Healthcare Recovery

December 6, 2004 Issue

In the Dec. 1 lecture commemorating the 25th anniversary of Pitt’s Health Policy Institute, Harvey V.Fineberg (second from left), president of the National Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Medicine (IOM), outlined what he called a 12-step program of recovery for America’s ailing healthcare system. Among his recommendations: investing in disease prevention by strengthening the country’s public health infrastructure; funding and deploying information technology to reduce errors in drug prescriptions; putting patients’ needs “first and foremost” in the design of care; and finding the middle ground politically in creating a universal health coverage system. Pictured from left to right are Chancellor Mark A. Nordenberg; Fineberg; Graduate School of Public Health (GSPH) Dean Bernard Goldstein; and Beaufort B. Longest Jr., M. Allen Pond Professor of Health Policy and Management and director of GSPH’s Health Policy Institute.