Important health care documentary showing in Westerly on October 8
From David Henley
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To
register, go to https://rifoundation.kimbia.com/escapefire4
or call Dave Henley at (401) 387-9628
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ESCAPE
FIRE: The Fight to Rescue American Healthcare tackles one of the most pressing
issues of our time: how can we save our badly broken healthcare system?
American
healthcare costs are rising so rapidly that they could reach $4.2 trillion
annually, roughly 20% of our gross domestic product, within ten years. We spend
$300 billion a year on pharmaceutical drugs – almost as much as the rest of the
world combined.
We
pay more, yet our health outcomes are worse. About 65% of Americans are
overweight and almost 75% of healthcare spending goes to preventable diseases
that are the major causes of disability and death in our society.
It’s
not surprising that healthcare is at the top of many Americans' concerns and at
the center of an intense political firestorm in our nation’s Capital. But the
current battle over cost and access does not ultimately address the root of the
problem: we have a disease-care system, not a healthcare system.
The film examines the powerful forces maintaining the status quo, a medical industry designed for quick fixes rather than prevention, for profit-driven care rather than patient-driven care.
The film examines the powerful forces maintaining the status quo, a medical industry designed for quick fixes rather than prevention, for profit-driven care rather than patient-driven care.
ESCAPE
FIRE also presents attainable solutions. After decades of resistance, a movement
to bring innovative high-touch, low-cost methods of prevention and healing into
our high-tech, costly system is finally gaining ground. Filmmakers Matthew Heineman and Susan Froemke interweave dramatic personal arcs of patients and physicians with the stories of leaders battling to transform healthcare at the highest levels of medicine, industry, government, and even the U.S. military. ESCAPE FIRE is about finding a way out of our current crisis. It’s about saving the health of a nation.
WHAT IS AN
ESCAPE FIRE?
es•cape fire: noun, \is-’kap\fiuhr\
1.
A swath of grassland or forest intentionally ignited in order to provide
shelter from an oncoming blaze. 2. An improvised, effective solution to a
crisis that cannot be solved using traditional approaches.
In
the research phase for ESCAPE FIRE, directors Matthew Heineman and Susan
Froemke came across an influential speech delivered by Dr. Don Berwick years
before he took office as the head of Medicare and Medicaid. The speech was
published as a healthcare manifesto called Escape Fire: Lessons for the Future
of Healthcare.
Dr.
Berwick draws a parallel between the broken healthcare system and a forest fire
that ignited in Mann Gulch, Montana in 1949. Just as the healthcare system lies
perilously on the brink of combustion, the forest fire which seemed harmless at
first was waiting to explode. A team of fifteen smokejumpers parachuted in to
contain the fire, but soon they were running for their lives, racing to the top
of a steep ridge. Their foreman, Wag Dodge, recognized that they would not make
it.
With
the fire barely two hundred yards behind him, he did a strange and marvelous
thing. He invented a solution. His crew must have thought he had gone crazy as
he took some matches out of his pocket, bent down, and set fire to the grass
directly in front of him. The fire spread quickly uphill, and he stepped into
the middle of the newly burnt area, calling for his crew to join him.
But
nobody followed Wag Dodge. They ignored him, clinging to what they had been
taught, and they ran right by the answer. The fire raged past Wag Dodge and
overtook the crew, killing thirteen men and burning 3,200 acres. Dodge
survived, nearly unharmed.
Dodge
had invented what is now called an “escape fire,” and soon after it became
standard practice. As Berwick says in the film, “We’re in Mann Gulch.
Healthcare, it’s in really bad trouble. The answer is among us. Can we please
stop and think and make sense of the situation and get our way out of it?”
About the film:
Q&A with directors Matthew Heineman and Susan Froemke
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| There's a lot more to the debate than this! |
After
an initial conversation with Donna Karan and Doug Scott, our Executive
Producer, on the subject of our broken healthcare system, we spent six months
researching the topic to try to figure out whether it was possible to take on
such a huge topic.
In our research we kept hearing from a wide range of sources that we had a disease-care system, not a healthcare system, a system designed to reward quantity over quality, high-tech over high-touch. How did this perverse system come to be? How could we find our way out of this mess?
In our research we kept hearing from a wide range of sources that we had a disease-care system, not a healthcare system, a system designed to reward quantity over quality, high-tech over high-touch. How did this perverse system come to be? How could we find our way out of this mess?
These
questions were at the root of why we made the film and we began finding
characters/storylines that helped illustrate these ideas. As we started to film
on the frontlines of healthcare, we grew more and more excited that there was
an important film to be made.
Q: Why are you
personally interested in making a film about healthcare?
