Projects

The Aspen Health Stewardship Project, launched in October 2007, is an initiative to reframe and broaden the national dialogue on health care reform leading up to the 2008 presidential election and beyond. Borrowing the term “stewardship” from the religious and environmental communities, the project seeks to encourage the presidential candidates and the public to prioritize stewardship of our shared health resources in the same sense that we prioritize stewardship of the environment. The Aspen Institute has convened a diverse group of thought leaders in health care and health policy to guide the initiative. The project co-chairs are Mark Ganz, president and CEO of Regence Blue Cross Blue Shield; Julie Gerberding, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; Joseph Hogan, president and CEO of GE Healthcare; and Christine Todd Whitman, founder of the Whitman Strategies Group and former administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. Read more about the project.

The Future Medicine Project brings together some of the most innovative thinkers in science policy, biotechnology and medicine to address critical roadblocks to the implementation and adoption of new health care technologies. Started in the fall of 2006, the project aims to fundamentally change the way business leaders, policymakers and the public think about technological advancement in health care. In the project’s first year, two strategy groups were formed:

• The Personalized Medicine Task Force. Featuring medical science and health policy leaders, this group has worked to identify and address barriers in the personalized medicine industry to expedite biotechnology and emerging medical innovations.
  
  
• The Pandemic Influenza Strategy Group. This effort has centered on ways to improve early detection of pandemic influenza and barriers to the development of effective vaccines as well as the related challenge of production capacity.

The Nutrition Initiative, begun in the summer of 2006, established the groundwork and mandate of the Aspen Institute Commission on Nutrition, whose goal is to become a trusted source of information on nutrition, providing guidance for the general public. In preparation for the launch of the Commission on Nutrition, the project held a two-day strategy session in the fall of 2006, and related sessions were held at the Aspen Ideas Festival and the Aspen Health Forum as part the effort to engage thought leaders and corporate executives on the topics nutrition and prevention.