“The Only Constant is Change”, WHSC Library to host webinar on Healthcare Economics and Technology, April 20th at 1pm

Join the Woodruff Health Sciences Center Library for a webinar sponsored in celebration of the library’s 100th year anniversary.

Having served on the Emory faculty for four decades and observed remarkable changes in health care economics and its delivery over that time, Dr. Banja will reflect on “seismic” changes he has witnessed, and how health care technology will continue to shape and challenge health care delivery in the United States. Foremost among the historical changes to be discussed are the ways “managed care” emerged and resulted in:

  • A transfer of executive power from physicians to non-physician leaders and mid-level managers
  • The emergence of profit maximization as a critical, perhaps pre-eminent, organizational objective, likely resulting from the logical culmination of capitalistic sensibilities affecting virtually all healthcare sectors
  • A robust emphasis on cost-saving efficiency measures that may have negatively impacted patient safety and the psychological welfare of healthcare providers.

The presentation will conclude with some comments on the challenges to health care delivery that machine learning applications in artificial intelligence models will present to the next generation of health care professionals.