ABSTRACT:
Every country is seeking  a way to assure high quality, cost effective health care to its  people. There are many barriers to this effort-resource availability, technical know-how,  the challenge of reconciling divergent interests, general resistance to change and lack of political will among others. Countries take on national health care  reforms for many reasons: as part of electoral change; some following wars and disasters; others are engaged in constant fine tuning of the system they have.  The challenge of strengthening the health care system and assuring the availability of an adequate and appropriately trained health workforce have moved to a more central place on the global health agenda. A major reason is the failure to achieve the goals of global " vertical" programs to tackle critical disease problems like AIDS, TB and Malaria or problems of specific populations like MDGs 4 and 5 for Womens' and Childrens' health. One of the key reasons for these failures is the weakness of country health systems . In fact, these very programs and their funding are contributing to the fragmentation of what health services there are. This panel will discuss a global initiative for universal coverage by the Rockefeller Foundation and country based health care reforms in Thailand, Mexico and the US. The panel is designed to insure active engagement with the audience and discuss the roles that Academies have played or can play in such national efforts.

PROFILE: Jo Ivey Boufford, MD, is President of The New York Academy of Medicine. Dr. Boufford is Professor of Public Service, Health Policy and Management at the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service and Clinical Professor of Pediatrics at New York University School of Medicine. She served as Dean of the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service at New York University from June 1997 to November 2002. Prior to that, she served as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Health in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) from November 1993 to January 1997, and as Acting Assistant Secretary from January 1997 to May 1997. While at HHS, she served as the U.S. representative on the Executive Board of the World Health Organization (WHO) from 1994–1997.
From May 1991 to September 1993, Dr. Boufford served as Director of the King’s Fund College, London England. The King’s Fund is a royal charity dedicated to the support of health and social services in London and the United Kingdom. She served as President of the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation (HHC), the largest municipal system in the United States, from December 1985 until October 1989.
Dr. Boufford was awarded a Robert Wood Johnson Health Policy Fellowship at the Institute of Medicine in Washington, DC for 1979–1980. She served as a member of the National Council on Graduate Medical Education and the National Advisory Council for the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality from 1997–2002. She is currently Chair of the Board of Directors for the Center for Health Care Strategies and serves on the boards of the United Hospital Fund, the Primary Care Development Corporation and Public Health Solutions formerly MHRA. She was President of the National Association of Schools of Public Affairs and Administration in 2002–2003. She was elected to membership in the Institute of Medicine (IOM) in 1992 and is a member of its Executive Council, Board on Global Health and Board on African Science Academy Development. She was elected to serve for a four year term as the Foreign Secretary of the IOM beginning July 1, 2006. She received an Honorary Doctorate of Science degree from the State University of New York, Brooklyn, in May 1992 and the New York Medical College in May 2007.   She was elected a Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration in 2005. She has been a Fellow of The New York Academy of Medicine since 1988 and a Trustee since 2004.
Dr. Boufford attended Wellesley College for two years and received her BA (Psychology) magna cum laude from the University of Michigan, and her MD, with distinction, from the University of Michigan Medical School. She is Board Certified in pediatrics.