Bios of Participants in the Webcasts at the International Symposium
ANDREW B. BINDMAN, M.D., is a professor of medicine, epidemiology, biostatistics, and health policy at the University of California, San Francisco and chief of the division of General Internal Medicine at San Francisco General Hospital, for which he also directs the Primary Care Research Center in the Department of Medicine. Bindman has published numerous studies and reports on access to primary medical care, health outcomes associated with barriers to such care, and the changing role of primary care physicians and safety net providers in managed care. In 1993, he was selected as one of the first Robert Wood Johnson Generalist Physician Faculty Scholars. In 1996, he was selected as a U.S. Public Health Service Primary Care Policy Fellow. Bindman has received both the Young Investigator Award and the Article of the Year Award from AcademyHealth. He has practiced and taught in the General Medical Clinic at San Francisco General Hospital for more than 15 years. He was a 2000 Atlantic Fellow and a visiting professor at the University College London studying the United Kingdom's implementation of Primary Care Groups. He is currently leading a Commonwealth Fund supported study comparing primary care practice in the United States, United Kingdom, New Zealand, and Australia. Bindman serves on the Coordinating Committee of The Commonwealth Fund's International Program in Health Policy and Practice.
CAROLYN M. CLANCY, M.D., serves as director for the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). Prior to this appointment on February 5, 2003, she had served as director of AHRQ's Center for Primary Care Research until 1997, when she became director of its Center for Outcomes and Effectiveness Research. Clancy, a general internist and health services researcher, has research interests that include women's health, primary care, access to care and the impact of financial incentives on physicians' decisions. Active in multiple professional organizations, she has been recognized as a leader within the Society of General Internal Medicine. Clancy also holds an academic appointment as clinical associate professor, Department of Medicine at George Washington University School of Medicine, and serves as senior associate editor of Health Services Research. She is a member of multiple editorial boards, including the American Journal of Medical Quality, Annals of Family Medicine and Medical Care Research and Review, and has published widely in peer-reviewed journals and edited or contributed to seven books. Following clinical training in internal medicine, Clancy was a Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania. She was also an assistant professor in the Department of Internal Medicine at the Medical College of Virginia in Richmond prior to joining AHRQ (then named the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research) in 1990. She is a member of the Fund's Coordinating Committee for its International Program in Health Policy and Practice. Clancy is a graduate of Boston College and the University of Massachusetts Medical School.
JOHN S. HOFF is a deputy assistant secretary for Planning and Evaluation in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), in charge of the Office of Disability, Aging and Long-Term Care Policy. He joined HHS on October 22, 2001. A graduate of Harvard College and Law School, he clerked for Judge Warren Burger on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. Before joining HHS, he practiced law in Washington, D.C., specializing in health care issues. Hoff has written and spoken widely on health care topics. He is co-author, with Mark Pauly, of a monograph on policy and design issues of a tax credit for the purchase of insurance, entitled Responsible Tax Credits for Health Insurance. Among his other publications, he is author of "A better Patients' Bill of Rights" (National Center for Policy Analysis, 2001); "The Patients' Bill of Rights: A Prescription for Massive Federal Health Regulation" (Heritage Foundation, 2000); Medicare Private Contracting: Paternalism or Autonomy? (AEI Press, 1998); a co-author, with Elizabeth Wright, of "A Better Prescription for Seniors" (Citizens Against Government Waste, 2000); and co-author, with Mark V. Pauly, Patricia Danzon, and Paul J. Feldstein, of Responsible National Health Insurance (AEI Press, 1992). He wrote a chapter on "Regulation of Managed Care Contracting" in Knight, Managed Care Contracting (Aspen, 1997). He also contributed a chapter entitled "Improving the System for Delivering Subsidies: Cap or Scrap the Exclusion?" in Arnett, Empowering Health Care Consumers Through Tax Reform (University of Michigan Press, 1999). He served as project director for the Committee on Economic Development in connection with its report Breaking the Litigation Habit: Economic Incentives for Legal Reform.
JOHN HORVATH AO, M.D., is a professor of renal medicine at the University of Sydney and was a specialist renal physician at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, one of Sydney's largest teaching hospitals. In September 2003 he assumed the position of Australian Government Department of Health & Ageing's Chief Medical Officer (CMO). As the CMO, he provides support to the Minister and the Department of Health & Ageing across the full range of professional health issues, including health and medical research, public health, medical workforce, quality of care, evidence-based medicine and an outcomes-focused health system. A major focus in his role as CMO is to forge close links with Australia's medical fraternities and researchers to ensure the Australian government has the best available evidence on which to base its health policies. Horvath is well known as a leader in a range of medical training and workforce organizations and is the immediate past-chair of the Australian Medical Workforce Advisory Committee, and past-member of the Commonwealth's Medical Training Review Panel. He is also former president of the Australian Medical Council and the NSW Medical Board.
THE HONORABLE JOHN HUTTON MP was appointed minister of state in the U.K. Department of Health in 1999. He took on responsibility for Health in June 2001, prior to which he had responsibility for Social Care. He was elected MP for Barrow and Furness in April 1992. His main political interests have been in health, social services, education and industrial relations. Before his election to Parliament he was a senior law lecturer at the University of Northumbria. After his election, from 1994 to 1997 he served on the Select Committee for Home Affairs. He was private personal secretary to Margaret Beckett, both while she was president of the Board of Trade and Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (1997 to 1998) and in her role as president of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (1998). Hutton was appointed parliamentary under secretary of state for Health and Social Care in October 1998 and was appointed to the Privy Council in 2001. He was educated at Westcliff High School and Magdalen College, Oxford.
