(click for full-size photo)	EMILY FRIEDMAN 25 July 1947 – 15 May 2016 It is with great regret that we report the death of Emily Friedman from complications after a fall at her home.	(click for full-size photo)
Obituary by Rick Hills, editor of H&HN Daily. Emily was a contributing editor of Hospitals & Health Networks and a regular columnist for H&HN Daily.She had a large and loyal following for her bimonthly commentaries, which routinely elicited responses from well-known thought leaders in the field. Her readers could always count on her for thorough research and cogent analysis of the health care issues of the day. Emily also contributed articles to the Journal of the American Medical Association, Health Progress and other periodicals. Her writing career spanned more than three decades and produced more than 800 articles and books. “No one knew more about the history, the inherent counterforces and the sometimes tattered social fabric of health care than Emily did,” said Mary Grayson, former editorial director at Health Forum. “But equally important, no one had greater respect and affection for the people who work in health care than Emily did. We have lost an important voice and a good friend.” As a teacher, she served as adjunct assistant professor of bioethics at the Boston University School of Public Health Department of Health Law, Bioethics & Human Rights. She also lectured at several major universities and was a Rockefeller Fellow in Ethics at Dartmouth College in 1987-88. “The field of public health and health care ethics lost a great thinker, writer, champion of the underserved and friend with the passing of Emily Friedman,” said Mary Pittman, president of the Public Health Institute. “Never shying away from engaging policymakers, Emily challenged vague, unsubstantiated claims for why the right thing was not being done to assure healthy options for everyone and presented her own well-researched reasons why it could and should be done. Emily’s knowledge and concerns spanned many topics and was global in its reach.” Emily received many honors during her lifetime. The American Hospital Association recognized her as an Honorary Life Member, a distinction she also received from the American Medical Association. Her writing awards included a National Award of Excellence from the American Society of Business Publication Editors and a Gold Award from the American Society of Healthcare Publication Editors. “Emily Friedman had a knack for making complicated issues simple and speaking the truth, no matter how unpopular it might be,” said Rick Pollack, president and CEO of the AHA. “As an author and lecturer, her role was to eloquently and provocatively urge health care providers to look beyond all the sophisticated machinery, miraculous medicines and treatments — to the core of what a hospital does: taking care of people, one patient at a time. She will be sorely missed.”
Read a profile of Emily Friedman (pdf) from Health Insurance Marketplace News Watch a video of Emily Friedman
Ms. Friedman's article, "Warning from a Mass Grave: Hospitals Under Attack," is now available in two versions: "Warning from a Mass Grave: Hospitals Under Attack" — Updated (with footnotes), and "Warning from a Mass Grave: Hospitals Under Attack" — Updated (without footbotes).
In 2011, 2012, and again in 2014, Emily Friedman received the "Top 5 Speaker" designation in Healthcare Each year, Speaking.com recognizes five speakers within fifteen popular topic areas. Recognition of excellence in speaking is based on: expertise, professionalism, innovation within the topic area, client testimonials and references, presentation skills, original contribution to the field, and public votes received at the Speaking.com website. Over 13,000 votes were cast from business leaders, educators, association members and others from around the world. Many voters effused about how much the nominees improved their personal and professional lives; a living testament to the positive impact and important work of all the candidates.
Public Speaking * Books * Periodical Writings * Other Writings * Emily's Blog * Awards and Honors * Comments on her Speaking * Comments on her Writing * Emily's Photographs

Read EMily's articles in Hospitals & Health Networks Online

Emily Friedman is an independent writer, lecturer, photographer, and health policy and ethics analyst based in Chicago. She is contributing editor of Hospitals & Health Networks and contributing writer for the Journal of the American Medical Association, Health Progress, and other periodicals. Ms. Friedman also writes a regular column for Hospitals & Health Networks Daily. She is most noted for her work in health policy, health care reform initiatives, rationing of health services, health care trends, insurance and coverage issues, the social ethics of health care, ethics issues for providers and leaders, care for the underserved, population health improvement, health care history, population demographics and their implications for health care, the lessons to be learned from international health care systems, and the relationship of society with its health care system.

Ms. Friedman has written more than 800 articles and editorials in the past 34 years. She is the editor of the books Making Choices: Ethics Issues for Health Care Professionals (American Hospital Publishing, 1986), Choices and Conflict: Explorations in Health Care Ethics (American Hospital Publishing, 1992), and An Unfinished Revolution: Women and Health Care in America (United Hospital Fund of New York, 1994). She authored The Aloha Way: Health Care Structure and Finance in Hawaii (Hawaii Medical Service Association, 1993) and The Right Thing: Ten Years of Ethics Columns from the Healthcare Forum Journal (Jossey-Bass, 1996). She also writes on health care for the World Book Encyclopedia Yearbook and the Encyclopedia of Bioethics. Among her current projects are a history of health care in the state of Minnesota; an examination of the non-profit status of some hospitals and insurers; a long-term study on the rebuilding of the Cambodian health care system after its destruction in the 1970s, and an examination of attacks on hospitals, their staffs, and their patients around the world.

