Vision
In the future, the healthcare, disability benefits, and workers' compensation systems will be knit together in ways that we can barely imagine now. And these systems will have a clearer sense of purpose: the professionals who work within them will all be paying a lot more attention to the question "well enough for what?"
In addition to saving lives, curing disease, and relieving suffering, the systems will see their fundamental purpose as caring for and/or supporting working people with new or long-standing health problems in order to get and keep them well enough to function fully in human life to the greatest degree practicable. Functioning fully in human life means carrying out the life roles that all of us are naturally designed for, like caring for ourselves, enjoying life, interacting with others, being useful and doing our part for as long as we can. These are the things that make life satisfying and fulfilling. That system of care will look different than the hodgepodge we see today. In particular it will be characterized by effortless, seamless, and integrated collaboration and teamwork, with an overall sense of purpose shared by professionals in different disciplines, organizational silos, and sectors of society. Agreement about purpose will also have created a set of practical set of outcome benchmarks by which to judge, acknowledge, and reward those whose services and products are helping creating the best results. A by-product of this success will be an increased number of people able to get back promptly to earning a living, thus reducing the need for disability income payments and strengthening the workforce. As a result, this system of care will be delivering more value to individuals, families, their employers and benefits payers, taxpayers, and society as a whole.