Group Featuring Nationally Prominent Physicians and Public Health Experts Will Explore Ways to Improve Care While Reducing Waste

The Working Group will be directed by Maggie Mahar, a fellow at the Century Foundation, author/editor of the highly respected blog Healthbeatblog.org ( www.healthbeatblog.org), and author of the widely acclaimed book Money Driven Medicine: The Real Reason Health Care Cost So Much (Harper/Collins, 2006). She notes that a unique aspect of this panel is its composition. "This Working Group is composed primarily of physicians and public health officials, because they know better than anyone what's wrong with the system and what's needed to fix it," she said. "They also were chosen for this panel because they each have a reputation for being professionals who put patients first."

Working Group members include:

• Robert Berenson, MD
  Senior Fellow, The Urban Institute
  
  
• Lawrence Casalino, MD
  Associate Professor, University of Chicago
  
  
• Christine Cassel, MD
  President and CEO of the American Board of Internal Medicine and ABIM Foundation

• Peter Eisenberg, MD
  Medical Director, California Cancer Care

• Ezekiel J. Emanuel, MD, PhD
  Chair, Department of Bioethics
  National Institutes of Health

• Elliott S. Fisher, MD, MPH
  Director, Center for Health Policy Research
  The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice
  Professor of Medicine and Community and Family Medicine, Dartmouth Medical School
  Senior Associate, VA Outcomes Group, White River Junction

• Diane Meier, MD, FACP
  Director, Hertzberg Palliative Care Institute
  Professor, Geriatrics and Internal Medicine, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York

• James E. Sabin, MD
  Director, Ethics Program, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care
  Clinical Professor, Departments of Ambulatory Care/Prevention and Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School
• Steve Shortell, PhD, MP
  Dean, School of Public Health,
  University of California, Berkeley

• John E. Wennberg, MD, MPH
  Thomson Professor (Chair) in the Evaluative Clinical Sciences
  Founder and Director Emeritus, The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice

• Robert M. Wachter, MD
  Professor and Chief of the Division of Hospital Medicine
  University of California, San Francisco
  Chief of the Medical Service, UCSF Medical Center
  Editor, AHRQ WebM&M http://webmm.ahrq.gov) and Patient Safety Network (http://psnet.ahrq.gov)

• revising Medicare's physician fee schedule to pay more for primary care, palliative care, and co-ordination and management of chronic diseases;
• rethinking Medicare's fee-for-service system to reward doctors for quality, not volume;
• creating an independent Comparative Effectiveness Institute that reviews head-to-head testing of drugs, devices, and procedures to ensure that they are effective; and
• identifying and rewarding hospitals that provide better outcomes and higher patient satisfaction at a lower cost while helping other hospitals meet benchmarks.

Mahar believes that strong successful Medicare reform could be used as a demonstration project for national health reform. "As I see it, the larger goal of Medicare reform would be to show that lower cost and higher quality do indeed go hand in hand," she said.
The Working Group plans to report its recommendations later this year.

For more information about the Working Group or for media interviews with Maggie Mahar, contact Christy Hicks at hicks@tcf.org or 212-452-7723. Read the blog at www.healthbeatblog.org. Learn more about Century Foundation work in Medicare and Healthcare reform at www.tcf.org or www.healthpolicywatch.org.