Putting Healthcare Back in the Hands of Patients
Welcome to the
Patients First Foundation
Our goal is to make healthcare truly patient centric, by re-evaluating every interaction and deciding if the patient is receiving the value he/she deserves.
In order to do this, we need to focus on improving patient literacy, self advocacy, and collective empowerment through community collaboration and tech-enabled engagement.
We promise to deliver full transparency, community impact, and tools that help patients take control of their health.
It is time to end our current model of ‘sick-care’ with true preventative and proactive ‘health-care’.
Why Patients First?
The problem with the healthcare system is that it is operating exactly as it was designed, to profit corporations that are in the business of sickness. Keeping us as patients so that they keep us as consumers of their services and products.
We believe that healthcare should be a day to day exercise in wellness, with PEOPLE living well and not becoming PATIENTS at all.
Why is it that our current system has patients and taxpayers paying twice for a system that does not prioritize their needs? Insurance premiums, copays, deductibles, co-insurance, forced cash pay, taxes funding social programs - where and when do we stop paying for these services that do not even keep us healthy?
Together, We Can Drive Change for All Patients
Our Focus
Healthcare 3.0 – Bringing Healthcare Back to the Patient
For over a century, healthcare has shifted away from patient control to corporate ownership.
Healthcare 3.0 represents the future—bringing control back to patients through technology, partnerships, and advocacy.
Our goal is to restore local connections between patients, physicians, and employers by asking one simple question:
“Is this good for the patient?”
Healthcare 1.0
(Pre-1912)
Patients had full accountability for their health, managing their care with limited interaction from medical professionals.
Doctors most often traveled to patients' homes to provide care at their request.
Healthcare 2.0
(1912-2024)
The rise of insurance and pharmaceutical companies shifted healthcare from a patient-centered model to a
corporate-driven one, focused on shareholder value and profits.
Healthcare 3.0
(2025 and Beyond)
Patients need to regain control over their health and thus over the system.
A true partnership between patients and their clinical care teams is required.
Technology utilization on both sides will ensure better outcomes, by driving accountability of all parties.
Corporate stakeholders need to become partners and not 'overlords' that we serve.
Advancing Patient-Centered Healthcare
Despite spending more on healthcare than any other high-income country, Americans face poorer health outcomes.
Spending more per capita than any other nation, we have shorter lifespans and unaffordable care.
This stark reality underscores the urgent need for systemic change.
Real Stories, Real Change
Our founder, Steve Carbonara, nearly lost his life due to misdiagnosis and mistreatment—a powerful example of the failures within the current healthcare system.
Now, we’re calling on 1 million patients to share their stories, so together, we can address these challenges and drive meaningful change.
Your Voice Matters
At the Patients First Foundation, we believe that patient voices are the key to transforming healthcare. By sharing a few facts about your journey, you can help us understand the challenges patients face and the changes needed to improve care.
Your privacy is our priority—your name will never be associated with your information without your explicit permission.
The first step in connecting with you takes about 10 minutes—helping us learn about your experiences and work together to put patient care back where it belongs: in your hands.
From Our Founder
"From an early age I reveled in asking the questions that those in authority do not like to answer. I believe that it is our mandate as people to ask why healthcare has been structured the way it is, why every stakeholder is represented better than the patient, why we allow corporations to gouge us at every turn, and most importantly, why no governing body has stepped in to defend us yet. The only person that is coming to defend you is you, together, as a national collective, we can work together to build a better healthcare system - one focused on health, personal connections, mutual respect, character, integrity and honor. Sick people deserve these things, caretakers of patients and all forms of providers deserve these things as well . When did we stop agreeing that common decency and respect was an obvious expectation? I think it was the day we allowed corporate officers to tell the people (you, me, the patient, your neighbor) that 'the policy of the company' mattered more than anything else, including human life. It is time to find our decency again, it is time to rebuild our community and our healthcare."
Steve Carbonara
Founder, Chief Executive Officer
Patients First Foundation
