Our 2023 Health Policy Conference brought together more than 500 health policymakers to discuss how to foster greater collaboration between health care and population health to address worrisome indicators of American’s health and improve preparedness for a future health emergencies. Read more in our 2023 Health Policy Conference Round-up, coming out next week.

At the 2023 Health Policy Conference, Duke-Margolis launched a national survey to capture feedback on a proposed framework of health policy competencies for emerging health care leaders. The survey results will inform education and training programs and support workforce development within health policy. Duke-Margolis is seeking feedback from students, health policy professionals, and other stakeholders who have interest in health policy education and training.

Please share your perspectives via the survey here by June 23, 2023. Thank you!

The Future of Public Health: Public Health 3.0 and Accountable Population Health describes how developments in public health, and in biomedical innovation and health care that support “upstream” interventions, provide a foundation for re-energized partnerships to improve the health of communities. In defining the concept of “Accountable Population Health,” Duke-Margolis co-authors Mark McClellan, Beth Boyer, and Morgan Romine, together with former NC Secretary of Health and Human Services Mandy Cohen, suggest a pathway for local health care organizations and public health partnerships to make progress on key population health goals, and help enable public health agencies to focus resources on important challenges that prevention-oriented health care cannot address.

Informing Local Emergency Response Through Standard Health Care Data Reporting describes how standard electronic health care data can provide more timely and detailed local situational awareness in emergencies, with minimal additional burden for stretched health care organizations and public health agencies who must have good data to respond effectively. In particular, uniform Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) electronic reporting methods can enable rapid distribution of aggregated, deidentified data to inform public authorities and health care and emergency responders during a health-related emergency.

Framework for Disaster Preparedness and Response: Updated, co-authored by Duke-Margolis and the Healthcare Leadership Council (HLC), builds on recommendations made in the acute phase of the COVID-19 pandemic. The new report offers a comprehensive set of immediate actions to strengthen the United States’ ability to leverage biomedical innovations and health care capabilities to anticipate and respond to public health emergencies, including improving federal coordination and support, promoting supply chain resiliency, and increasing health system capacity. Read the full recommendations here.

Shortly after the publication of this updated report, the HLC hosted a webinar, “Forging Ahead: Disaster Readiness in 2023,” to discuss the newly-released recommendations on disaster readiness. Chief of Staff Morgan Romine spoke during this event.

Health Trust Initiative: Building Trust in Public Health—a summary by Duke-Margolis, the Duke Global Health Institute, and the Duke Global Health Innovation Center of the 2022 Bellagio Convening provides an overview of the emerging conceptual framework for trust in public health, a full cataloguing of the potential ideas and initiatives surfaced during discussion, and the three cornerstone initiatives that participants prioritized as worthy of further exploration and action post-Bellagio. Read it here.

Andrea Thoumi and Kamaria Kaalund co-authored a paper with the Duke Clinical Research Institute and the UNC Center for Health Equity Research to summarize evidence from Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics—Underserved Populations (RADx-UP) publications and offer policy recommendations to advance health equity through community health workers. The RADx-UP initiative was created by the National Institutes of Health to reduce inequities in COVID-19 testing, and provided funding for this study. Read the paper here.

Duke-Margolis and Third Horizon Strategies released an Opioid Abatement Needs and Investment (OANI) tool, with support from Elevance Health Foundation, to assist local, municipal, and state level leaders working to address the opioid epidemic in their communities. The interactive tool provides geographic-specific information on the potential need for opioid use disorder (OUD) treatment and recovery services and a locality’s capacity to meet that demand. The OANI tool is part of Duke-Margolis’ ongoing work to address the opioid and substance use crisis. To learn more about the tool, visit the project page here.

Duke-Margolis convened the North Carolina Executive Roundtable of executive leaders from health systems, Medicaid and commercial payers, and DHHS to discuss strategic aims for advancing health care transformation in North Carolina. The group discussed building on the momentum from Medicaid expansion, making progress on the goals of the NC State Transformation Collaborative, and exploring opportunities for behavioral health integration.

