Mission

The Center is a joint program of the University of Virginia School of Medicine, Department of Public Health Sciences and the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy.

Context

By many measures, both health and medical care in the United States compare poorly with other countries.  We have out-of-control costs and waste up to one-third of our dollars spent on health; we have inordinate expenses in the last year of life that do not serve our patients and their families well; we have unreliable quality of care with overuse by patients and providers but underuse of many preventive measures with mounting rates of diseases that are self-inflicted; we have a health care workforce too small to meet foreseeable demands; and we have impaired access to affordable care for more than 50 million people with an inadequate safety net that relies to a great extent on changing state budgets.

As these and other problems related to health take on increasing importance, we have the opportunity to produce innovative approaches to research, to teach the next generation, and actually to change policy based upon evidence.  Most health policy thinking has been frozen into various camps, each of which defends its favored positions and attacks almost all ideas coming from others.  The country desperately needs unbiased thinking about how to change policy to help solve our pressing health policy problems.

The mission of the Center is to conduct rigorous, non-ideological, non-partisan, evidence-based research on problems of the health of the public and the most effective and efficient means of addressing them, to educate the next generation of those who will study, teach and influence policy and to inform debate and influence decisions on health policy, both in the United States and abroad.

The Center fosters working groups to discuss various research topics and help formulate new approaches to answer important questions relating to health policy. The Center will continue to evolve and retain the ability to be agile with new important areas. Some areas of concentration are:

• Health Care Workforce
• Personal Engagement in Health
• Medicaid improvement: Cost, quality, and system design
• Difficult decisions in public health

Affiliation with the Center is open to all faculty, post-doctoral fellows and students at the University of Virginia who are willing to participate regularly, as well as visiting faculty and scholars whether in pure research, teaching or practice.

The Center’s director is Arthur Garson, Jr., MD, MPH former Provost and former Dean of the Medical School at UVa, University Professor of Public Health Sciences and Public Policy.  Dr. Garson has been a successful entrepreneur in the field of health policy, who has designed innovative approaches to health care delivery and who has advocated evidence-based research on cost-effective methods of prevention, diagnosis, and treatment.

Events

Monday, February 11, 5:00PM
Garrett Great Hall
“Increasing the supply of organs for transplantation: Is 'presumed consent' an effective and ethical way to do so in the U.S.?”
James Childress, University Professor and John Allen Hollingsworth Professor of Ethics and Professor of Medical Education

Wednesday, March 27, 5:00PM
Garrett Commons
"Advance Directives in Health Care: Innovation, Opportunity, and Obstacles”
Richard Bonnie, Professor of Law, Medicine, and Public Policy; Director of Institute of Law, Psychiatry, and Public Policy

Wednesday, April 24, 5:00PM
Garrett Commons
"The Center for Health Policy New Grant Program for Students: A dialogue"
Tim Garson, University Professor, Professor of Public Health Sciences, and Director of the Center for Health Policy