2014 ACGME Annual Educational Conference
Marvin R. Dunn Keynote Address
Rebalancing the Culture of Learning: Can a Focus on
Outcomes Improve Our Processes?
David A. Asch, MD, MBA
Dr. Asch is a professor at the Perelman School of Medicine and the Wharton School at the University of
Pennsylvania, and executive director of the Penn Medicine Center for Health Care Innovation. He is
director of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) Health and Society Scholars Program, and
director of the RWJF Clinical Scholars Program at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Asch’s research
aims to understand and improve how physicians and patients make medical choices in clinical, financial,
and ethically charged settings, including the adoption of new pharmaceuticals or medical technologies,
the purchase of insurance, and personal health behaviors. His research combines elements of economic
analysis with moral and psychological theory and marketing. He teaches health policy at the Wharton
School and he practices internal medicine at the Philadelphia Veterans Affairs Medical Center. From
2001 to 2012 he directed the Center for Health Equity Research and Promotion, and was executive
director of the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics from 1998-2012. Dr. Asch received the Alice
Hersh New Investigator Award from Academy Health in 1997, the Outstanding Investigator Award from
the American Federation for Medical Research in 1999, the Research Mentorship Award from the
Society of General Internal Medicine in 2004, the VA Under Secretary’s Award for Outstanding
Achievement in Health Services Research in 2008, the Alpha Omega Alpha Robert J. Glaser Distinguished
Teacher Award from the Association of American Medical Colleges in 2009, and the John M. Eisenberg
National Award for Career Achievement in Research from the Society of General Internal Medicine in
2010. He is an elected member of the Association of American Physicians and the Institute of Medicine.