Pam Williams, Moderator
Cynthia Capers, Ph.D., Moderator

Workgroup Members:
Alan Bleyer, Roy Call, Tracy Carter, W. M. Davis, Sharon Dietzel, Tony Gorant, Helen Paige and Isabelle Reymann

• To reach our goal of a healthy, productive population we must emphasize education as a means of reducing the incidence of many preventable diseases. In order to target them, we must first identify these health care risks (e.g. smoking, improper diet) and populations (e.g. mentally ill, geriatric, youth).

• Recognizing that universal access to appropriate (e.g. clinic vs. emergency room ~ consumer education needed) health care is necessary we should collect data on population needs. (More home health care? Assisted living? Certain specialties? Facilities? etc.) Similarly, we should assess the needs for the health care workforce (Nutritionist, Physical Therapist, Nurse Practitioners, Physician Specialist, LPN, etc.) to determine strategies for preparing and recruiting the next generation of health care providers. Appropriate training must be available for them. The impact of changing technology and its effect on health care must be kept in mind. Once we have identified and educated qualified professionals the quality of life in the Akron area must make them want to stay. (Other workgroups are addressing this issue.)

• A serious exploration should be made of opportunities for cooperative, communal programs. This could insure the best use of resources in the provision of services. The health care industry in Akron should standardize language and provide a uniform health care record. An umbrella authority or clearing house could be established to develop 1) the coordination of resources, 2) collaboration of services, 3) awareness of available funding, 4) data collection and its use, 5) etc.

• We should insure universal health care coverage to the citizens of Summit County. (We speak of Summit County here rather than Akron because the county is a taxing agent that might be brought into play.)

• We believe that much of the data we have referred to in this report are already available. It just needs to be gathered together and put in the hands of people who can use it. Some resources for this information would be 1) NEOUCOM, 2) The University of Akron, 3) Akron Health Dept., 4) Healthy Summit 2000, 5) Healthy Connections, 6) Local Hospitals

• An ultimate outcome of this work may be changes in legislation and health policy (e.g. reimbursement for education/prevention programs).

1. They don’t want this report to end up in a file drawer with many others that have been written before by other groups. We can and should begin now to implement some of these recommendations if we are to achieve our goal. Some members of this workgroup, along with other interested citizens, should continue to be involved in the process.

2. The workgroup members feel very strongly that there should have been a practicing physician in the group. They think that this is a point of view that is essential to the process. You are urged to approach one or both of the medical societies in Akron and ask that they get some of their members to address the question of health care in 2025. Their report could be an addendum to ours.