Casey Quinlan covered her share of medical stories as a TV news field producer, and used healthcare as part of her observational comedy set as a standup comic. So when she got a breast cancer diagnosis five days before Christmas in 2007, she used her research, communication, and comedy skills to navigate treatment, and wrote “Cancer for Christmas: Making the Most of a Daunting Gift” about managing medical care, and the importance of health literate self-advocacy. In addition to her ongoing work as a writer, she’s an active member of the Society for Participatory Medicine, a contributing editor to SPM’s e-patients.net blog, and part of the Lown Institute’s Right Care Alliance. She’s also a popular speaker and thought leader on healthcare system transformation from the ground up.

Casey served on the HealthIT.gov Consumer Empowerment Workgroup of the Health IT Policy Committee (HITPC), and was named an ePatient Scholar to Stanford's MedicineX in 2013. She participated in the development of the Patient and Family Engagement Roadmap, and was recognized as a patient engagement expert by the WHO. She presented at the first HIMSS Patient Engagement Summit, at the HIMSS Privacy & Security Forum, and at DellWorld, as a patient voice on topics from trust in the clinical relationship to data security issues in medical record interoperability. She has also appeared at the National Health Policy Conference, the Genetic Alliance’s Building Trustworthiness in PCORnet meeting, Health Datapalooza, HX Refactored, and the Healthcare CFO/CXO Summit.

Involvement with AcademyHealth:

  • Committee Member - 2018 Health Datapalooza

Authored by Casey Quinlan