Today I attended an interesting lecture at Jefferson Medical College sponsored by the Department of Health Policy. John O. Agwunobi, M.D., M.B.A., M.P.H., Senior Vice President, and President, Health and Wellness, Wal-Mart Stores Division, and former Assistant Secretary for Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, gave the 17th Annual Dr. Raymond C. Grandon Lecture, “Bridging the Worlds of Business and Public Health.”Dr. Agwunobi spoke about the impact of specific disease states on public health in the U.S.; the role of retail medicine in addressing the issues of health care access and medication pricing; and the application of business tenets to a new health care delivery model. The presentation was followed by questions and commentary from a panel of health care experts. This was an interesting discussion of this novel and somewhat controversial approach to the delivery of healthcare. For some additional information on Wal-Mart’s outpatient clinics, here is another on-line article.
Here is the biography of Dr. Agwonubi that was available on the Thomas Jefferson University website.
“It was in September 2007 that Dr. Agwunobi, a pediatrician, joined Wal-Mart as Senior Vice President and President of Health and Wellness for Wal-Mart Stores Division, where he oversees the company’s health and wellness business unit, including pharmacies, vision centers, and health care clinics.
Prior to joining Wal-Mart, he was the Assistant Secretary for Health for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. His responsibilities included disease prevention, health promotion, women’s and minority health, the reduction of health disparities, the fight against HIV/AIDS, and pandemic influenza planning and vaccine preventable disease. During this time he was also an Admiral in the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps.
From 2001 to 2005, Dr. Agwunobi served as Florida’s Secretary of Health. Prior to that time, he held positions in Washington, D.C., as both the vice president of a pediatric rehabilitation hospital and medical director for an affiliated managed care plan.
He received his medical degree from the University of Jos in Nigeria; his masters in business administration from Georgetown University; and his masters in public health administration from Johns Hopkins University. Active in numerous medical and professional organizations, Dr. Agwunobi is a member of the American College of Healthcare Executives, American Medical Association, American College of Preventive Medicine, Association of Public Health Physicians, and Association of Military Surgeons of the United States. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics.
Raymond C. Grandon, M.D., for whom the lecture series is named, earned the doctor of medicine degree from Jefferson Medical College in 1945. Dr. Grandon entered private practice as a solo practitioner. An internist with a special interest in cardiovascular disease, Dr. Grandon was responsible for the first televised heart operation in the United States. He was also a clinical investigator of cardio-active drugs and helped to coordinate the nation’s first commercially successful cardiac rehabilitation program.
The Grandon lecture is sponsored by the Department of Health Policy at JMC. Under the direction of David Nash, M.D., M.B.A., the Dr. Raymond C. and Doris N. Grandon Professor and Chair of the department, it conducts research and education programs that will contribute to the quality, safety, and cost-effectiveness of health care. The department serves as a key contributor to the education and research programs of Thomas Jefferson University Hospital and Jefferson Medical College.”
