Newswise — Three of New Jersey's top healthcare policy experts and a leading medical education administrator will examine the impact of healthcare reform on academic medical centers at the kickoff of the "President's Lectures" series from 1-3 p.m. on Thursday, May 21, at UMDNJ's Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital.
Heather Howard, Commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services; Alfred F. Tallia, founding director of the Health Policy Fellowship and chair of Strategic Planning for UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School; Joel Cantor, Sc.D., Director of the Center for State Health Policy at Rutgers University; and Steve A. Wartman, president of the Association of Academic Health Centers, are the panelists of the first of a series of events planned in conjunction with the investiture of William F. Owen, Jr., MD, as fourth president of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. Denise V. Rodgers, MD, UMDNJ Provost and Executive Vice President, will serve as moderator.
Dr. Owen's formal investiture ceremony will occur as part of the annual UMDNJ commencement exercises the previous day, Wed., May 20, at the Izod Center at the Meadowlands complex in East Rutherford.
The Panelists
Commissioner Howard has, since January 2008, served as the 14th Commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services, after serving as Policy Counsel to Gov. Jon S. Corzine. Earlier, she held a series of positions, including Legislative Counsel, Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy and Planning and Chief of Staff, for then-Senator Corzine from 2001 " 06. Prior to joining the Corzine staff, Ms. Howard worked in The White House as Associate Director of President Clinton's Domestic Policy Council and as Senior Policy Adviser to First Lady Hillary Clinton.
Dr. Cantor is a frequent adviser to New Jersey State government on health policy matters whose research focuses on issues of healthcare coverage, financing and delivery at the state and local levels. His work includes studies of health insurance market regulation, state health system performance, and access to care for low income and minority populations. Dr. Cantor is the 2006 recipient of the Rutgers University President's Award for Research in Service to New Jersey. He chairs the New Jersey Mandated Health Benefit Advisory Commission and is a former member of the New Jersey Commission on Rationalizing New Jersey's Health Care Resources.
Dr. Tallia, who was named a Master Educator by UMDNJ in 2002, conducts research focused on the organization and quality of primary care in the healthcare system. He is a member of The Cancer Institute of New Jersey and the American Academy of Family Physcians' Center for Research in Family Medicine and Primary Care. He is a member of the executive committee of the Washington-based Patient Centered Primary Care Collaborative, a coalition of payors, providers, and consumers advancing healthcare reform.
Dr. Wartman became the fourth president of the AAHC after serving as Executive Vice President for Academic and Health Affairs and Dean of the School of Medicine at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio. He is recognized for his work in the organization and management of academic health centers, with an emphasis on such critical issues as the need for alignment among an institution's schools, research and education programs.
Dr. Denise Rodgers has been Executive Vice President of UMDNJ since 2006. She is also a professor of family medicine at UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. Previously, she was UMDNJ Chief of Staff and prior to that served as Senior Associate Dean for Community Health at the medical school. Earlier, she was professor and vice chair in the Department of Family and Community Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco.
UMDNJ is the nation's largest free-standing public health sciences university with more than 5,700 students attending the state's three medical schools, its only dental school, a graduate school of biomedical sciences, a school of health related professions, a school of nursing and its only school of public health, on five campuses. Last year, there were more than two million patient visits to UMDNJ facilities and faculty at campuses in Newark, New Brunswick/Piscataway, Scotch Plains, Camden and Stratford. UMDNJ operates University Hospital, a Level I Trauma Center in Newark, and University Behavioral HealthCare, a mental health and addiction services network.
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