Brystana Kaufman, Aparna Higgins, Rebecca Whitaker, Don Taylor, Kate Bundorf, & Courtney Van Houtven co-authored “Health Care Use and Spending Among Need-Based Subgroups of Medicare Beneficiaries With Full Medicaid Benefits,” published on JAMA Health Forum and funded by Arnold Ventures. Lack of coordination between payment programs creates misaligned incentives, resulting in higher costs, fragmented care, and poor health outcomes for dual-eligible beneficiaries. The Medicare-Medicaid data linkage in this article provides insight into the health care use and spending for North Carolina’s dual-eligible population, which can help inform federal and state strategies to integrate care and improve the care experience for dual-eligible beneficiaries.

The article also contains an interview with Brystana to discuss the findings and impact of the study. Read the authors’ research and listen to the interview here.

Ethan Borre, Mohini Johri, Evan Myers, Osondu Ogbuoji, and Gillian Sanders-Schmidler co-authored an article, “Potential Clinical and Economic Outcomes of Over-the-Counter Hearing Aids in the US” to analyze the cost-effectiveness of over-the-counter hearing aids. The article was published in JAMA Otolaryngology—Head & Neck Surgery, and contains an interview with Ethan and Gillian to discuss the newly-expanded access to hearing aids. Read the article and listen to the interview here.

Alzheimer’s Disease Monoclonal Antibodies with Traditional Approval: Clarifying the Pathway for Medicare Postmarket Evidence Development and Use—Duke-Margolis issued a policy brief that explores options to generate evidence for Alzheimer’s disease (AD) amyloid-targeting monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) treatments—efficiently and in the least burdensome way—to answer key questions that may remain after traditional FDA approval is received. The report outlines three policy options for CMS coverage and ongoing evidence development, while providing appropriate evidence-based access to AD mAbs treatments after traditional FDA approval. Read the policy brief here.

This two-day event will illustrate challenges and opportunities in rare disease endpoint development, introduce stakeholders to the Rare Disease Endpoint Advancement (RDEA) Pilot Program, and highlight how the RDEA is structured to support sponsors who may encounter challenges with endpoint development. Workshop discussion will highlight challenges and opportunities of endpoint development, key features of the RDEA Pilot Program, and relevant learnings from other FDA pilot programs. This event is intended to serve as a resource for sponsors and other relevant stakeholders interested in learning how to engage with the FDA through this new venue.

Learn more and register here.

Innovative manufacturing technologies have the potential to improve the manufacture of pharmaceuticals and bring benefits to patients. This hybrid workshop will discuss regulatory strategies to support the utilization of innovative manufacturing technologies for drugs and biological products. Attend in person at the National Press Club in Washington, DC, or virtually via Zoom.

Learn more and register here.

Duke-Margolis convened Congressional and Federal policymakers, their advisors, and other stakeholders interested in addressing drug-resistant infections and antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in a discussion about the clinical and public health impact of drug-resistant infections and why policymakers are proposing new incentives for novel antimicrobials. Expert speakers highlighted the current and future threat of drug-resistant infections and antimicrobial resistance, market uncertainties that complicate antimicrobial development and commercialization, and existing and proposed incentives for novel antimicrobials, including the PASTEUR Act. Watch the convening here.

The 2023 Summer interns have arrived! Interns will participate in various professional activities throughout the summer and wrap up the program at the Duke Summer Research Showcase on July 28. To learn more about this summer’s interns, check out the Margolis SumX Overview Booklet.

Core Faculty member Barak Richman and Advisory Board member Frederick Isasi both testified before the US Ways & Means Health Subcommittee at a recent hearing on “Why Health Care is Unaffordable: Anticompetitive and Consolidated Markets.” Barak emphasized the unsustainable prices of health care, which stem from the price of monopolies in the health market. Frederick addressed the consolidation of hospital systems and insurance providers as a leading cause for the unaffordability of health care. Both witnesses urged Federal lawmakers to consider legislation that would remedy the problem of monopolies. Read their statements and watch the hearing recording here.

