Distinguished policy experts will be panelists at two courses at Internal Medicine 2009 discussing health care reform and comparative effectiveness.

New Ideas for Reforming the U.S. Health Care System: What Can Be Done to Improve Access, Quality, and Efficiency of Care (PN 034) will feature national health policy experts Ken Thorpe, Ph.D and Cathy Schoen, M.S. Dr. Thorpe is the Woodruff Professor & Chair of the Department of Health Policy & Management at Emory University. He is also co-chair of the Partnership to Fight Chronic Disease, a coalition to raise awareness of the rising rates of chronic disease. Cathy Schoen is senior vice president for Research and Evaluation at the Commonwealth Fund. She is also the research director for the Commonwealth Fund Commission on a High Performance Health System. At the session they will present a timely and in-depth discussion about the public policy issues that are most important to internists.

The Physician's Dilemma: Patient's Advocate vs. Society's Healthcare Steward (PN 018) will examine the issue of comparative effectiveness from the practice, health care policy and ethical perspectives. ACP policy emphasizes use of comparative effectiveness data to ensure the most effective and efficient use of limited healthcare resources, however this position highlights the dilemma the practicing physician faces in meeting the needs of their patients while meeting their duty as a steward of finite health care resources. The panelists for this course include, Carolyn Clancy, MD, MACP, director of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality; Faith Fitzgerald, MD, MACP, assistant dean of humanities and Bioethics at University of California, Davis; and Hal Sox, MD, MACP, editor of the Annals of Internal Medicine. Dr. Sox has also recently been appointed the chair of the Institute of Medicine's Committee of Comparative Effectiveness and will be giving the keynote speech at the opening ceremony of Internal Medicine 2009.

The courses will take place Thursday and Saturday of the meeting being held April 23 to 25 in Philadelphia.

Other policy related courses at the meeting include; The First (and Next) 100 Days: What the New President Has Achieved on Health Care Reformand Plans to Do Next (PN 033). This course will discuss what the new administration has accomplished so far on health care reform, what is coming up, and how their priorities align with the College's. Also on the schedule is History of Politics in American Medicine (MTP 112). This course will discuss the dominant health policy issues from colonial days to today; and what lessons we can learn from history to guide medicine's future involvement in the political process.

Information about all of the above courses and about registering for Internal Medicine 2009 can be found on ACP's website.