"In health care, we often get bogged down in being technicians rather than storytellers."
Lanhee Chen, JD, PhD
The AAMC Research and Action Institute hosted an expert panel session on health policy at this year’s Learn Serve Lead 2023: The AAMC Annual Meeting. The conference brings together over 4,000 educators, students, residents, researchers, clinicians, administrators, and health system leaders to build professional connections, expand collaborations, and take part in thought-provoking discussions.
The session, entitled “We’re on a Highway to Health With a Broken GPS,” focused on pressing health policy topics from recent AAMC Research and Action Institute reports and helped the audience identify clear problems and viable federal policy solutions in U.S. health care amid a divided political system. In particular, the speakers discussed the defining issues in rural health care, the increased scrutiny of pharmacy benefit managers, how to ensure a health workforce for the future, and ways to improve mental health access.
“The biggest deficit we have in health care right now is one of trust.”
Sarah Dash, MPH
Atul Grover, MD, PhD, executive director of the AAMC Research and Action Institute, moderated the session alongside health policy experts Lanhee Chen, JD, PhD, and Sarah Dash, MPH. Chen is the David and Diane Steffy Fellow in American Public Policy Studies at the Hoover Institution, director of Domestic Policy Studies in the Public Policy Program, and lecturer in the Public Policy Program at Stanford University. Dash is the president and CEO of the Alliance for Health Policy and served as a senior aide on Capitol Hill and as a member of the research faculty at the Georgetown University Health Policy Institute’s Center on Health Insurance Reforms.