Barely Covered: Underinsurance and Its Impact on Access to Care

March 23, 2016

Noon–1 p.m.
Instructional Building
72 East Concord Street
Hiebert Lounge
Live-Streaming Available During Event

Boston University School of Public Health’s Center for Health Law, Ethics & Human Rights presents the annual Cathy Shine lecture. The lectureship honors the memory of Cathy Shine and her dedication to the rights of all those in need of care.

Emily Friedman

Independent Health Policy and Ethics Analyst

Emily Friedman is an independent writer, lecturer, photographer, and health policy and ethics analyst based in Chicago. She is contributing editor of Hospitals & Health Networks and contributing writer for the Journal of the American Medical Association, Health Progress, and other periodicals. Friedman also writes a regular column for Hospitals & Health Networks Daily. She is most noted for her work in health policy, health care reform initiatives, rationing of health services, health care trends, insurance and coverage issues, the social ethics of health care, ethics issues for providers and leaders, care for the underserved, population health improvement, health care history, population demographics and their implications for health care, the lessons to be learned from international health care systems, and the relationship of society with its health care system.

Friedman has written more than 800 articles and editorials in the past 38 years. She is the editor of the books Making Choices: Ethics Issues for Health Care Professionals (American Hospital Publishing, 1986), Choices and Conflict: Explorations in Health Care Ethics (American Hospital Publishing, 1992), and An Unfinished Revolution: Women and Health Care in America (United Hospital Fund of New York, 1994). She authored The Aloha Way: Health Care Structure and Finance in Hawaii (Hawaii Medical Service Association, 1993) and The Right Thing: Ten Years of Ethics Columns from the Healthcare Forum Journal (Jossey-Bass, 1996). She has also written on health care for the World Book Encyclopedia Yearbook and the Encyclopedia of Bioethics. Among her current projects are a history of health care in the state of Minnesota; a long-term study on the rebuilding of the Cambodian health care system after its destruction in the 1970s; and an examination of attacks on hospitals, their staffs, and their patients around the world.

A prolific public speaker, she addresses audiences ranging from state legislators to allied health professionals to nursing and medical groups to community representatives to hospital and health system leaders and health care associations. She has also lectured at many universities, including Harvard, Princeton, the University of California–Berkeley, the University of California–San Diego, Ohio State, Yale, and the University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill. In 1987-1988, she was the Rockefeller Fellow in Ethics at Dartmouth College. She also serves as an adjunct assistant professor in the Department of Health Law, Policy, and Human Rights at SPH, which has repeatedly named her one of its highest-rated teachers She is a consultant on information dissemination to the Agency for Health Care Research and Quality, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

She has made numerous radio and television appearances, including on “ABC News Nightline” and National Public Radio shows.

She has won many awards and honors, including being named an honorary life member of the American Hospital Association, an honorary life member of the American Medical Association, a Fellow of Academy Health (formerly the Association for Health Services Research), and an honorary lifetime fellow of the American Academy of Medical Administrators. She has also received the Corning Award of the Society for Health Care Strategy and Market Development and the first Pioneer Award of the Colorado Hospital Association.

In addition, she has won many writing awards. In 2003, her column, “Making Choices,” in Health Forum Journal, won a National Award of Excellence from the American Society of Business Publication Editors (the largest competition in US business publishing), and the Gold Award from the American Society of Healthcare Publication Editors (the highest award that the Association grants).

In 2002, 2004, and again in 2006, the readers of Modern Healthcare named her as one of the 100 most powerful people in the health care field. In April 2005, the editors of Modern Healthcare chose her as one of the “Top 25 Women in Healthcare.” In January 2011, 2012, and again in 2014, she was named one of the “Top Five Speakers in Health Care” by Speaking.com.

She is an avid photographer with several record album and CD covers to her credit. Her other hobbies include writing poetry, ethnic cooking, hiking, and support and preservation of traditional folk music and culture.

Friedman is originally from Los Angeles. In l968 she received a BA degree in English, with honors, from the University of California–Berkeley.

(source http://www.emilyfriedman.com/)