Healthcare
is an issue that affects all of us, but it’s so misunderstood. Everyone knows
what it’s like to get sick and put your trust in your healthcare provider’s
hands. But most of us don’t think about our health unless we’re in the hospital
or visiting the doctor. We wanted to show that we can empower ourselves to be
healthier, as individuals and as a country, even before we get sick. We all
have a stake in the health of our nation because we all pay for it. We felt
like this was a subject that would hit home for every American, so we made it
our goal to reach as wide an audience as possible.
Q: What was your
single biggest challenge in developing or producing this project?
Besides
the difficulties in gaining the intimate access we needed to tell this story,
the biggest challenge we faced was the topic itself: healthcare. It’s a hot
button issue. But when you scratch beneath the surface, it gets complicated
pretty quickly. It’s also a polarizing topic – there’s a reason politicians
dating back to Teddy Roosevelt haven’t been able to successfully reform our
system.
So,
from day one, we have acknowledged these challenges and tried to find
storylines and characters that help tell the story in an exciting and
interesting way.
Q: Where does
the title come from?
For
over a year, we struggled to find a title for the film. How could we synthesize
this complex problem and potential solutions under one label? We were stumped.
Then we came across Dr. Berwick’s healthcare manifesto, Escape Fire: Lessons
for the Future of Healthcare.
Dr.
Berwick applies the “escape fire” analogy to healthcare, exploring how our
system is “burning,” while there are solutions right in front of us. Upon
reading the manifesto for the first time, we realized how perfectly it fit our
subject matter. We knew we had our title and soon after we contacted Dr.
Berwick about taking part in our film.
Q: There’s been
so much coverage of the healthcare debate thus far. What did you feel you could
add to the conversation through the medium of documentary film?
Yet,
our country is still unclear about what is really wrong with healthcare and how
to move forward.
ESCAPE
FIRE addresses what might be done to create a sustainable system for the
future. It is our goal to transcend the misinformation, the angry partisan
debates and create a clear and comprehensive look at healthcare in America.
Q: How would you
describe the style of your film?
We
knew we had to boil a very complex topic into something accessible, but we also
knew that we wanted to put a human face on it as well. We’ve interwoven
interviews, animation, and archival footage with the personal stories in order
to show the healthcare system from all angles. It’s a hybrid style, but at the
film’s heart is the tradition of cinéma vérité – the art of capturing life as
it unfolds before the camera. The personal stories of patients and physicians
are all filmed in this vein, taking inspiration from the drama of human experience,
allowing our characters to be themselves.
Q: What
surprised you during the process of making the film?
In
finding subjects for the film, we tried to identify a disparate cast of experts
who would look at the healthcare issue through their own unique lenses. So it
surprised us, once we started asking our questions, that they all seemed to
agree with each other. We’ve screened the film for all these experts, and
they’re surprised that they agree with each other, too, no matter which side of
the political aisle they’re on or what their job title is.
It’s promising that everyone we talked to sees many of the same flaws in the system and believes that there are attainable solutions. But of course it’s also frustrating that with so many important leaders on the same side of the fence, we’re still struggling to reform the system.
It’s promising that everyone we talked to sees many of the same flaws in the system and believes that there are attainable solutions. But of course it’s also frustrating that with so many important leaders on the same side of the fence, we’re still struggling to reform the system.
Q: What would
you like audiences to come away with after seeing your film?
Our
goal with ESCAPE FIRE is to provoke a paradigm shift in how our country views
health and healing. We hope audiences will come away with a clearer
understanding of how and why our system is broken, the barriers to change, and
potential solutions, or “escape fires,” that could help fix our system.
We hope people – upset by the perverse nature of American medicine – will be empowered to help push for societal change and recognize the “escape fires” around us. We also hope people will walk away inspired to take better control of their personal health, realizing that in many cases they have the power to heal.
We hope people – upset by the perverse nature of American medicine – will be empowered to help push for societal change and recognize the “escape fires” around us. We also hope people will walk away inspired to take better control of their personal health, realizing that in many cases they have the power to heal.
KEY STATISTICS
- Roughly 75% of healthcare spending goes to preventable diseases. -Centers for Disease Control
- American healthcare costs are rising so rapidly that they could reach $4.2 trillion annually, roughly 20% of our gross domestic product, within ten years. -Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services
- The average per capita cost of healthcare in the developed world is $3,000. In the U.S., it’s around $8,000. -Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development
- 30% of healthcare costs (roughly $750 million annually) are wasted and do not improve health. -Institute of Medicine
- Approximately 187,000 people die each year from medical error and hospital infection. Based on these numbers it would be the 3rd leading cause of death. -Health Affairs/Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
- 20% of patients account for 80% of costs. -Department of Health and Human Services
- If trends continue through 2020, up to 1/5 of healthcare spending, or up to $1 trillion annually would be devoted to treating the consequences of obesity. -RAND
