This event has reached capacity.  If you would like to be added to the waitlist, please contact Adreana at pinuelas@stanford.edu.

"Making Prescription Drugs Affordable: The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine's Report"

In a recent poll, Americans ranked prescription drug prices as the most important domestic issue for Congress to tackle.  Prescription drugs now account for 17% of national health care expenditures, and 1 in 4 Americans reports that they or a family member has decided not to fill a prescription or to skip or reduce doses in the past year because of cost worries.  To investigate the causes of high drug costs and potential policy interventions, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine convened a committee of experts, which recently released its report.  Dr. Mello, a member of the committee, will review the key findings and discuss factors that make the affordability of medicines such a difficult problem to solve.

Please note: All research in progress seminars are off-the-record unless otherwise noted. Any information about methodology and/or results are embargoed until publication.

The Asia Health Policy Program hosted jointly with the School of Medicine,

Health Research and Policy Department, Division of Epidemiology

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Speaker bio: K.M. Venkat Narayan, MD, MSc, MBA. Is Ruth and O.C. Hubert Chair of Global Health, Director, Emory Global Diabetes Research Center and Professor of Medicine & Epidemiology at Emory University in Atlanta, USA.  He was formerly, chief of the diabetes science branch at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and intramural scholar at the US National Institutes of Health (NIH). Noted for substantial, multidisciplinary work in diabetes, he has published more than 430 peer-reviewed papers, including several high-impact studies. Narayan’s work exemplifies his leadership in diabetes public health, and he is a member of the US National Academy of Medicine. His other honors include the American Diabetes Associations’ Kelly West award for outstanding achievement in epidemiology, Danish Diabetes Academy Visiting Professor award, Government of India, Nehru Chair 2016, Emory University’s Mentor of the Year award, and   Marion Creekmore award for Internationalization.

Voice4u is a revolutionary AAC (Augmentative and Alternative Communication) system that helps individuals express their feelings, thoughts, actions, and needs. It is the equivalent of wheelchairs for people who cannot walk. Voice4u is the perfect solution for learning and communication for individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and the people around them. In the United States, CDC estimates that 1 in 68 children has been identified with autism spectrum disorders as of 2017. The application has been downloaded in 100+ countries and more than 150K units. The product has proven to be commercially viable and has been used by people suffering from other types of developmental disorders including Down syndrome and Asperger’s syndrome, people with other kinds of communication disorders caused by stroke or brain injuries and deafness, seniors who have difficulties with verbal communication, as well as Speech Language Pathologists (SLP) for medical professionals, teachers, or parents. This presentation will focus on how and why Yumi Kubo and Sei Higuchi founded Spectrum Visions, the development of Voice4u, and their future plans.

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Yumi is the co-founder and CEO of Spectrum Visions and has a son with autism. Before founding the company, she was engaged in numerous activities in non-profit organizations such as Parents Helping Parents (PHP). She has given lectures in Japan and the U.S on special education, IFSP (Individual Family Service Plan), IEP (Individual Educational Program) and IET (Individual Educational Transition). Yumi also started several social groups to support children with development delays. Her story was featured in San Jose Mercury News, “Autism Mystery – Family Finds Hope Silicon Valley”. As a part-time instructor at Osaka University, she has been teaching young students entrepreneurship with her unique story

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Sei is co-founder and CTO of Spectrum Visions and is leading product development. He received his Ph.D. in Aeronautics & Astronautics from Stanford University in 2009. At Stanford, he developed the adaptive model predictive control algorithm for microkelvin thermal control system. While he was a Ph.D. student, he also supported the autism community in the Bay Area. After completing his Ph.D., he started developing Voice4u. Sei received a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Waseda University, Japan, MS in Aeronautics & Astronautics, and Ph.D. minor in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University.

AGENDA:

4:15pm: Doors open
4:30pm-5:30pm: Talk and Discussion
5:30pm-6:00pm: Networking

RSVP REQUIRED:

Register to attend at http://www.stanford-svnj.org/svnj-public-forum-13018/2018/1/10/voice4u

For more information about the Silicon Valley-New Japan Project please visit: http://www.stanford-svnj.org/

"Accuracy of Time Measures Used to Value Surgical Procedures in the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule"

The American Medical Association’s Relative Value Scale Update Committee (RUC) has been called “the most important health care group you’ve never heard of”.  It plays a central role in determining how much public and private insurers pay physicians for services.  The RUC’s role and performance have been heavily criticized, but subjected to very little empirical evaluation.  In a sample of the most common surgical procedures, we assessed the accuracy of a key ingredient of RUC valuations: procedure duration.  We identify inaccuracies, and find that they have substantial distributional effects on payments to surgeons. On the other hand, we find that revaluations by the RUC tend to partially correct these inaccuracies, and detect no evidence of bias in the RUC’s choices of procedures to review. 

