The Aspen Health, Biomedical Science and Society Program is a venue for academic, government and industry leaders to explore critical issues in health care and health policy and how they may affect individual health and that of families, communities, nations and the world. By convening bipartisan, multi-disciplinary forums, the program facilitates the exchange of knowledge and insights among decision-makers and helps to forge networks and other collaborations with the ultimate goal of improving human health.

Through public policy programs and strategic dialogue, including roundtables, policy briefings, conferences and Internet discussion forums, the program seeks to help chart the way forward on issues relating to health and medical science by bringing together the foremost experts in many fields. The program's work routinely incorporates the views of leading scientists, economists, physicians, policymakers, historians, patients and other committed voices in health care and health policy. The program's projects have included the Aspen Health Forum, the Aspen Health Stewardship Project, and the Aspen Task Force on Global Health and Nutrition.

The program's guest speakers include the top names in medicine, biomedical science and policy.  They include Drs. Deepak Chopra, Mehmet Oz, Don Berwick, Peter Agre, J. Michael Bishop, Francis Collins, Sir Richard Feachem, Julie Gerberding, Margaret Hamburg, David Kessler, Tony Fauci, Scott Gottlieb, and Zeke Emmanuel.  Additionally, events have also featured "Influentials" such as The Honorable Tom Vilsack, Tom Daschle, Richard Gephardt, John Porter, Tommy Thompson and Billy Tauzin.  Other notable speakers include Governor Christie Todd Whitman, Norm Augustine, Jeffrey Sachs, Mary Robinson, Peter Orzag, Ray Suarez, Fred de Sam Lazaro, Esther Dyson, Jeff Kluger, Jim Pinkerton, Shannon Brownlee and Goldie Hawn.

The Aspen Health Stewardship Project.  Drawing on the expertise of a diverse group of leaders in health care and health policy, this initiative seeks to inform the national conversation on health care reform and to suffuse related policymaking with non-partisan principles to help drive smart, sustainable improvements in the U.S. health care system.  

The Health Stewardship Project announced the next phase at a policy symposium held in Washington, DC in November 2010.  In this next chapter of the Stewardship Project, the Aspen Institute addresses vital next steps in health care reform.  Its latest endeavor features a number of forums and events including several Regional meetings around the U.S., policy symposium in Washington, D.C., and several invitation-only Roundtables with select coalition members, stakeholders, and other key health policy voices.  Consistent with the project’s earlier work, the current phase seeks to cultivate top of mind awareness of key principles that will drive smart, sustainable improvements to the U.S. health care system with the ultimate aim of converting those principles into policymaking.

The Health Innovation Project.  Early in 2011, the Aspen Institute with sponsorship by WellPoint, Inc. launched the Health Innovation Project, a new initiative within the Stewardship Project that aims to highlight clinical innovations in diverse settings and opportunities for cost containment in the health care system.  The report will be released in early 2012 and considers why the American health system is so breathtakingly innovative in the development of medical treatments and procedures, but so lacking in delivery system innovation. The report is intended to spark further discussion of how we can build a world-class system of care delivery, one that brings us closer to translating the Stewardship’s core principles into practice across our nation.

The Aspen Health Forum.  Born of the recognition that there is exploding interest in the future of health care, the Aspen Health Forum brings cutting-edge medical science and health care discussions to the public square.  It is the world’s only public gathering that offers a lay audience the opportunity to exchange ideas with Nobel laureates, prominent officials from the National Institutes of Health, health care industry leaders and other top experts in health policy and biomedicine.  The next forum will be held at the Aspen Institute campus in Aspen, Colorado, Summer 2013.