The Health Summit at Sundance Discusses Patient Safety, Workforce, & Long-Term Care Challenges

Many of the nation's leading thinkers and pioneers in health care gathered once again in Salt Lake City for The Health Summit at Sundance. This closed-door gathering provides an opportunity for off-the-record dialogue and novel thinking to develop solutions for emerging and long-standing systemic healthcare issues in the United States. The Jewish Healthcare Foundation President and CEO Karen Wolk Feinstein, PhD participated as a moderator and a participant in two panels over the course of the four-day Summit, helping to advance insight into problems facing the long-term care, patient safety, and workforce sectors.

During the third day of the Summit, Dr. Feinstein participated in a panel on "Designing for healthy aging and long-term care." The panel was moderated by Terry Fulmer, PhD, RN, FAAN, president of The John A. Hartford Foundation, and included John Eu-Li Wong, MD, Isabel Chan Professor in Medical Sciences and Senior Vice President of Health Innovation & Translation at the National University of Singapore. Dr. Feinstein highlighted the unique challenges faced by aging women, including dramatic inequities and the insurance inadequacies of Medicaid and Medicare.

In the concluding panel of the Summit, Dr. Feinstein moderated "Designing better systems for health care" with panelists Pamela Peele, PhD, Vice President of Health Economics at UPMC and Associate Professor of Health Economics, Health Policy and Management at the University of Pittsburgh; LaQuandra Nesbitt, MD, MPH, Director of the District of Columbia Department of Health in Washington, DC; and Clay Johnston, MD, PhD, former dean of the Dell Medical School at The University of Texas at Austin. Dr. Feinstein opened the conversation highlighting the current crisis within patient safety and the work to establish a National Patient Safety Board. The conversation focused on solutions and the transformation that is required to design a health system that is more equitable and effective at providing safer care for all.