Please note: All research in progress seminars are off-the-record unless otherwise noted. Any information about methodology and/or results are embargoed until publication.

Japan is commonly regarded as a country that is closed against migrants. It does not allow their entries in a large size, granting restricted rights. As an attempt to understand this tendency, this research claims that Japan’s citizenship law, jus sanguinis (by ancestry) principle, sets a fundamental frame for its migration policymaking. To test this claim, it examines how the citizenship law influences attitudes of the general public as well as those of politicians. Specifically, Japan under a strong emphasis on blood ties is more likely to impose a restrictive migration policy, because (1) the general public tends to reveal a greater distance toward migrants (societal nature); and (2) migrant groups are excluded from electorate, and thus, politicians are less inclined to impose generous policies for them (electoral nature).  In order to demonstrate these mechanisms, this research traces Japanese public attitude and political incentives, which have governed its migration policy until today.

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Johanna Rickne is an Associate Professor in Economics at the Swedish Institute for Social Research, Stockholm University, and an affiliated researcher at the Uppsala Center for Labor Studies (Uppsala University), the Stockholm China Economic Research Center (Stockholm School of Economics), and the Research Institute for Industrial Economics.

Her research is in labor economics, political economics, and gender economics. She has a special interest in Asia in general, and China in particular.

This seminar is part of the Comparative Politics Workshop in the Department of Political Science and is co-sponsored by the Munro Lectureship Fund and The Europe Center.

This seminar is part of the Comparative Politics Workshop in the Department of Political Science and is co-sponsored by the Munro Lectureship Fund and The Europe Center.

James E. Alt is the Frank G. Thomson Professor of Government. His current interests are in comparative political economy; the interaction of voters, political parties, budget and other political institutions, financial markets, and fiscal policies in industrial democracies. His recent research analyzes institutional transparency, accountability and corruption, and fiscal policy outcomes in OECD countries and US states. He is author, co-author, or editor of The Politics of Economic Decline (Cambridge University Press, 1979, reissued 2009), Political Economics (University of California Press, 1983), Cabinet Studies (Macmillan, 1975), Advances in Quantitative Methods (Elsevier, 1980), Perspectives on Positive Political Economy (Cambridge University Press, 1990), Competition and Cooperation (Russell Sage, 1999) and Positive Changes in Political Science (Michigan, 2007). He has published numerous articles in scholarly journals, including "Partisan Dealignment in Britain 1964-1974" in the British Journal of Political Science, "Political Parties, World Demand, and Unemployment" in the American Political Science Review, "Divided Government, Fiscal Institutions, and Deficits: Evidence from the States," in the American Political Science Review, "Fiscal Policy Outcomes and Electoral Accountability in American States," in the American Political Science Review, and “Disentangling Accountability and Competence in Elections: Evidence from U.S. Term Limits,” in the Journal of Politics. He is the founding director of the Center for Basic Research in the Social Sciences, now the Institute for Quantitative Social Science. He is or has been a member of the editorial boards of the American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, British Journal of Political Science, Journal of Politics, Political Studies, and other journals, and has been a member of the Political Science Panel of the National Science Foundation. He was a Guggenheim Fellow 1997-98 and a Senior Research Fellow of Nuffield College, Oxford from 2007-2011. Alt is an International Fellow of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, London, and was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2004.

This seminar is part of the Comparative Politics Workshop in the Department of Political Science and is co-sponsored by the Munro Lectureship Fund and The Europe Center.

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Professor Lee authored Economic Catch-up and Technological Leapfrogging: Path to Development & Macroeconomic Stability in Korea (2016, E Elgar); and Schumpeterian analysis of Economic catch-up (Cambridge University Press, 2013: awarded Schumpeter Prize). He is currently president of the International Schumpeter Society, a member of the Committee for Development Policy of the UN, an editor of Research Policy, an associate editor of Industrial and Corporate Change, and a council member of the World Economic Forum. He obtained a PhD in economics from the University of California, Berkeley, and worked at the World Bank, University of Aberdeen, and the East West Center, Hawaii. One of his most cited articles is a paper on Korea’s Technological Catch-up published in Research Policy, with 1,000 citations (Google Scholar). His H-index is now 35, with 85 papers with more than 10 citations.