The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA

Abstract #38456

Joseph C. d'Oronzio, PhD, MPH, Joseph Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, New York, Health Policy and Mangement, 89 Summit Avenue, Suite 185, Summit, NJ 07901, 908-273-1378, jcd7@columbia.edu

The current concern with reforming and regulating managed care under the general rubric of ‘patient rights’ has eclipsed the more fundamental need to legislate the human rights of those without adequate access to any health care. ‘Patient rights’ is essentially a public health issue and this presentation traces it’s origins to a public, grass roots movement in which it was linked to a call for universal access to health care. The first assertion of the standards we recognize as ‘patients’ rights’ came from the work of The National Welfare Rights Organization (NWRO), an off-shoot of the civil rights movement. It was a grass roots organization committed to assuring broader rights to the public in the delivery of health care. It is of special importance to note that the movement for patients rights did not emerge from an organization particularly focused on health care. In addition, this early assertion of patients rights was embedded in a radical, ‘direct action’ approach characteristic of the larger civil rights movement of which it was an extension and as such, it was brought forth with considerable agitation and against the resistance of the health care industry. As a special application of welfare rights, patient rights was, at once, an assertion of ‘consumer rights’ and an ‘entitlement’ demand bolstered by moral appeals to the human rights of a disenfranchised segment of our community. It implied then, more than it does now, a basic critique of the organization of our systems of health care delivery.

Learning Objectives:

• To learn the social origins of the patient rights standards.
• To understand the conceptual connections between patient rights and human rights.
• To distinguish between patient rights as the assertion of ethical professional conduct and the regulation of managed care.

Keywords: Patient Perspective, Access and Services

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.