The Robert D. Eilers Professorship of Health Care Management and Economics
Established by the Benjamin and Mary Siddons Measey Foundation, the chair honors Robert D. Eilers, PhD (1930–1974), the founding Director of Penn’s Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics (LDI).
LDI is Penn’s hub of health system-related research, policy analysis, and education. During Dr. Eilers’ tenure, the Wharton MBA Program in Health Care Administration was established and Penn became one of the first universities to advance interdisciplinary scholarship in the management of health sciences through a formal partnership between its business and medical schools.
An early architect of national health insurance policies and health maintenance organizations, Dr. Eilers contributed significantly to President Nixon’s 1970 national health insurance plan and the development of the federal government’s policy on HMOs. As a consultant, he helped to develop Medicare Part C, the precursor to Medicare capitation, and his team coined the term “health maintenance organizations.”
Dr. Eilers earned his MBA in insurance from Wharton in 1957 and PhD in economics from Penn in 1961. He served as a Professor of Insurance at The Wharton School and Professor of Community Medicine at the Perelman School of Medicine.
Current Chairholder
Rachel M. Werner, MD, PhD
Dr. Werner, MD, PhD is the Executive Director of the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics. She is a Professor of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine as well as the Robert D. Eilers Professor of Health Care Management at the Wharton School and a practicing physician at the Philadelphia VA.
Over the last 15 years, Dr. Werner has built a foundational research program examining the effects of healthcare policies on healthcare delivery, using methods designed to draw causal inferences from observational data. She has investigated the unintended consequences of quality improvement incentives, and was among the first to recognize that public reporting of quality information may worsen racial disparities.
Her research has been published in high-impact peer-reviewed journals, including JAMA, Health Services Research, and Health Affairs. Beyond publication, Dr. Werner has influenced research and policy as a member of numerous advisory committees to the state and federal government as well as research foundations. She is a Core Investigator with the VA HSR&D Center for Health Equity Research and Promotion (CHERP) and directs one of four national centers to evaluate the effectiveness of the VA's medical home.
Dr. Werner has received numerous awards for her work, including the Alice Hersh New Investigator Award from AcademyHealth, the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, and the American Federation of Medical Research (AFMR) Outstanding Investigator Award. She is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine.
She received her undergraduate degree from Macalester College, and her medical degree and doctoral degree in health economics from the University of Pennsylvania.
Previous Chairholders
- Mark V. Pauly, PhD 1984–1989
- J. Sanford Schwartz, MD 1989–1998
- David A. Asch, MD, MBA 1998-2012
- Daniel E. Polsky, PhD, MPP 2012-2019