Public and private roles debated in Hogness Symposium

Where should the lines be drawn between public and private decisions about the quality of health care? For example, should decisions about the amount of care available for certain conditions be made by state legislatures? By the courts? By federal agencies establishing guidelines? By insurance companies? By individual physicians?

John Eisenberg Mark Pauly

“Beyond Consumer Protection: Appropriate Public and Private Roles in Quality of Care” is the subject of the UW’s 14th John R. Hogness Symposium on Health Care next week. The symposium is scheduled from 3 to 4:30 p.m. Monday, Feb. 1, in Hogness Auditorium at the Health Sciences Center.

Speakers are Dr. John Eisenberg, administrator of the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research (AHCPR), and Dr. Mark Pauly, Bendheim professor and chair of the Health Care Systems Department at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.

Eisenberg oversees the lead federal agency conducting and sponsoring research to enhance health care services and access to care. Prior to his appointment at AHCPR, Eisenberg was chair of the Department of Medicine and physician-in-chief at Georgetown University and had been chief of the Division of Internal Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. He is a graduate of Princeton and the Washington University School of Meedicine in St. Louis. After a residency in internal medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, he was a Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar and earned an M.B.A. degree at the Wharton School.

From 1986 through 1995, Eisenberg was a member of the Congressional Physician Payment Review Commission, serving as chair from 1993 to 1995. He has been president of the Association for Health Services Research and of the Society for General Internal Medicine and a member of the Board of Regents for the American College of Physicians. He is a member of the Institute of Medicine.

Pauly, who holds a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Virginia, is also a member of the Institute of Medicine. He has served on numerous national boards and committees on health care funding. A member of the economics faculty at Northwestern University from 1967 to 1983, he moved to the University of Pennsylvania in 1984 to become executive director of the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics. He is now the Bendheim professor of health care systems, public policy and management, insurance and risk management, and economics at the Wharton School.

Like Eisenberg, Pauly has been a member of the Physician Payment Review Commission. He is also a member of the editorial boards for Public Finance Quarterly and the Journal of Health Economics and and advisory editor for the Journal of Risk and Uncertainty. He is on the Health Advisory Board for the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C. From 1996 to 1998 he was a member of the Institute of Medicine’s Panel on Public Accountability of Medicare.

While at the UW on Feb. 1, Pauly will also present Cost and Outcomes Grand Rounds at 8 a.m. in room K-069 of the Health Sciences Center. At that time, he will speak on “Using Contingent Valuation to Value the Benefits of Medical Technology.”

The symposium honors Dr. John R. Hogness, dean emeritus of the UW School of Medicine, a former medical director of UW Medical Center and 26th president of the University. Hogness was also the first president of the Institute of Medicine and president of the Association of Academic Health Centers.

When he retired from the UW presidency in 1979, the Board of Regents established the symposium in his honor, stipulating that it be concerned with health care delivery policy. A planning committee of faculty and students selects speakers for the symposium. Dr. Sean Sullivan, assistant professor of pharmacy and health services, chairs the group. ¶