Emily Friedman

Emily Friedman is one of America’s most respected healthcare policy analysts and ethicists, known for her independent, incisive analysis of the forces shaping American medicine. She serves as contributing editor for Hospitals and Health Networks and as a contributing writer for the Journal of the American Medical Association, among other publications.

A Fearless Independent Voice in Healthcare

Friedman has spent decades analyzing the ethical dilemmas, policy challenges, and economic realities confronting the American healthcare system. She is based in Chicago and has served as a faculty member and speaker for healthcare organizations, medical schools, and policy forums nationwide. Her writing and speaking are known for their intellectual rigor, moral clarity, and unwillingness to accept easy answers to complex problems. She has been recognized as one of the most influential voices in healthcare journalism and ethics.

Cutting Through Complexity to What Matters

Friedman’s independence sets her apart in a field dominated by industry-funded research and political rhetoric. She brings deep expertise spanning healthcare financing, medical ethics, health policy reform, and the uninsured. Her keynotes deliver expert analysis of healthcare policy and its real-world implications, the ethical challenges facing modern medicine, creating more equitable healthcare systems, and the economic and moral forces that will shape the future of American healthcare.

Health Care Reform: Pitfalls and Possibilities

It’s been 15 years since the failure of the Clinton health plan – it’s time to go at it again. There are many issues, an equal number of proposals, and several unasked, and thus unanswered, questions. Whose plan will win out? Will Congress pass it? How might it be implemented? Who will get coverage, and at what price? What will the public-private interface look like? Who will win and who will lose? Will something major really happen this time and, if so, what? And what will its impact be?

Forces Reshaping Health Care

While the health care reform debate rages and people from every point of view promise major change, the fact is that other forces are already reshaping the health care system:

-Profound changes in the demographics of society and patient populations
-Restructuring of medical and nursing practice and the relationship of hospitals with health care professionals
-A growing consumerism among patients
-More forceful initiatives to improve health care quality and patient safety
-State efforts to achieve major system change whether the federal government is able to do so or not
-Shifts in health care technology and how it is used
-Unforeseen events that can throw a wrench into everyone’s planning

No matter what happens in Washington, these forces are at work, and will continue to be at work. How is this impacting our health care system today and what does it mean for the future?

Leadership Ethics in an Unethical Age

The last decade has coughed up more scandals – within and outside of health care – than anyone cares to think about. One result of this has been a much more jaded view on the part of the public and policymakers of the ethics of leaders of major organizations. Conflicts of interest, shady accounting, misleading of investors and donors, and unacceptable personal behavior have made life difficult for managers, executives, and trustees alike. What should the ethical standards be? How can leaders deal with problems when they emerge? How can public trust be reestablished?