Title: Remembering Barbara Starfield, MD, MPH
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Section/SPIG: Health Administration
Issue Date:
Dr. Barbara Starfield is best known for the stunning re-emergence of primary care that has produced demonstration programs in nearly every state in the country. But for many years, pediatrician Dr. Barbara Starfield was one of the few people doing research on children’s health services and tackling the question of how to reduce inequalities in child health. Her work on this subject was also groundbreaking. Dr. Starfield and her work were remembered at the annual Health Services Research update session held late Monday afternoon at the Grand Hyatt.
Dr. Starfield served on the Institute of Medicine Committee that published Children’s Health, the Nation’s Wealth in 2004. Pediatrician Christopher Forrest will speak of the seminal work she did to conceptualize children’s health and health outcomes, which had a formative influence on how we think about care for all children. Her work stimulated a broader, person-oriented view of the child that led to the IOM Report.
Martin Sepulveda, MD, from IBM will describe the impact her later work had on private sector employers in generating support for a health system that rests on a strong primary care foundation. She compared countries of the world for their health outcomes including patient satisfaction and their primary care attributes. Countries with better primary care systems had better outcomes and better satisfaction at lower costs. Dynamic leaders have taken that message and are instigating change.
She passed away this summer in the eighth decade of her extraordinary life at the age of 79.
Mona Sarfaty, MC Section Chair