More than 30,000 AARP members tuned in to a interview with Director Mark McClellan and a discussion of the new COVID variant, Arcturus,. Learn more about this highly-infectious variant in the video. AARP also wrote an article on the end of the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency (PHE), quoting Mark from their Tele-Town Hall. Mark emphasized that COVID-19 is here to stay and new variants like Arcturus will continue to spread. The end of the PHE is not a signal to the end of the virus, but rather affects how COVID-19 testing and treatment is paid for—and who pays for it.

Mark moderated a session at the Milken Institute’s Global Conference to discuss the balance between medical innovation and access to the products of that innovation in “Innovation Versus Access to Medicines: Can We Have Both?” This session fed into the conference’s overall theme, “Advancing a Thriving World,” and fostered conversation on key issues in modern health, technology, and economics. Learn more about the conference and watch recordings here.

Mark was the keynote speaker at the University of Pennsylvania Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics (Penn LDI)’s conference, “A Prescription for the Future of Drug Pricing.” Mark discussed the Inflation Reduction Act and its impact on drug prices—learn more about the conference here.

Mark also spoke at a session on Drug Approval Process at the Stanford Drug Discovery Symposium. The symposium is designed to bring together interdisciplinary perspectives to discuss drug research, particularly around novel drug development. Learn more here.

Core Faculty member Barak Richman was quoted in a North Carolina Health News article, “Proposed bill could give UNC Health a green light to expand without as much oversight.” The bill would declare UNC Health a state agent and exempt the system from state antitrust laws. Barak notes the effect this legislation could have on smaller hospitals. Read the article here.

Barak also commented on the power of pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) in a Kaiser Family Foundation Health News article: “PBMs, the brokers who control drug prices, finally get Washington’s attention.” Read more about the impact of PBMs on drug costs here.

Barak was also the runner-up to receive this year’s MSQM:HA Award for Innovation and Excellence in Teaching from Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business. Congratulations, Barak!

Core Faculty member Steven Patierno received a Distinguished Professorship award, and is now a Charles D. Watts Distinguished Professor of Medicine. Distinguished Professorships are awarded to faculty scholars at Duke who have “achieved distinction as creative scholars in their field or in their ability to transcend disciplines.” Learn more here.

Andrea Thoumi received an honorable mention for the Alice S. Hersh Emerging Leader Award, which recognizes “professionals early in their career who show exceptional promise for future contributions to the field of health services research.” Andrea was nominated for her role as a mentor and leader in health equity at Duke-Margolis, her service and engagement with community partners, and her ability to create partnerships within the industry and community.

Congratulations, Andrea!

Research Director Rachele Hendricks-Sturrup spoke at ISPOR’s 2023 RWE Summit. The event built off collaborations between ISPOR and Duke-Margolis, including the RWE Transparency Initiative, to address issues that are critical to advancing real-world evidence (RWE) policy. Rachele moderated a session on data quality, highlighting recent data quality frameworks, developments in validation, and important aspects around data quality measures. Learn more about the Summit here.

David Anderson published an article in the North Carolina Medical Journal on the importance of trust and simplification in health care transformation. The article, “Enhancing Trust During Complex Health Care Transformation,” stresses that widespread adoption of alternative payment models requires trust. Transformation can be stalled if there is substantial political pushback, which may be induced by fear and mistrust. Read the article here.

Core Faculty member Adrian Hernandez discusses the potential of exercise-based interventions for Long COVID patients in The Washington Post’s article, “An exercise trial for long covid is being criticized by some patients.” He emphasizes the need for further research on using exercise to treat Long COVID symptoms, but says that it may hold potential for some people. Read both sides of the argument 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.