Day One: Monday, 24 March 2003

Medical Progress and Society

Seminar 1: Medical Foundations and the Future of Healthcare

The list of medical foundations and grant-making organizations grows ever longer and such institutions play an increasingly important role in the determination of healthcare policy, medical education, and the direction of biomedical research. While the tradition of "giving " is not new, the scale of donation and the diversity of its beneficiaries has now reached unprecedented heights.

Foundations do not operate in vacuo,and their creators, executives and by-laws are often the determinants of their policies. While these ingredients vary from country to country, there is oftentimes great similarity between their activities. Historically,foundation and individual philanthropy has antedated funding by governmental organizations. Even as government funding has burgeoned,especially in the United States, the role of the foundations in financing both directed and pure basic research has not diminished. Foundations have furthermore entered the arena of underwriting clinical research and investigation.

One of the most important truisms of healthcare – and one of the reasons that it differs from other business activities – is that nothing can be done in healthcare that does not impact the public sector. For better or for worse,healthcare in its most basic form is a "right " of the citizen,,and so must be guaranteed by the State. In this context,it becomes clear that all healthcare must in some way be founded on a cooperative effort of the public and private sectors,an effort both moral and practical. Over the past century,this cooperation has taken many forms from religious to moral to legal.

Seminar 1 will explore which forms have been most successful, most especially in terms of the role of Foundations in this process. Who are the true innovators in developing effective new systems of cooperation and what are their agendas? What are the shared beneficial practices between foundations and the advantages and disadvantages of different systems for the acceleration and distribution of medical innovation through the non-profit sector?

Seminar 2: Healthcare Systems of the Future

While there is no universally applicable healthcare model which will work equally well in all societies, there is a great deal to be learned by understanding, modifying, and adapting various paradigms to suit particular needs. This seminar is designed to set the stage for the macro discussion of healthcare systems over the coming days and to build the framework within which those discussions will take place.

Other questions that of necessity derive from this issue are: Is a multi-tiered health system morally and politically defensible? Phrased in another and broader way: How can society deliver fairer shares of affluence rather than equal shares of poverty?

The question remains: At what level does this right to medical care exist and what is the right of the citizen to seek care beyond the level granted by the state?

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Executive Summary
Forum Goals
GMF II Program
Key Management

Day One, Morning
Day One, Afternoon
Day Two, Morning
Day Two, Afternoon
Day Three, Morning
Day Three, Afternoon
Social Program
Host – Rüschlikon

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