Harvey V. Fineberg, MD
At its most fundamental level, patient-care outcomes are dependent upon a complex set of health-care choices, the practitioner-patient relationship structure and a patient's response to information. These factors are critical to medical decision making, said Harvey V. Fineberg, guest lecturer for the Department of Medicine's Medical Grand Rounds series on March 14.
"Medical care is an unending series of choices and decisions individuals and their caregivers make," he said, and that "the prescription of how we make better decisions is a very important part of improving the quality, the usefulness and care of patients."
Fineberg, who presented at UAlberta as part of his institutional visits in western Canada as the 2013 Henry G. Friesen International Prize winner, "is an expert in many fields," said Douglas Miller, dean of the Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry, at the Medical Ground Rounds. "His previous research has included the process of developing health policy and implementing new technologies."
Fineberg is the former dean of the Harvard School of Public Health and is currently president of the Institute of Medicine (http://www.iom.edu/), an independent non-profit organization that is the health arm of the National Academy of Sciences (http://www.nasonline.org/). The Henry G. Friesen International Prize in Health Research was established in 2005 by Friends of Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) in recognition of Friesen's distinguished leadership, vision and innovative contributions to health research and health research policy.