Ezekiel J. Emanuel

Ezekiel J. Emanuel
  • Diane v.S. Levy and Robert M. Levy University Professor
  • Professor of Health Care Management
  • Professor of Medical Ethics and Health Policy in the Perelman School of Medicine

Contact Information

  • office Address:

    122 College Hall
    Philadelphia, PA

Links: CV, Personal Website

Overview

Ezekiel J. Emanuel is the Vice Provost for Global Initiatives, the Diane v.S. Levy and Robert M. Levy University Professor, and Co-Director of the Healthcare Transformation Institute at the University of Pennsylvania. From January 2009 to January 2011, Dr. Emanuel served as a Special Advisor on Health Policy to the Director of the Office of Management and Budget and National Economic Council.  Prior to that he was the founding chair of the Department of Bioethics at the National Institutes of Health from 1997 to August of 2011. Dr. Emanuel received his M.D. from Harvard Medical School and his Ph.D. in political philosophy from Harvard University. After completing his internship and residency in internal medicine at Boston’s Beth Israel Hospital and his oncology fellowship at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, he joined the faculty at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. He has since been a visiting professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, UCLA, the Brin Professor at Johns Hopkins Medical School, and the Kovitz Professor at Stanford Medical School and visiting professor at New York University Law School. Dr. Emanuel served on President Clinton’s Health Care Task Force, the National Bioethics Advisory Commission (NBAC), and on the bioethics panel of the Pan-American Healthcare Organization. He has published over 300 articles mainly on health care reform, research ethics, and end of life care.  He has also authored or edited 15 books.

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Research

Teaching

Current Courses

  • BIOE5750 - Health Care Reform And The Future Of The American Health Care System

    This course provides students with a rigorous understanding of the current American health care system and how it is likely to evolve over the next decade. The course will focus on six topics: 1) the development of the current health care system; 2) challenges of health care costs, quality, and access; 3) lessons of previous attempts to reform the system including the Affordable Care Act (ACA); 4) analysis of current policies regarding provider payment, technology, and electronic health records and how various sectors (e.g. public health and hospitals) are evolving in the current system; 5) drug pricing and potential strategies for reform, and 6) future megatrends in American health care system. Throughout the course, lessons will integrate basic health economics, history, health policy, and politics to elucidate key principles for understanding the health care system. The course will also examine at least one other country’s health system for comparison. The course will end with a consideration of the long-term outlook for the structure of the US health system and potential reform. Numerous expert guest speakers will give their perspectives throughout the semester.

    BIOE5750401

  • HCIN6000 - The American Health Care System

    The American health care system is a product of its history and of policy decisions made in doctors' offices, boardrooms, and congressional committee chambers over many decades—and presents opportunities for innovation. This course examines the structure and economics of health care financing and delivery in the United States, including private health insurance, Medicare, telehealth, and behavioral health; surveys the present structure of the American health care system and the history of efforts to reform health care at the federal level; and evaluates efforts to reform payment, expand access, and improve the quality of health care services. Lectures and interviews by active experts address successful policy change in health care, being a policy advocate, and proposing innovations to address needs within the health care system. You will draft a policy memo that analyzes an exigent challenge and offers a strong recommendation for a policy innovation to inform and persuade a decision-maker of your choice.

    HCIN6000001

    HCIN6000002

  • HCMG2500 - Health Care Reform And The Future Of The American Health Care System

    This course provides students with a rigorous understanding of the current American health care system and how it is likely to evolve over the next decade. The course will focus on six topics: 1) the development of the current health care system; 2) challenges of health care costs, quality, and access; 3) lessons of previous attempts to reform the system including the Affordable Care Act (ACA); 4) analysis of current policies regarding provider payment, technology, and electronic health records and how various sectors (e.g. public health and hospitals) are evolving in the current system; 5) drug pricing and potential strategies for reform, and 6) future megatrends in American health care system. Throughout the course, lessons will integrate basic health economics, history, health policy, and politics to elucidate key principles for understanding the health care system. The course will also examine at least one other country’s health system for comparison. The course will end with a consideration of the long-term outlook for the structure of the US health system and potential reform. Numerous expert guest speakers will give their perspectives throughout the semester.

    HCMG2500401 ( Syllabus )

  • HCMG8500 - Health Care Reform And The Future Of The American Health Care System

    This course provides students with a rigorous understanding of the current American health care system and how it is likely to evolve over the next decade. The course will focus on six topics: 1) the development of the current health care system; 2) challenges of health care costs, quality, and access; 3) lessons of previous attempts to reform the system including the Affordable Care Act (ACA); 4) analysis of current policies regarding provider payment, technology, and electronic health records and how various sectors (e.g. public health and hospitals) are evolving in the current system; 5) drug pricing and potential strategies for reform, and 6) future megatrends in American health care system. Throughout the course, lessons will integrate basic health economics, history, health policy, and politics to elucidate key principles for understanding the health care system. The course will also examine at least one other country’s health system for comparison. The course will end with a consideration of the long-term outlook for the structure of the US health system and potential reform. Numerous expert guest speakers will give their perspectives throughout the semester.

