Innovating in Chronic Illness

A well-known health care parable describes the dilemma of workers too busy saving those already in the river to find out how victims were falling in upstream. That story needs a new ending. Through research, education and innovation, Park Nicollet Institute already is writing one.

"We need to add characters who have the moral courage to leave the accident scene to fix the problem up the river. You can find such characters at the Institute, where we've always been concerned with the whole story, not just the tragic ending."
—Arnold Anderson, MD, founder and director emeritus,
Park Nicollet Institute

Park Nicollet Institute exists to improve quality and public and private decision-making in health and health care. To simply accept that rescuers are too busy downstream to discover a broken guardrail up the river goes against that very mission and the spirit of our staff.

The Institute set a goal in 2003 to innovate in chronic illness prevention and management to enhance quality of life and manage demand for health care. Using our education and research expertise, we have carved out preventive strategies for healthy and at-risk people, while teaming-up with patients for solutions in secondary or tertiary care. With an aging population and the high prevalence of diabetes, heart disease and obesity, our successes take on even greater significance. We are pleased to tell you about them, and many other accomplishments, in this report.