A prolific public speaker, she addresses audiences ranging from state legislators to allied health professionals to nursing and medical groups to community representatives to hospital and health system leaders and health care associations. She has also lectured at many universities, including Harvard, Princeton, the University of California - Berkeley, the University of California - San Diego, Ohio State, Yale, and the University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill. In 1987-88, she was Rockefeller Fellow in Ethics at Dartmouth College. She also serves as an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of Health Law, Bioethics, and Human Rights at the Boston University School of Public Health, which has repeatedly named her one of its highest-rated teachers. she is a consultant on information dissemination to the Agency for Health Care Research and Quality, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

She has made numerous radio and television appearances, including on "ABC News Nightline" and National Public Radio shows.

She has won many awards and honors, including being named an honorary life member of the American Hospital Association, an honorary life member of the American Medical Association, a Fellow of Academy Health (formerly the Association for Health Services Research), and an honorary lifetime fellow of the American Academy of Medical Administrators. She has also received the Corning Award of the Society for Health Care Strategy and Market Development and the first Pioneer Award of the Colorado Hospital Association.

In addition, she has won many writing awards. In 2003, her column, "Making Choices," in Health Forum Journal, won a National Award of Excellence from the American Society of Business Publication Editors (the largest competition in U.S. business publishing) and the Gold Award from the American Society of Healthcare Publication Editors (the highest award that the Association grants).

In 2002, 2004, and again in 2006, the readers of Modern Healthcare named her as one of the 100 most powerful people in the health care field. In April 2005, the editors of Modern Healthcare chose her as one of the "Top 25 Women in Healthcare." In January 2011, 2012, and again in 2014, she was named one of the "Top Five Speakers in Health Care" by Speaking.com.

She is an avid photographer with several record album and CD covers to her credit. Her other hobbies include writing poetry, ethnic cooking, hiking, and support and preservation of traditional folk music and culture.

Ms. Friedman is originally from Los Angeles. In l968 she received a B.A. degree in English, with honors, from the University of California at Berkeley.

Public Speaking

All of Ms. Friedman's presentations are developed specifically for a given audience, after consultation with the appropriate parties. She thus does not offer standardized or "canned" talks. Many of her presentations are accompanied by PowerPoint audiovisuals. Watch a video of Emily Friedman.

Among her presentation topics are:

• Population health management: what are we talking about?
• The changing health care landscape: what we know, what we don't know, and what no one knows
• Disaster preparedness in health care: are we really ready?
• Rebuilding the Cambodian health care system
• Lessons from health care systems around the globe
• Health care rationing: horror or hope?
• Comparative effectiveness: model, metaphor, or muddle?
• Health policy: what it is, how it works (and doesn't), and what providers can do to influence it
• Coverage and access in an era of change
• The politics and ethics of health care reform
• Medicaid: past, present, and future
• The aging of America and the future of Medicare
• Leadership, change, and the profession of medicine
• The future of coverage and access for children
• The ethical responsibilities of the health care professional
• The ethics of technology: choices and challenges
• The new push for quality improvement: do we mean it this time?
• Ethics challenges and opportunities for trustees
• Ethics issues for health care leaders and organizations
• What is leadership in health care?
• Is the future bright for women in health care leadership?
• Health care and conscience: does mission matter?
• What health care history teaches us about policy
• Hospitals under fire: tax status, community benefit, and the uninsured
• Wild cards: dealing with the unexpected in health care
• The future of public and private health coverage
• Skyrocketing health care costs: causes and consequences
• Demographic change: implications for health care and the health professions
• Ethics issues in women's health care
• "Consumer-directed" health care and its implications
• The end of life: Ethics, policy, and politics

Presentations on other topics can and will be prepared if Ms. Friedman believes she is qualified to speak on the subject.

For speaking engagements, Ms. Friedman can be contacted directly or through speakers' bureaus. See contact information below.

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Books Available

In January 2006, Ms. Friedman's extensive report, White Coats and Many Colors: Population Diversity and its Implications for Health Care, was published by the American Hospital Association. It is available at no charge in electronic format: http://www.aha.org/aha/content/2005/pdf/WhiteCoatsManyColors.pdf (3.15 MB)

• Making Choices: Ethics Issues for Health Care Professionals, available from Ms. Friedman (the book is out of print)
• Choices and Conflict: Explorations in Health Care Ethics, available from Ms. Friedman
• An Unfinished Revolution: Women and Health Care in America, available from the United Hospital Fund of New York, New York City
• The Aloha Way: Health Care Structure and Finance in Hawaii, available from the Hawaii Medical Service Association (Blue Shield of Hawaii)
• The Right Thing: Ten Years of Ethics Columns from the Healthcare Forum Journal, available from Ms. Friedman, signed, for $38

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Periodical Writings

Hospitals & Health Networks Online * Hospitals & Health Networks Daily * Modern Healthcare * Health Forum Journal

Ms. Friedman is contributing editor of Hospitals & Health Networks and columnist for Hospitals & Health Networks online; her column appears six times a year. She also writes for other periodicals.