    HCMG8500401 ( Syllabus )

  • PSCI3992 - How Washington Works (snf Paideia Program Course)

    Consult the political science department or Paideia program for detailed descriptions. More than one course make be taken in a given semester.

    PSCI3992001

Past Courses

  • BIOE5650 - Rationing

    You have one liver but three patients awaiting a liver transplant. Who should get the liver? What criteria should be used to select the recipient? Is it fair to give it to an alcoholic? These are some of the questions that arise in the context of rationing and allocating scarce health care resources among particular individuals, and concern what are called micro-allocation decisions. But trade-offs also need to be made at the meso- and macro-level. Budgets of public payers of healthcare, such as governments, and of private ones, such as health plans, are limited: they cannot cover all drugs and services that appear beneficial to patients or physicians. So what services should they provide? Is there a core set of benefits that everyone should be entitled to? If so, by what process should we determine these? How can we make fair decisions, if we know from the outset than not all needs can be met? Using the cases of organs for transplantation, the rationing for vaccines in a flu pandemic, and drug shortages, the course will critically examine alternative theories for allocating scarce resources among individuals. Using both the need to establish priorities for global health aid and to define an essential benefit package for health insurance, the course will critically examine diverse theories for allocation decisions, including cost-effectiveness analysis, age-based rationing and accountability for reasonableness.

  • BIOE5750 - Health Care Reform

    This course provides students with a rigorous understanding of the current American health care system and how it is likely to evolve over the next decade. The course will focus on six topics: 1) the development of the current health care system; 2) challenges of health care costs, quality, and access; 3) lessons of previous attempts to reform the system including the Affordable Care Act (ACA); 4) analysis of current policies regarding provider payment, technology, and electronic health records and how various sectors (e.g. public health and hospitals) are evolving in the current system; 5) drug pricing and potential strategies for reform, and 6) future megatrends in American health care system. Throughout the course, lessons will integrate basic health economics, history, health policy, and politics to elucidate key principles for understanding the health care system. The course will also examine at least one other country’s health system for comparison. The course will end with a consideration of the long-term outlook for the structure of the US health system and potential reform. Numerous expert guest speakers will give their perspectives throughout the semester.

  • BIOE5900 - Ethics in Mental Healthcare

    Mental healthcare spans disciplines including psychiatry, psychology, and clinical social work, each presenting bioethical challenges. These range from somewhat common issues like informed consent in research and therapy, assessing patient competence, and clinical professionalism. More complex challenges include managing involuntary treatment, interfacing with the criminal justice system, conducting high-risk research with individuals who have a serious mental illness, psychedelic treatment and research, maintaining physical and emotional boundaries, and addressing and learning the history of systemic racism in psychiatry. To examine these topics in detail, this course will begin with an introduction to the philosophy of psychiatry. Students will become conversant in bioethical theories and methods, enabling them to critically analyze complex cases in mental healthcare ethics.

  • HCIN6000 - American Health Care System

    The American health care system is a product of its history and of policy decisions made in doctors' offices, boardrooms, and congressional committee chambers over many decades—and presents opportunities for innovation. This course examines the structure and economics of health care financing and delivery in the United States, including private health insurance, Medicare, telehealth, and behavioral health; surveys the present structure of the American health care system and the history of efforts to reform health care at the federal level; and evaluates efforts to reform payment, expand access, and improve the quality of health care services. Lectures and interviews by active experts address successful policy change in health care, being a policy advocate, and proposing innovations to address needs within the health care system. You will draft a policy memo that analyzes an exigent challenge and offers a strong recommendation for a policy innovation to inform and persuade a decision-maker of your choice.

  • HCIN6170 - Leading Change in Health Care

    There has been no shortage of recommendations from executives, consultants, and self-declared experts on how to improve health care. Yet health care systems still struggle with problems of cost, quality, and access—not to mention high employee turnover and provider burnout. Across the country, however, we have seen successes with innovative practices related to care coordination and standardization, the expansion of community health and palliative care, and new models of behavioral health. Through lectures, conversations with health care leaders, and your own investigations, we will explore the elements that have facilitated those successes. Topics include: · Leading innovation and organizational transformation. · Facilitating a culture of inclusivity and engagement. · Leveraging data. · Aligning incentives. · Implementing transformation. Through these topics, we will gain insights into why efforts at organizational transformation succeed. We will learn techniques to apply these insights at every level of an organization. At the end of the course, you will come away with a set of strategies for implementing innovation and transformation in your professional setting.

