Duke-Margolis was established in 2016 through a $16.5 million gift from the family foundation established by Robert J. Margolis and Lisa Margolis. Their new gift of $10 million will leverage and extend the Center’s work to improve health, health equity, and the value of health care through practical, innovative, and evidence-based policy solutions.

The gift will create a permanent, unrestricted endowment for Duke-Margolis that will support ou4refforts and encourage other donors to help expand support to the Center. As an incentive to donors, each new endowment established for Duke-Margolis will be matched by the Margolis Family Foundation.

“Bob and Lisa’s visionary leadership and generous support have enabled Duke to become a leader in shaping national health policy,” said Duke University President Vincent E. Price. “We are very grateful for this gift, which will advance the Duke-Margolis Center’s work to improve health and equity through innovative policy solutions.”

Duke-Margolis has established its reputation as a leading force for advancing health policy, and state and national leaders in the public and private sectors regularly seek the Center’s counsel when addressing health care challenges. Gifts such as this one will fuel new and existing research, advancing Duke-Margolis work to create a stronger, more equitable health care system at every level.

“Creating a world where everyone has access to innovative health care to enable them to thrive is a dream we hope to see in our own lifetime, and we know we can make progress together,” Robert Margolis said. “We invite our Duke community of alumni, donors, and friends to work with us to make this a reality.”

Michael Pignone, MPH, MD will be join Duke-Margolis and Duke Health in several important leadership roles as of November 1st. Currently a Duke-Margolis Visiting Fellow, Mike has had a long, engaged relationship with the Center and our commitment to advancing value-based care and health care transformation.

With a primary faculty appointment with the School of Medicine’s Department of Medicine, and a secondary appointment in the Department of Population Health Sciences, Mike will be the new Duke-Margolis Faculty Director for Primary Care Transformation and Innovation and serve on the Faculty Executive Committee.

In his new roles as Vice Chair for Quality and Innovation in the Department of Medicine, and Faculty Director for Primary Care Transformation and Innovation at Duke-Margolis, Mike will make possible a new level of activity across Duke-Margolis and Duke Health to advance primary care and population health locally, across North Carolina, and more broadly. Mike’s work will complement and extend Duke-Margolis’ existing leadership in research and implementation in primary care transformation through our health care transformation portfolio.

In addition, Mike will further his research focus on cancer screening, particularly for colorectal cancer, as the Director for Cancer Screening Equity in the Duke Cancer Institute. Mike joins Duke from The University of Texas at Austin Dell Medical School where he serves as the inaugural chair for the Department of Internal Medicine, holds the Dr. Lowell Henry Lebermann Endowed Chair in Internal Medicine, and is co-director of the program on Cancer Prevention and Control at Livestrong Cancer Institutes.

Duke-Margolis published a comment letter that responded to the federal government’s request for information surrounding drug shortages. The letter offered recommendations to address current drug shortages and provided framework to minimize the impact and severity of future shortages. The letter builds off previous Duke-Margolis work, including its recently launched Drug Supply Chain Resilience and Advanced Manufacturing Consortium. Read the comment letter here.

Duke-Margolis researchers Kristen Ukeomah, Mark Japinga, Nitzan Arad, Christina Bush, Frank McStay, and Rob Saunders co-authored an article, “How Value-Based Payment Can Improve Drug Spending, Utilization, and Equity,” in To the Point, a blog by The Commonwealth Fund. The authors share the benefits of incorporating medications into value-based payment models, as well as challenges that continue to prevent their inclusion. Read more about the issue here.

Duke-Margolis researchers Jonathan Gonzalez-Smith, Montgomery Smith, Robert Saunders, and Mark McClellan, in collaboration with partners from the Future of Health, co-authored “Advancing the Future of ‘Care Without an Address’: Recommendations from International Health Care Leaders” on NJEM Catalyst. The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the shift of care globally from the traditional institutional-based settings to meet patients where they are. The authors discussed how health systems can transition away from traditional institutional-based care and toward “Care Without an Address,” a shift toward holistic, comprehensive, and coordinated care that reaches any patient regardless of their location. Read more here.

Telemedicine and e-Health published “Describing Perspectives of Telehealth and the Impact on Equity in Access to Health Care from Community and Provider Perspectives: A Multimethod Analysis,” a paper co-authored by Duke-Margolis researchers and students Yolande Pokam Tchuisseu, Samantha Repka, Karina Vasudeva, Cynthia Dong, and Rebecca Whitaker, and funded by the Kate B. Reynolds Trust. The paper described community and provider perspectives on telehealth and its impact on equity in access to health care, outlining policy recommendations to further improve equitable access to care. This research is part of a larger project from Duke-Margolis; read more about the project here, or access the article here.

Brianna Van Stekelenburg, Rebecca Whitaker, Rob Saunders, and Mark McClellan co-authored, "North Carolina’s Bipartisan Path To Medicaid Expansion: The Role Of Accountable Care," published on Health Affairs Forefront. The authors discuss the factors that led to bipartisan support of Medicaid expansion in North Carolina, and how other states can follow this example to foster bipartisan dialogue and further their health care reform efforts. Read the article here.

