BALTIMORE – The relationships amongmanaged care, minority physicians, and the provision of health care services tovulnerable populations, including racial minorities, in Maryland will beexamined at a half-day symposium sponsored by the Center for Health ProgramDevelopment and Management at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County(UMBC). National and Maryland-specific policy issues and alternatives drawn fromMaryland Physician Survey data will also be examined. The symposium will be heldon Wednesday, March 26, from 8 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. in the UMBC Technology Center.
 
The Maryland Study on Physician Experience with Managed Care (Maryland PhysicianSurvey) is a comprehensive survey that measures the experience of over 3,000Maryland physicians in the growing managed care environment. Subject areascovered in the survey include practice characteristics, reimbursement levels,administrative requirements, physician-patient relationship, perceptions ofmanaged care, managed care contracts and physician commitment and satisfaction.The Center for Health Program Development and Management developed and conductedthe survey on behalf of the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene in2000 based on a request from the Maryland legislature.
 
The symposium consists of three presentation sessions: Managed Care andPhysician Practice (9:30-10); Managed Care and Physician-Patient Relationships(10:15-11); and Managed Care and Socially Vulnerable Populations (11:15-11:45),to be followed by a keynote presentation by Marsha Lillie-Blanton, VicePresident, Kaiser Family Foundation and closing panels and participant reactions(11:45-2:30).
 
 
The day's presenters are:

Llewellyn Cornelius, Ph.D.
Llewellyn Cornelius is currently an associate professor and the associatedirector of the
Institute for Human Services Policy at the University of Maryland, School ofSocial Work. He received his doctorate from the University of Chicago, School ofSocial Services Administration and has extensive research experience inexamining access to Medical Delivery and the Outcome of Care for AfricanAmericans and Latinos. Cornelius is a recipient of the University of Chicago's1996 Elizabeth Butler young alumni award for his contributions to health careresearch on African Americans and Latinos and was inducted into the HonorSociety of Phi Kappa Phi.
 
Mary Catherine Beach, M.D., M.P.H.
Mary Catherine Beach is an assistant professor of Medicine in the JohnsHopkins School
of Medicine, a core faculty member in the Phoebe R. Berman Bioethics Instituteand a board-certified general internist. She currently serves as an associateeditor of the Journal of General Internal Medicine. Beach also completed aGreenwall Fellowship in Bioethics and Health Policy, during which she worked forSenator Hillary Rodham Clinton on health policy issues in the U.S. Senate. Herresearch focuses on the ethical foundation for patient-physician interactionsand on disparities in interpersonal aspects of care for ethnic minorities. Shereceived her B.A. from Barnard, M.D. from Mount Sinai and M.P.H. from JohnsHopkins.
 
Marsha Lillie-Blanton, Dr.P.H.
Vice president of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, MarshaLillie-Blanton directs the policy research on access to care for vulnerablepopulations. Prior to joining the foundation, she served as associate directorof health services quality and public health issues of the U.S. GeneralAccounting Office. She has over 15 years of work experience in health policyresearch and management positions. Lillie-Blanton currently holds an adjunctfaculty position in the JHU School of Public Health, where she earned hermaster's and doctorate degree. Her primary research and policy interests are inthe areas of substance abuse, HIV/AIDS and minority health.
 
Lisa Cooper, M.D., M.P.H.
Lisa Cooper is an associate professor of medicine and health policy andmanagement,
a core faculty member in the Welch Center for Prevention, Epidemiology &Clinical Research at Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions and an active full-timemember of the Johns Hopkins Hospital Medical Staff. She is a board-certifiedgeneral internist, health services researcher and medical educator. Cooperreceived her medical degree from the University of North Carolina at ChapelHill. Her research focuses on patient involvement in medical decision-making andaccess to health care for African Americans, particularly as they relate totreatment of common problems in primary care settings. Her recent work hasidentified patient-physician communication as an important contributor to racialand ethnic disparities in health care.
 
Todd Eberly
Before joining the center, Todd Eberly was a policy analyst for the AmericanMedical Directors Association. He has over six years of experience in publichealth program financing and policy. Eberly has been a primary or contributingauthor on several studies and was an editor and columnist for a bi-monthlyindustry newsletter. Eberly graduated cum laude from Clarion University with abachelor's degree in political science. He is currently pursuing his doctoratein the Policy Sciences Graduate Program at UMBC.
 
Keith Elder, Ph.D.
Keith Elder is an NIH Minority Pre-Doctoral Fellowship recipient. His fieldsof interest include managed care, minority health and racial disparities as itrelates to access and quality of care. Elder obtained his Ph.D. in policysciences from UMBC and has a master's degree in public health and publicadministration from the University of  Alabama at Birmingham. His dissertationfocused on managed care's impact on minority
 
Sipi Gupta
Sipi Gupta is a candidate for the M.A. degree in applied sociology at UMBC.She is
a graduate of UMBC.
 
 
David R. Nerenz, Ph.D.
A professor in the College of Human Medicine at Michigan State University (MSU)and director of MSU's Institute for Health Care Studies, David Nerenz isresponsible for directing a set of research and continuing education activitiesthat have the ultimate goal of improving quality of care in the state's Medicaidprogram. He is a published author in the health care industry and his researchinterests include quality of care and performance measures for health plans andhealth care delivery systems; racial disparities in health care; risk adjustmentmodels and use of patient surveys for obtaining data on quality of care. Nerenzobtained his Ph.D. in social psychology from the University of Wisconsin and hismaster's degree in psychology from the University of California, San Diego.
 
William G. Rothstein, Ph.D.
William Rothstein is professor of sociology in the Department of Sociologyand Anthropology at UMBC. He is the author of several books on the history ofAmerican medicine, including his forthcoming Public Health and the Risk Factor:A History of an Uneven Medical Revolution, to be published this spring by theUniversity of Rochester Press. His interests also include cultural differencesin health beliefs and other aspects of medical sociology.
 
Stephanie Sims-Boykin, M.D.
Stephanie Sims-Boykin is an assistant professor in the Department of FamilyMedicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. She is a graduate ofHoward University College of Medicine and practices in an urban underservedcommunity where she sees a large number of Medicaid and managed care patients.She completed a one-year faculty development fellowship at the University ofCalifornia at San Diego in the Department of Family Medicine, focusing on“Addressing the Health Needs of the Underserved.” Sims-Boykin is responsible forresident and medical student education and spends 40 percent of her time indirect patient care. She also holds interest in women's health and preventivemedicine, with a focus on cancer health disparities. She is currently theprincipal  investigator on an NCI sponsored pilot project, "Factors AffectingMammograms by Race and SES." 
 

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The Center for Health ProgramDevelopment and Management is a multi-faceted health services researchorganization which develops, manages, and evaluates healthcare programs andpolicies, focusing on improving overall quality and purchaser value. Since itsinception, the Center has maintained a partnership with the Maryland Departmentof Health and Mental Hygiene to analyze and develop solutions for the MedicaidProgram. It is also involved in projects for federal agencies, privatefoundations, and Maryland counties.