  • HCMG2500 - Health Care Reform

    This course provides students with a rigorous understanding of the current American health care system and how it is likely to evolve over the next decade. The course will focus on six topics: 1) the development of the current health care system; 2) challenges of health care costs, quality, and access; 3) lessons of previous attempts to reform the system including the Affordable Care Act (ACA); 4) analysis of current policies regarding provider payment, technology, and electronic health records and how various sectors (e.g. public health and hospitals) are evolving in the current system; 5) drug pricing and potential strategies for reform, and 6) future megatrends in American health care system. Throughout the course, lessons will integrate basic health economics, history, health policy, and politics to elucidate key principles for understanding the health care system. The course will also examine at least one other country’s health system for comparison. The course will end with a consideration of the long-term outlook for the structure of the US health system and potential reform. Numerous expert guest speakers will give their perspectives throughout the semester.

  • HCMG8500 - Health Care Reform

    This course provides students with a rigorous understanding of the current American health care system and how it is likely to evolve over the next decade. The course will focus on six topics: 1) the development of the current health care system; 2) challenges of health care costs, quality, and access; 3) lessons of previous attempts to reform the system including the Affordable Care Act (ACA); 4) analysis of current policies regarding provider payment, technology, and electronic health records and how various sectors (e.g. public health and hospitals) are evolving in the current system; 5) drug pricing and potential strategies for reform, and 6) future megatrends in American health care system. Throughout the course, lessons will integrate basic health economics, history, health policy, and politics to elucidate key principles for understanding the health care system. The course will also examine at least one other country’s health system for comparison. The course will end with a consideration of the long-term outlook for the structure of the US health system and potential reform. Numerous expert guest speakers will give their perspectives throughout the semester.

  • HCMG8900 - Advanced Study Project

    HCMG 8900-001: This course examines issues related to the Services Sector of the health care industry. For those interested in management, investing, or banking in the health care industry, the services sector will likely be the largest and most dynamic sector within all of health care. We will study key management issues related to a number of different health care services businesses with a focus on common challenges related to reimbursement, regulatory, margin, growth, and competitive issues. We will look at a number of different businesses and subsectors that may have been unfamiliar to students prior to taking the course. We will make extensive use of outside speakers, many of whom are true industry leaders within different sectors of the health care services industry. Speakers will address the current management issues they face in running their businesses as well as discuss the career decisions and leadership styles that enables them to reach the top of their profession. Students will be asked to develop a plan to both buy out and manage a specific health care services business of their choosing and will present their final plans to a panel of leading Health Care Private Equity investors who will evaluate their analysis. Prerequisites: HCMG 8410. Health Care Management MBA majors only

  • HCMG8990 - Independent Study

    Arranged with members of the Faculty of the Health Care Systems Department. For further information contact the Department office, Room 204, Colonial Penn Center, 3641 Locust Walk, 898-6861.

  • PHIL1180 - Franklin and His World

    Benjamin Franklin was a preternaturally talented Renaissance man. He was a world-famous scientist whose insights into electricity are still relevant today; a leading citizen and civic leader; a first-class printer who helped define and expand the world of letters; a preeminent journalist, essayist, and aphorist; a skilled politician and diplomat. His tremendous legacy of political, cultural, scientific and civic organizations continues to influence his city and his country. His Autobiography is an essential feature of the American literary canon. But Benjamin Franklin's life also raises deep and disturbing questions for students. He owned slaves and profited from the sale of enslaved persons. He copied and reworked many of his most famous phrases. His sexual habits and behavior are incompatible with the character of the "Me Too" era. He broke promises, circulating - knowing they would become public- personal letters of great political import, which he had pledged to keep private. Through examining Franklin's life, we will consider weighty questions in history, citizenship, ethics, and science. This course will explore the life and ethos of Benjamin Franklin. We will study the history of the 18th century, including the American Revolution, the details of Franklin's life and accomplishments, and six major ethical issues he confronted. Over the course, students will follow Franklin's own advice for establishing order in life. Students will keep a detailed moral diary modeled on Franklin's. For a 5-day period, students will emulate the diet he had as a young and low-paid-adult. The course will encourage students to critically examine the 18th Century, the "great man" theory, and the ability to make moral evaluation of people living in other times. They will critically examine the relevance of the life of a world historical figure for how to lead their own civically engaged, ethical life.

  • PSCI3991 - Selected Topics

    Consult department for detailed descriptions. More than one course may be taken in a given semester. Recent titles have included: Sustainable Environmental Policy & Global Politics; Shakespeare and Political Theory.

  • PSCI3992 - Selected Topics in SNF Paideia

    Consult the political science department or Paideia program for detailed descriptions. More than one course make be taken in a given semester.

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Amol Navathe, Ezekiel J. Emanuel, Atheendar S. Venkataramani, Qian Huang, Atul Gupta, Claire T. Dinh, Eric Z. Shan... et al. (2020), Spending And Quality After Three Years Of Medicare’s Voluntary Bundled Payment For Joint Replacement Surgery, Health Affairs, 39 (1), pp. 58-66.
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