Ms. Friedman's article Warning from a Mass Grave: Hospitals Under Attack is now available in two versions: Warning from a Mass Grave: Hospitals Under Attack — Updated (with footnotes) and Warning from a Mass Grave: Hospitals Under Attack — Updated (without footbotes).

From 1986 until July 2003, Ms. Friedman wrote an award-winning column on ethics and social policy in health care, "Making Choices," for the Health Forum Journal. In July 2003, the journal terminated publication. Several of Ms. Friedman's recent columns can be found on this website (see below), and earlier columns can be accessed at www.healthforumjournal.com.

A compendium of Ms. Friedman's Health Forum Journal columns from 1986 though January 1996 is available in her book, The Right Thing, available from her (autographed) for $38 (checks and cash only). See the "Books Available" section of this website for more information.

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Hospitals & Health Networks Online columns:

• Before It's Too Late: Defending Public Health April 5, 2016
• The Opioid Overuse Epidemic: What Providers Can Do February 2, 2016
• What Do Most Health Care Systems Have in Common? December 1, 2015
• Lessons from a Health Care Emergency: Praise and Opportunity October 6, 2015
• Rights and Wrongs: The Ethics of Patient Demand August 4, 2015
• The Endless Debate: Medicare and Medicaid at 50 June 2, 2015
• The Roller-Coaster Supply of Burn and Trauma Care April 7, 2015
• Health Care Hysteria: The Case of Ebola Fever February 3, 2015
• Warning from a Mass Grave: Hospitals Under Attack Part 2 December 2, 2014
• Warning from a Mass Grave: Hospitals Under Attack October 7, 2014
• Prescription Drug Costs and the Specter of Rationing August 5, 2014
• U.S. Hospitals and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 June 3, 2014
• Doctors Without Borders: The Beauty and Burden of Bearing Witness April 1, 2014
• Stopping Dr. Feelgood: The Challenge of Overprescribing February 4, 2014
• Failure All Around: How Do We Identify and Stop Rogue Practitioners? December 3, 2013
• A Fair Exchange: Insurance, Enrollment and the Games People Play October 1, 2013
• So Quit, Already: Futility, Faith, Family and the Ongoing Battle over End-of-Life Care August 6, 2013
• Which Populations? Whose Health? June 4, 2013
• The Paper Chase: Why Are Some Providers Reluctant to Embrace Health Information Technology? April 2, 2013
• How the United States Ended Up with a Single-Payer System: A Fable February 5, 2013
• Big Brother versus the Big Gulp: Are Campaigns to Encourage Healthy Habits Going Too Far? December 4, 2012
• The Ethics of Change: Making the Right Decisions in a Shifting System October 2, 2012
• When the Healer is Hurt: How Providers Cope with Being Victims of Disaster August 7, 2012
• Is This Really Necessary? Taking a Second Look at Common Medical Procedures June 5, 2012
• The Sounds of Silence: Are Patients Getting the Information They Need? April 4, 2012
• Access to Dental Care: A National Scandal February 9,2012
• Who We Are: Implications of the 2010 Census for Health Care, Part 2 December 6, 2011
• Who We Are: Implications of the 2010 Census for Health Care, Part 1 October 4, 2011
• Compensatory Justice: A Cautionary Tale August 2, 2011
• Estimated Useful Lives of Depreciable Human Beings June 2, 2011
• The Law That Changed Everything - And It Isn't the One You Think April 5, 2011
• In What, Exactly, Do We Trust? February 1, 2011
• But They Said This Key Would Work: Coverage, Access and the Meaning of Insurance, Part 2 December 6, 2010
• But They Said This Key Would Work: Coverage, Access and the Meaning of Insurance, Part 1 October 5, 2010.
• It's Pretty, But How Does It Fit? August 3, 2010
• Careful — There's a Baby in That Bathwater June 1, 2010
• The Burden of Uncertainty April 6, 2010
• Echoes Down the Years February 2, 2010
• Almost Paradise December 1, 2009
• Your Tax Dollars at Work October 6, 2009
• Starting from Scratch: Heroes, Failures and Hope August 4, 2009
• Starting from Scratch: Rebuilding a Health Care System June 2, 2009
• The Next Generation of Health Care Leaders: Ten Challenges April 7, 2009
• Scorched Earth February 3, 2009
• Impunity December 2, 2008
• Here We Go Again October 7, 2008
• Dead Canaries August 8, 2008
• Surf, Turf and the Future of Primary Care June 3, 2008
• 'Never Events' and Health Care Ethics April 1, 2008
• Adventures in the Skin Trade February 5, 2008
• Sausage Grinders, Brinkmanship and the Coverage of Children December 4, 2007
• Hear That Long, Lonesome Whistle Blow October 2, 2007
• Happy Tails, Jake Leg, and the Food and Drug Administration August 7, 2007
• A Generational Thing June 5, 2007
• Other People's Health Care April 3, 2007
• Flop at the Top: What Has Happened to Health Care Leadership Ethics? February 6, 2007
• The Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit: The Fast and the Furious December 5, 2006
• How Simply Elegant: The Problem with Individual Insurance Mandates October 3, 2006
• Disaster Planning: What Have We Learned? August 1, 2006
• Privacy? What Privacy? Confidentiality Who? June 6, 2006
• An Open and Shut Case April 5, 2006
• Tapestry February 9, 2006
• Quality Improvement: Do We Mean It This Time? December 5, 2005
• Heroes of the Storm October 3, 2005
• Happy Birthday to a Stepchild July 27, 2005
• Hypocrites All, (the Terri Schiavo case) June 7, 2005
• It's on You, April 5, 2005
• In the Shadow of the "Spanish Lady", February 2, 2005
• A Matter of Life and Death, December 7, 2004.
• A Modest Proposal, October 5, 2004.
• My Doctor, the Cop, August 3, 2004.
• Anatomy of a Crusade, June 1, 2004.
• Hardball, April 6, 2004.
• Driven to Extremes, February 2004.

