Described as a “force of nature,” Ezekiel Emanuel, M.D., Ph.D., is one of America’s leading voices in the complex and challenging effort to transform how health care is delivered and medicine is practiced. His own experience as an oncologist, academic leader, policy adviser and author has led him to prescribe some provocative cradle-to-grave fixes for what ails our health care system. The common denominator of his ideas: What’s best for patients.
Emanuel will bring his prescription for change to downtown Portland when he delivers the 2019 Calvin and Mayho Tanabe Address, “Health Care Transformation and its Ethical Challenges,” Tuesday, Nov. 12, at 7 p.m. at the Newmark Theatre.
The Calvin and Mayho Tanabe Address was established to offer differing perspectives on important topics. The lecture features national and international speakers who bring diverse ideas to the community and encourage a free exchange of ideas.
Emanuel is vice provost for global initiatives, the Diane v.S. Levy and Robert M. Levy University Professor and co-director of the Healthcare Transformation Institute at the University of Pennsylvania. Trained as a medical oncologist and political scientist (he earned both his M.D. and Ph.D. at Harvard University), Emanuel served as a special adviser for health policy for the White House Office of Management and Budget from 2009 to 2011, playing a significant role in the development of health care budgets and the Affordable Care Act.
Emanuel has written and edited 12 books and published more than 300 articles on a range of subjects, from health care reform to end-of-life care. His most recent book, “Prescription for the Future,” identifies standout medical organizations that are delivering higher-quality, more patient-focused care at a lower price, and from those examples distills 12 practices that could transform the entire health care sector. In April, he will publish a new book, “Which Country Has the World’s Best Health Care?”
“No matter how you measure it, the American health care system continues to underperform,” Emanuel says. “Tens of millions of people are still uninsured. Health expenditures remain astronomically high. On some basic measures of health system quality, the United States falls well below other developed countries. And there are endless complaints about impersonal care.
“The only way to simultaneously address the underperformance and unaffordability of the system is to transform care delivery. And there is the potential for truly positive, groundbreaking change. There are many practices and health systems that are innovating in particular ways, and we can and should learn from them as we try to improve the delivery of care in the United States.”
For more information on the Tanabe Address and to purchase tickets, visit www.onwardohsu.edu/tanabe.