Kauffman Foundation to Release a Host of Studies on Health Care Issues in the United States

KANSAS CITY, MO–(Marketwire – October 4, 2010) –  The Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation will release several studies over the next month on various aspects of health care. Topics range from a call for a personalized health manifesto to employer-based health insurance effects on business creation and an analysis of the costs and benefits of the health care reform bill’s expanded comparative effectiveness research. Highlights of these studies are outlined below. Please contact us if you are interested in specific reports or would like advance copies.

• The Personalized Health Manifesto. Billed as “an old-fashioned call to arms and action plan for a new age of health care,” the paper says there is a “new urgency for scientists to work together to focus on the whole human organism… and for society to absorb and implement scientific discoveries.” The Manifesto is an outgrowth of a larger study, and it calls on the life science community, policymakers, patients and society at large to take a list of actions to accelerate a transformation to personalized health.

• Is Employer-based Health Insurance a Barrier to Entrepreneurship? This study asks whether employer-based health insurance has a negative effect on business creation by causing “job lock” in which workers may be reluctant to risk health coverage by leaving their jobs to start a company. The study examines the issue from several demographic factors, including gender and age, and raises concerns about how the bundling of health insurance and employment impacts business creation.

• Promoting Comparative Effectiveness Research. This study addresses how to make the new health care reform law’s expansion of the comparative effectiveness research (CER) work best or to cause the least amount of harm. CER is research that attempts to analyze which treatment options are more effective than others in terms of quality and cost. A major focus of this study is on market-oriented, patient-centered approaches for disseminating and implementing CER to enhance health outcomes efficiently while preserving patient choice.

• The New Role of Academia in Drug Development. The process for taking scientific discoveries from university labs to the market is stagnant and faces many obstacles. This paper outlines observations presented at a recent town hall meeting held at the Kauffman Foundation and presents recommendations for policymakers and thought leaders on how new collaboration models will benefit cancer cures and treatments. More information on the town hall meeting can be found here.

About the Kauffman Foundation
The Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation is a private nonpartisan foundation that works to harness the power of entrepreneurship and innovation to grow economies and improve human welfare. Through its research and other initiatives, the Kauffman Foundation aims to open young people’s eyes to the possibility of entrepreneurship, promote entrepreneurship education, raise awareness of entrepreneurship-friendly policies, and find alternative pathways for the commercialization of new knowledge and technologies. In addition, the Foundation focuses on initiatives in the Kansas City region to advance students’ math and science skills, and improve the educational achievement of urban students, including the Ewing Marion Kauffman School, a college preparatory charter school for middle and high school students set to open in 2011. Founded by late entrepreneur and philanthropist Ewing Marion Kauffman, the Foundation is based in Kansas City, Mo. and has approximately $2 billion in assets. For more information, visit www.kauffman.org, and follow the Foundation on Twitter at @kauffmanfdn and Facebook.

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