JOHN K. IGLEHART is founding editor of Health Affairs, a bimonthly policy journal published since 1981 by Project HOPE. He serves on the Coordinating Committee of The Commonwealth Fund's International Program in Health Policy and Practice. A national correspondent for the New England Journal of Medicine since 1981, Iglehart has written more than 100 papers as part of NEJM's regular essay "Health Policy Report." From 1979 to 1981, he was a vice president of the Kaiser Foundation Health Plan and directed its Washington office. Iglehart held a variety of editorial positions from 1969 to 1979, including the editorship at the National Journal, a privately published weekly on federal policymaking. He has been a member of the Institute of Medicine since 1977 and served on its governing council for six years (1985–91). He is also an elected member of the National Academy of Social Insurance and has served on the boards of AcademyHealth, the American Board of Medical Specialties, and the Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates.
THE HONORABLE ANNETTE KING is the New Zealand minister of health, a position in which she has served since 1999. During her career as a member of parliament, King has held a number of ministerial and parliamentary positions. She was parliamentary under secretary to the Ministers of Social Welfare, Tourism, Employment and Youth Affairs from 1987 to 1989; minister of Employment, Immigration and Youth Affairs from 1989 to 1990; minister for Racing from December 1999 to July 2002. In July 2002, she was appointed minister of Food Safety, in addition to her health responsibilities. Prior to entering Parliament in 1984, King was a school dental nurse and tutor of dental nursing.
FRANZ KNIEPS has been director-general for Health Care Provision and Long-Term Care Insurance at the German Federal Ministry of Health and Social Security since February 2003. He is also editor of Gesundheit und Sozialpolitik, a magazine on health and social policy. He has authored numerous publications in the field of social law and health policy. In 1986, Knieps joined the Legal Department of the Federal Association of Local Sickness Funds as desk officer for basic issues of legal policy. In 1989 he was named head of the policy staff unit at the Federal Association of Local Sickness Funds where he was responsible for: legislation and policy consulting in the field of social insurance law and health policy; basic political, economic and social issues of the health care system; basic issues of AOK operational policy and operational strategy as well as press and public relations work. In 1998 he became policy manager of the Federal Association of Local Sickness Funds and was active as a consultant for social policy and health care system development for the World Health Organization, the European Union and the German Federal Government, inter alia in Albania, Bulgaria, Korea, Poland, Romania, Russia, South Africa, the Czech Republic and Turkey. He holds degrees in law, political science and recent German literature from the Universities of Bonn and Freiburg.
ROBIN OSBORN, vice president and director of The Commonwealth Fund's International Program in Health Policy and Practice, has responsibility for the Fund's annual international symposium, annual international health policy surveys and comparisons of health systems data, The Commonwealth Fund-Nuffield Trust international conferences on quality (Pennyhill Park/Ditchley), the Fund's International Working Group on Quality Indicators, the Harkness Fellowships in Health Care Policy, and the Packer Policy Fellowships, and represents the Fund on the Bertelsmann International Health Policy Reform Network. Prior to joining the Fund in 1997, Osborn was director of fellowship programs and memberships at the Association for Health Services Research, where she directed the Picker/Commonwealth Scholars Program and served as deputy director of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Investigator Awards in Health Policy Research Program. While living in the United Kingdom from 1986 to 1992, she held management positions at BUPA, the largest private health insurer in the United Kingdom, with responsibility for developing managed care programs. Her previous positions include managing director of the Miller Institute for Performing Artists at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center; executive director of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Greater New York's corporate foundation, the Health Services Improvement Fund; special assistant to the vice president of Blue Cross Blue Shield for the division charged with cost containment, quality, pilot benefits and health services research; and assistant director of Bronx Municipal Hospital Center, a 1,400-bed, public safety net hospital. She earned a bachelor of science with honors at Tufts University and a master of business administration from Columbia University.
CATHY SCHOEN is vice president for health policy, research, and evaluation at The Commonwealth Fund and has oversight responsibilities for the Fund's survey work and programs on health care coverage and access. She also serves as the executive director of the Fund's Task Force on the Future of Health Insurance. Previously, Schoen was director of special projects at the University of Massachusetts Labor Relations and Research Center and on the research faculty of the University of Massachusetts School of Public Health. During the 1980s, she directed the Service Employees International Union's Research and Policy Department in Washington, DC. Earlier, she served as a member of the staff of President Carter's national health insurance task force and as a senior health advisor during the 1988 presidential campaign. Prior to federal service, Schoen was a research fellow at the Brookings Institution. She holds an undergraduate degree in economics from Smith College and a graduate degree in economics from Boston College. She is the author and coauthor of many publications on health care coverage and quality issues.
IAN SHUGART is the assistant deputy minister in the Health Policy Branch of Health Canada. Previously, he was the visiting assistant deputy minister in Health Canada's Health Protection Branch (HPB). He was responsible for the coordination of HPB's Transition project, which was created to meet the needs of Canadians for health risk management in the next century. Shugart came to this assignment from the Medical Research Council, where he was executive director for four years. He previously served as assistant secretary to the Cabinet for Social Policy and Programs in the Federal Provincial Relations Office of the Privy Council Office. He was also chief of staff to the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources, and spent four years in the Department of National Health and Welfare as senior advisor on policy matters to the Minister. Within his current responsibilities, Shugart co-chairs two advisory committees that support Ministers of Health: Health Delivery and Human Resources, and Governance and Accountability. He is also a member of the Executive Board of the World Health Organization.