From research to rationing: a conversation with William B. Schwartz. Interview by John K. Iglehart.

Abstract

Research Article Health AffairsVol. 8, No. 3 From Research to Rationing: A Conversation with William B. SchwartzJohn K. IglehartPUBLISHED:Fall 1989No Accesshttps://doi.org/10.1377/hlthaff.8.3.60AboutSectionsView articleView Full TextView PDFPermissions ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmail ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack CitationsPermissions View articleAbstractPrologue: Academic medicine, with its strong commitment to educating new physicians, pursuing biomedical research at the cutting edge, and delivering high-quality patient care to often severely ill patients, contributes impressively to the public good. But, relatively few individuals who are consumed by these important functions ever move beyond to examine the broader health policy horizons that, increasingly, will influence the nature of medical education, teaching hospitals, and biomedical research. In recent years, two private foundations, The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and The Pew Charitable Trusts, have created programs that have provided support for educators in the health professions to examine the health policy sphere, but the numbers still pale in comparison to the vast enterprise that academic medicine has become. One of the pioneers who stretched beyond the confines of academic medicine and has made an impressive contribution to health policy concerns is William Schwartz, a nationally recognized authority on kidney disease, an accomplished biomedical researcher, and Vannevar Bush University Professor at Tufts University. Early in his career, as Schwartz explains in this conversation, he was head of the Nephrology Division at Tufts-New England Medical Center and later became chairman of the Department of Medicine at Tufts. In the past decade, Schwartz has focused on health policy issues, concentrating primarily on the application of economics to problems of medical care delivery. During this period, he has published extensively on issues such as physician supply, medical malpractice, cost containment, and regulation. Schwartz also has been active in the field of artificial intelligence as applied to medicine and is an associate member of the Computer Science Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a member of the National Academy of Sciences' Institute of Medicine. His work includes a prize-winning, controversial book, published jointly with economist Henry J. Aaron, entitled The Painful Prescription: Rationing Hospital Care . TOPICSGovernment programs and policiesTechnologyCost containmentPhysiciansCosts and spendingMarketsElderly patientsMedical researchDialysisCost reduction Loading Comments... Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus. DetailsExhibitsReferencesRelated Article MetricsCitations: Crossref 2 History Published online 1 January 1989 InformationCopyright © by Project HOPE: The People-to-People Health Foundation, Inc.PDF downloadCited byHealth Care Rationing: A Critical EvaluationAmitai Etzioni24 July 2017 | Health Affairs, Vol. 10, No. 2Economics and arthritisArthritis & Rheumatism, Vol. 33, No. 5