On Friday afternoon of Labor Day weekend in 2010, my doctor called to tell me that the pathology report from a recent endoscopy showed that I had stomach cancer. Maybe you can imagine what happened next. At the time, I thought I could, since I had heard similar news three times before. But all my experience and all my expertise in health care did little to prepare me to meet the steep demands to find the right doctors and hospitals, choose the best treatments and then coordinate and participate fully in my care in the days following that phone call. Health care delivery is changing rapidly as...