Feature
April 29, 2009Lecturer Tackles Global Health Care Systems
On April 7, Dr. Joseph Antoun outlined the major health care policy challenges facing the world to Harris School students. Antoun, an associate public policy consultant at Eli Lilly and Company, discussed the structure and function of health care systems around the world and gave recommendations for reform. The lecture was the first in a three-day mini-course on health care systems and pharmaceutical policies.
Antoun’s strong academic background in health policy—he is a physician who focused on health policy while studying at Harvard University—and relevant work experience as health systems reform leader at Lilly have given him an in-depth understanding of the field. It has also taught him the topics and issues that are important for students to learn.
“There are very few universities around the world that teach health care systems,” he said. “Those who do focus on mature systems and in doing so, they limit the expertise of their students and forgo teaching about systems [encountered by] more than half of the world’s population.”
Regardless of the country, Antoun said the three main goals of a health care system should be to improve the health status of patients, achieve patient satisfaction, and offer affordable services—and each of these should be measured on level, efficiency, and equity. The two largest and most common policy challenges are reforming health care systems and securing access to medicine for all patients.
“Patients are not perfect consumers of health care,” said Antoun. But teaching them to demand high-quality, low-cost care would be a big step in achieving progress in world health.
However, cost is a major impediment to such care. Designing cost-effective policies that provide access to medicine and high-quality medical service is a difficult task. Also a health care system consultant, Antoun advises government policymakers on achieving context-specific goals for their respective health care systems. One important key, he explained, to understanding how these elements should unfold for particular countries is identifying the social, cultural, and political contexts in which a system would work.
Politics, religion, and income are all vital in establishing the framework for a country’s health care system. Said Antoun, “To write a policy that’s relevant, it has to fit within the [country’s] determinants … and, at the end of the day, every proposal should fit within a political agenda.”
What are Antoun’s key messages for policymakers in health care? “Always measure. Measure, measure, measure.” And look at the costs and benefits in order to focus on a system that will achieve better levels of health. Finally, providing physicians with an education in economics—especially health economics—can empower them to have a voice in health care reform.
By Elizabeth Vivirito
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