest is Ron Shaich, CEO & Founder of Panera Bread, who spent a week living on "food stamps."

Ron Shaich, CEO & Founder of Panera Bread

Shaich took the "SNAP Challenge." He was given just $4.50 a day for food and drink. That's what the average beneficiary gets from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (formerly known as the food stamp program).

One hungry week later, Shaich said in a CNN.com opinion piece:

I really thought I understood the scope of the problem. But let me tell you something — I had no clue.

These are valuable lessons, especially for the "haves." Shaich noted that "merely observing someone else's plight does not hold a candle to consciously altering your habits to better understand what it might be like to live someone else's life."

Hunger is a critical issue. Shaich's SNAP Challenge helps shine a little more light on it.

What about health care?

Empathy is paramount in health care. But it's not as easy to replicate the hunger challenge — nobody is suggesting caregivers contract a disease to understand what it feels like to be a patient.

We know that when caregivers become patients, they quickly learn what works and what doesn't. They learn about barriers to care and how communication breakdowns can frustrate, demoralize and even push patients to retreat from care.

There are some great efforts underway to better understand the patient experience and, in some cases, re-shape it truly to be patient-centric. 

Cleveland Clinic's groundbreaking film helps frame the issue — and the fact that it has been viewed more than 1 million times is a testament to its powerful message.

Now let's bring more patient and family voices into our hospital board rooms, leadership seminars and care meetings. 

Because the patient's voice should always be loudest.

Patient care is more than just healing -- it's building a connection that encompasses mind, body and soul. If you could stand in someone else's shoes . . . hear what they hear. See what they see. Feel what they feel. Would you treat them differently?

Photo Friday: Your #safety

Sometimes safety is looking you right in the face. 

I was greeted by this sign while returning from the restroom at a Benny's store. It's a great reminder to everyone who works there, before they take the store floor, that safety comes first.

As Sgt. Phil Esterhaus (played by Michael Conrad) famously said on Hill Street Blues: 

"Let's be careful out there!"

Now, if we could only get health care workers to always remember to wash their hands … ! 

Safety sign at Benny's Store, shot on August 27, 2013.

Are you surviving the pink invasion?

You know this already: October is Breast Cancer Awareness month and pink is everywhere.

In stores, restaurants, lapel pins and car magnets. In Pink Glove Dances by health care workers. Even on the football field.

The "pink movement" is one of the strongest and best recognized health-related causes in existence. Estimates are that in excess of $6 billion is committed to breast cancer research and awareness each year and some have criticized that big business is profiteering on the back of the disease.

Yes, pink sells.

But pink also saves. 

Come in for the savings and leave with a little education and awareness.

The tsunami of pink promotions keeps coming. My weekly email from BJ's Wholesale Club points me to their well-done and subtle pink site, which links to the Early Detection Plan from the National Breast Cancer Foundation. The Early Detection Plan uses an iPhone app or an online service to send you reminders to do self-exams and get mammograms, based on your age, health and family history.

You're seeing a lot of pink. Embrace it. 

Just don't forget about all the other great causes, for equally deserving research into equally devastating diseases, that don't have the power of pink behind them.

Journalists' access meets news management (or is it censorship?)

Tools of the "corporate journalists'" trade.

There's a great and long-running debate raging over reporters' access to government officials.

Reporters feel press officers (in government these are referred to Public Affairs Officials or Public Information Officers) hinder their access to information. Press officers and government officials see it as managing the message and the accuracy of information.

Columbia Journalism Review recently had a solid overview of both sides in a recent blog post ("Hacks vs. flacks: Do public affairs offices get in the way?" August 14, 2013).

For the journalists, freelance reporter Kathryn Foxhall:

“It is massive, pernicious censorship that is now a cultural norm. It’s people in power stopping the flow of information to the public according to their own ideas and desires.”

For the press officers, Tony Fratto, former deputy press secretary to President George W. Bush:

“It is really, really rare to find really good reporters with the length of time on a beat it takes to master that beat."

Both are right. In part.

I've been lucky to be on both sides. I started writing for a small daily newspaper and then was a reporter/editor for United Press International before becoming a public affairs official for private, not-for-profit health systems. 

Reporters who become "flacks" (as I guess I did!) are said to "go over to the dark side." But those of us who were deeply steeped and trained in journalistic values and ethics see our roles in our organizations as "corporate journalists" — we apply the reporter's tools and techniques (and the editor's skepticism) to our jobs. This means both playing devil's advocate within our organizations and sussing out the truth.

Our job is not to deny access — it is to facilitate access and ensure accuracy.

"Corporate journalists" work by a few simple rules:

1. Never lie.
2. Answer questions as openly and honestly as possible.
3. Provide context and understanding.

Based on my journalism training at Boston University and Ohio Wesleyan University — and my real world newsroom experience at UPI — these are the same rules as a "real" journalist.

Which brings us to accountability. 

Organizations need to be held accountable — health care is going through its own accountability evolution as we speak. But reporters also need to be held accountable so that news is reported accurately, without sensation, and within the proper context.

People's lives and livelihoods are at stake. When a mistake is made, there is usually not malicious intent nor gross incompetence or negligence. But often stories get reported that way, which can cause the public to lose confidence in an institution. When the mistake is egregious, or even intentional, organizations need to own up to it.

Transparency is important. So is fairness. Taking the time to report accurately, with a solid understanding of a situation's context, will gain reporters more respect (and future access) and will better serve the public good.

News vs. ideas (or Miley vs. Madonna)

Sometimes a quote just grabs you, like this one from Twitter co-founder Ev Williams:

“News in general doesn’t matter most of the time, and most people would be far better off if they spent their time consuming less news and [consuming] more ideas that have more lasting import.”

The quote was in an interview Williams did for TechCrunch about his new venture, Medium, the latest entry in the (re-)emerging online long-form journalism market. 

This TIME magazine cover, with the teaser "Miley vs. Madonna," sparked an interesting discussion about "what is news."

Whether (and what) news matters is part of a discussion I have regularly with my son, Tim Rattray, who is studying journalism and screenwriting at Drexel University, like this recent one that was sparked by the teaser headline, "Miley vs. Madonna," on a recent TIME magazine cover:

Tim: "How is that news?"

Me: "It's pop culture. Magazines like TIME report on pop culture."

Tim: "Well, it's not news."

True enough. Our definition of news is changing and evolving rapidly, as is the way we consume it. There is an increasing emphasis on celebrity, pop culture and what us news junkies might call dribble. Less people read newspapers while more count on Twitter, Facebook and the Daily Show for their "news." Others even get their news cues from Kelly and Michael or The View.

But there is a movement, if you can call it that, toward longer-form journalism — what we scribes and PR folks call "thought pieces" — that slow down and really chew on topics (Williams's Medium is just such a long-form platform). In fact, Tim and his peers now probably consume more long-form journalism in the forms of both insight and criticism than actual news bits, at least on subjects that interest them. 

There is a place for both news and ideas. We need the news to keep current on what happens, but we need those big and bold ideas to provide context, clarity, consensus and, yes, even change.

Williams, again: 

“I think more people would be in a better place if more people shared their ideas.”

One thing's for certain — the sharing of ideas is making a strong resurgence. And participating in robust discussions around ideas, rather than just the news, would be a welcomed shift in our society.