The National Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Medicine has named William A. Peck, M.D., a member of a national committee that will address ways to redesign health insurance benefits, payment and performance improvement programs. Peck is the Alan A. and Edith L. Wolff Distinguished Professor of Medicine at Washington University School of Medicine and director of the Center for Health Policy at Washington University’s Olin School of Business.
The committee’s purpose is to identify options for redesigning insurance benefits, provider payment policies and performance improvement programs in ways that will encourage and reward improvements in health and health-care delivery. The primary focus is on the Medicare program, but the findings and recommendations likely will have broad applicability to all public and private insurance programs.
The committee, chaired by Steve A. Schroeder, M.D., Distinguished Professor of Health and Health Care at the University of California, San Francisco, includes 22 national health-care executives, educators and policy makers. In addition to Peck, some of these include Bruce E. Bradley, director of Health Plan Strategy and Public Policy Health Care Initiatives at General Motors Corp.; Karen Davis, Ph.D., president of the Commonwealth Fund; and Samuel O. Thier, M.D., professor of medicine and professor of health care policy at Harvard Medical School.
Peck is the former dean of Washington University School of Medicine, executive vice chancellor for medical affairs of Washington University and president of the Washington University Medical Center. During his tenure as executive vice chancellor, the School of Medicine was named the nation’s most academically selective medical school, and before he stepped down as dean in 2003, U.S. News and World Report ranked the school second overall in the nation, tied with The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
Peck is a nationally recognized health-care leader. He has served as chair of the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), as chair of the AAMC Council of Deans and also as vice chair of Research!America.
He is an elected member of the National Academy of Science’s Institute of Medicine and a member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation and the Association of American Physicians. Peck also has been an adviser to such organizations as the Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health on issues related to clinical research, federal research funding, university-corporate partnerships, health insurance and rising health-care costs.
In addition to serving on multiple journal editorial boards, he has been a scientific adviser for several companies and organizations throughout the medical and pharmaceutical industries.
A renowned internist, Peck is recognized for his research on bone and mineral metabolism. He has written more than 100 scientific publications about bone cell function and the causes of osteoporosis.
He developed the first method for directly studying the structure, function and growth of bone cells and determined mechanisms by which hormones regulate bone function.
Peck was the founding president of the National Osteoporosis Foundation and has served in leadership positions of several other national organizations, including the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research.
The full-time and volunteer faculty of Washington University School of Medicine are the physicians and surgeons of Barnes-Jewish and St. Louis Children’s hospitals. The School of Medicine is one of the leading medical research, teaching and patient care institutions in the nation, currently ranked second in the nation by U.S. News & World Report. Through its affiliations with Barnes-Jewish and St. Louis Children’s hospitals, the School of Medicine is linked to BJC HealthCare.