health care

The School of Engineering & Applied Science at Washington University in St. Louis is offering a new master’s degree that will use engineering principles to dramatically improve health-care operations.

Over the past several decades, Michael Kinch of Washington University in St. Louis says, the pharmaceutical industry has managed to dismantle itself. In a provocative series of articles and interviews, Kinch, the director of the Center for Research Innovation in Businessat the university, has been describing the history of this dismantling and its implications for the future of medicine.

Washington University’s Global Health Center selected five ​WUSTL students for its inaugural summer research program, which paired students with faculty mentors to explore issues such as malnutrition, maternal health and access to health care. Pictured is program participant Laura Bliss, a second-year medical student.

Third-year medical student Elaine Khoong has received a prestigious Herbert W. Nickens Medical Student Scholarship from the Association of American Medical Colleges. ​

The survival of the Affordable Care Act in the Supreme Court presents a monumental moment to improve the U.S. health care system, says Elizabeth Sepper, JD, health law expert and associate professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis. “It is a uniquely American crisis that 50 million Americans don’t have health insurance and another 29 million are underinsured, meaning getting sick would ruin them financially even though they’ve been paying for insurance,” she says.

The Supreme Court’s decision today means the implementation of the Affordable Care Act can go forward, thus improving the delivery and affordability of medical care, says Timothy McBride, PhD, health economist and associate dean for public health at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis.

Gregory P. Magarian, JD, professor of law, and Timothy D. McBride, PhD, professor of public health, both at Washington University in St. Louis, are available for expert commentary on the Supreme Court’s Affordable Care Act decision.

Washington University School of Medicine students Nathan Moore and Elisabeth Askin collaborated to produce a clear and concise guide to the U.S. health-care system called the Health Care Handbook. The book is a topical overview of the system, aimed primarily at undergraduate and graduate health professions students.

The Supreme Court will hear several states’ legal challenges to the Affordable Care Act, ensuring that the court — in late June 2012 — will deliver a momentous statement about the ever-contentious constitutional balance between federal and state power. “The key element of the states’ lawsuits targets the act’s requirement that everyone in the country must purchase commercial health insurance,” says constitutional law expert Gregory P. Magarian, JD, professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis.

The U.S. remains on track to spend twice as much for health care as for food, yet millions are without insurance or uninsured. “Health insurance premiums also continue to rise – on average another 9 percent in 2011,” says Merton Bernstein, JD, leading health insurance expert and the Walter D. Coles Professor of Law Emeritus at Washington University in St. Louis. “Medical care costs can change direction if policy makers stop whistling past a significant contributor – non-benefit costs.”