NAMOur WorkProgramsLeadership ConsortiumCommission on Investment Imperatives for a Healthy NationPrivate Equity Health Investments Workstream

Workstream 5: Private Equity Health Investments

Private investments in health that maximize returns to U.S. health status and economical productivity.

Problem Statement

Private equity and venture capital investments in important components of the medical care delivery system represent substantial and growing influences on operations and outcomes. The primary aim of these investments—as with all investment strategies—is to earn profits for investors, and hopefully doing so by improving health outcomes and achievement of patient goals. Some investors hold that their primary aim is to improve outcomes and goals, while hopefully also earning profits. Regardless of starting points, more information is needed on the nature and results of these investments—for individual, family, and community health, and for national productivity and competitiveness.

Workstream Charge

The Private Investments in Health workstream will uplift alignment challenges, opportunities, and impacts related to private equity and venture capital investment in health. Workstream members will produce a background paper that will inform Commission deliberations on the associated opportunities, priorities, and implications dependent on correcting the alignment of values, incentives, policies, and actions.

The paper will:

  1. review status and trends for private equity and venture capital health investment;
  2. describe how lack of alignment between private equity/venture capital investment decisions and investments that maximize health hinder national productivity and competitiveness;
  3. identify salient contributors to the problem;
  4. identify accountability disconnects;
  5. estimate the health and economic costs of maintaining the status quo;
  6. estimate the potential health and economic gains from private equity/venture capital investment in the production of health;
  7. identify legal, regulatory, or cultural levers to drive the change from where we are now to a better future state; and
  8. describe promising strategies for marshaling the will to deploy the necessary levers at the right place, at the right time.

Workstream Members

Chair

Bob Galvin
Chair | Advisor, Blackstone

Members

Cici Ceralde
Director of Venture Insights, McKesson Ventures
Bailey DeVries
Associate Administrator, Office of Investment and Innovation, U.S. Small Business Administration
Navid Farzad
Partner, Frist Cressey Ventures
Miriam Laugesen
Associate Professor of Health Policy and Management, Columbia University
Josh Makower
Executive Chairman & Founder, ExploraMed, Inc.
Lisa Piercey
Founder, Tristela Capital Partners
Dan Polsky
Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of Health Economics, Johns Hopkins University
Dan Polsky
Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of Health Economics, Johns Hopkins University
Peter Slavin
Operating Partner, Advent International
Zirui Song
Associate Professor of Health Care Policy and Medicine, Harvard University
Daryl Tol
Lead, Health Assurance Ecosystem Portfolio, General Catalyst
Associate Professor of Medicine
Oregon Health & Science University

Dr. Zhu is a practicing primary care physician and associate professor of medicine in the Division of General Internal Medicine at Oregon Health & Science University and core faculty at the Center for Health Systems Effectiveness. Dr. Zhu’s research focuses on health care access and quality, particularly for mental/behavioral health services, and on the effects of provider incentives and organization on health care delivery. In particular, she is interested in understanding how managed care plan features can be leveraged to improve behavioral health service delivery in Medicaid. A recipient of a K08 career development award from the National Institute of Mental Health, she is now principal investigator of multiple R01 grants as well as foundation grants. Her work has been published in high-impact journals, including JAMA, the New England Journal of Medicine, and Health Affairs; covered in media including The New York Times, Reuters, and The Wall Street Journal; and cited in government and legislative reports. Dr. Zhu obtained a BSc degree in global health and international development from Duke University, where she was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship. She received dual degrees in medicine and public policy from Harvard. After internal medicine residency training at the University of California, San Francisco, she was selected as a National Clinician Scholar at the University of Pennsylvania where she completed a two-year fellowship. She is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians (FACP) and serves on regional and national committees for the Society of General Internal Medicine, the American College of Physicians, and the National Academy of Medicine. 

Contact Information

Questions?

For additional information on workstream activities, contact Amanda Hunt ([email protected]) and Annie Murff ([email protected]).

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