Policy Center to Study Health Needs : Scripps Clinic, SDSU Form Think Tank

How will the marshaling of medical resources to treat AIDS in the next few years affect hospitals, insurers and the public?

Is prenatal care for indigent pregnant women more worthy of public funding than high-tech organ transplants?

How can the wide disparity in the availability of medical services in the United States be eliminated?

The Scripps Clinic and Research Foundation and San Diego State University announced Tuesday that they are establishing a think tank to address such questions.

The Health Policy Center will combine the student and faculty resources of the university’s Graduate School of Public Health with those of Scripps physicians and managers. Employing direct computer access to all California hospital data, the center will do studies useful in long-term health care planning, the organizers say.

“A long-range goal of Scripps Clinic is to establish leadership in the field of health-care information,” said Dr. Charles Edwards, Scripps Clinic president. “We hope, now that we have the mechanism in place to conduct original research and analyze data, that the center will become a living policy laboratory and help us and others adapt to the demands of the future.”

The center will also sponsor educational programs for the public and lectures by experts.

At first, staff time will be provided by both institutions, said Stephen Williams, head of the SDSU Division of Health Services Administration, who is heading the center. Specific projects will be funded by grants, contracts and donations.

Already, the center is working on a study of the economic cost of AIDS to San Diego and California, is helping Scripps with a telephone health information service it recently began and is polling San Diego employers on what kind of information they need in planning for employee health care, Williams said.

Williams noted that cooperation between the two institutions can be expected to expand because of Edwards and Thomas Day, SDSU president.

“I think it is happening here because of the considerable vision that Dr. Edwards and Dr. Day have of increasing the scope of opportunities for both institutions by working together,” Williams said. “By merging both in this type of 50-50 venture, we really see it as an opportunity to piggyback on what we’re both doing and maybe get into areas that neither of us could do alone.”

He noted that SDSU hopes soon to offer a doctorate in public health, in cooperation with Scripps and UC San Diego.