Agency IQ featured Duke-Margolis' event, Advancing Representative Enrollment in Clinical Trials in their FDA Today newsletter. The event included speakers from the FDA, who shared updates on current guidances in development to advance representation in clinical trials. Participants discussed the challenges of measuring representation, and opportunities to advance representative enrollment.

Duke-Margolis Assistant Research Director Stephen Colvill was an invited participant at the Office of Science and Technology Policy’s Cancer Drug Shortages Roundtable event at the White House. He joined approximately 20 other drug supply chain stakeholders to discuss potential federal government approaches to strengthen resilience in the drug supply chain.

Research Director Will Bleser was invited to attend the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts’ Equity Technical Methods retreat. The retreat centered on ideas for designing and implementing a “pay for equity” value-based payment program, and attendees learned about the fundamentals of race, ethnicity, and language data as well as how those data may be integrated into a value-based payment program.

Duke-Margolis hosted a public meeting that explored challenges to achieving representative enrollment in clinical trials. Duke-Margolis core faculty, researchers, and post-docs, joined leaders in clinical research and health equity to synthesize best practices and identify policy levers for achieving measurable change to improve clinical trial conduct. The discussions focused on critically examining actionable steps various stakeholders can take to advance the mission of representative trial enrollment.

Learn more and watch the recording here.

The Duke Summer Research Showcase brought together students from a variety of programs across Duke to present their work. Among those students were Duke-Margolis summer interns, who have been conducting health policy research over the past few months with the help of their mentors. Their poster presentations served as the culmination of their internship and displayed the knowledge and experience they have gained in the field of health policy.

The showcase was presented by the Duke Undergraduate Research Support Office and the Duke Office of Undergraduate Research as part of their ongoing efforts to promote student research.

Participating programs:

Read the abstract book here.

We are excited to announce our 2023-2024 incoming Scholars cohort of 2023-2024, which includes 16 new students spanning from undergraduate, graduate, and medical school programs. They will join our current Scholars to learn the necessary knowledge, skills, and abilities to become the next generation of health care leaders. Read more about our Scholars program here.

Core Faculty member Rushina Cholera has been appointed Executive Director of NC Integrated Care for Kids (NC InCK). NC InCK is a pilot launched through a partnership between Duke, NC Department of Health and Human Services and UNC Health that aims to improve care integration and quality for Medicaid-enrolled children in five central North Carolina counties. The model was launched in 2022 and will run through 2026 with funding from the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. Rushina steps into this role as previous NC InCK Executive Director and Duke-Margolis Core Faculty Member Charlene Wong transitions to a new role at the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Rushina emphasized the connection between a family’s financial stability and their overall health in a St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s article that addressed cost-cutting by St. Louis families to afford diapers. Families “are not able to spend any extra money on things that can relieve stress, which may relieve the mental health concerns that are so prevalent right now,” Rushina said. “(This) may not seem like a necessity but, for the health of families, we’re always encouraging that families spend time together.” Read the article here.

Core Faculty member Frank Wharam co-authored a JAMA article, “The Increasing Adoption of Out-of-Pocket Cost Caps: Benefits, Unintended Consequences, and Policy Opportunities” to discuss a potential solution to high of out-of-pocket health care costs. Read his policy recommendations for improving the cost cap system here.

Assistant Research Director Frank McStay discussed the opioid crisis in an article from The Assembly: “A New Era in the War on Drugs.” The story discusses the debate over how to best address the opioid crisis in North Carolina through settlement funds, an issue that Frank and his team at Duke-Margolis have been working to address through the new Opioid Abatement Needs and Investment Tool. Read the article here.

Hamodia interviewed Core Faculty member David Ridley for their article, “In Short Supply—America’s Drug Shortage Problem,” where he discusses the causes and potential actions the government and pharmaceutical manufacturers can take to combat drug shortages. Read his thoughts here, and learn more about Duke-Margolis’ work to advance the supply chain here.

Research Associate Mark Japinga spoke at the final session of the Health Care Payment Learning and Action Network’s Spring Series. The third installment in this series centered on the State Transformation Collaboratives’ (STCs) Multi-Payer Alignment Blueprint, Mark presented elements of a multi-payer framework to achieve cross-state alignment. He emphazied key points from the Duke-Margolis report, “A Path Forward for Multipayer Alignment to Achieve Comprehensive, Equitable, and Affordable Care.” Learn more about the event here.

The Evidence Base interviewed Director Mark McClellan to hear his thoughts on the Inflation Reduction Act and its impact on real-world evidence. The video was part of a series that engages leaders in the field of real-world evidence to discuss current issues. Watch it here.

Mark commented on Duke-Margolis work with newly installed CDC Director Mandy Cohen in the STAT article, “In N.C., Mandy Cohen built bridges to GOP. Can she find consensus as new CDC director?” Duke-Margolis often worked with Mandy in the past, most recently on a paper on the path toward achieving accountable population health. Read STAT’s article here.

Do you want to be part of health policy in action? Do you want to work on the leading health policy issues confronting cities, states, the nation, and the globe? The Duke-Margolis team is a dynamic, high impact national leader in leveraging policy to ensure high quality, affordable care for all. Multiple positions are currently available with new ones added frequently. Click here to view all of our career opportunities.