Hospitals & Health Networks Daily

• Progress and Pain: Stories from the International Forum on Quality and Safety in Health Care, April 13, 2011

Modern Healthcare columns:

• Marketing Prevention, March 31, 2012.
• HIPAA Humdrum, August 29, 2011.
• A Luxury We Can No Longer Afford, September 28,2010
• Letters to the President, January 19, 2009
• A History Lesson Not Learned, May 1, 2006
• Researching the truth, 18 July, 2005 (cover story)
• Fiddling while Rome Burns, September 27, 2004
• Aboard the insurance Titanic, September 29, 2003

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Health Forum Journal columns:

• Life Cycle, Summer 2003
• Rocket Science, Spring 2003
• Death Spiral, Winter 2003
• Back to Basics, November/December 2002
• Separate and Unequal, September/October 2002
• Gently Down the Stream, July/August 2002
• Still Crazy After All These Years, May/June 2002
• Eat Dessert First, March/April 2002
• Picking Up the Pieces, January/February 2002

Other Writings

• In 2009, Ms. Friedman was commissioned by the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) to write a research paper on the lack of diversity among clinical trial participants and how more diversity might be attained. Her paper was published in 2010 on the CIRM web site. Because it was state-funded, it is public domain and can be downloaded and shared - and Ms. Friedman encourages you to do so. The paper is available at http://www.cirm.ca.gov/files/PDFs/Publications/Diversity_Report.pdf, and, as with all of Ms. Friedman's work, she welcomes your comments.
• A Difficult Child's First Birthday: Thoughts on the Initial Year of the Healthcare Reform Law, The Governance Institute, March 2011
• The Day After Trinity (pdf format), Health Progress, July–August 2009

Emily's Blog

Awards and Honors

• In 2011, 2012, and 2014, Ms. Friedman was awarded the "Top5 Speaker" designation in Healthcare by Speaking.com.
• In 2009, Ms. Friedman won the Excellence in Teaching Award for being the highest-rated teacher at the Boston University School of Public Health.
• In September 2007, she was honored as the first recipient of the Colorado Hospital Association's Pioneer Award for Vision and Leadership in Health Care.
• In April 2005, the editors of Modern Healthcare named Ms. Friedman one of the "Top 25 Women in Healthcare."
• In August 2002, August 2004, and August 2006, the readers of Modern Healthcare named Emily Friedman as one of the 100 most powerful people in the health care field
• In May 2003, Emily Friedman's regular column, "Making Choices," in Health Forum Journal, won a National Award of Excellence from the American Society of Business Publication Editors. This is the largest competition in U.S. business publishing.
• In April 2003, Emily Friedman's regular column, "Making Choices," in Health Forum Journal, won the Gold Award from the American Society of Healthcare Publication Editors. This is the highest award that the Association grants.
• Honorary Life Member of the American Hospital Association
• Honorary member of the American Medical Association
• Fellow of AcademyHealth (formerly the Association for Health Services Research)
• Honorary Lifetime Fellow of the American Academy of Medical Administrators
• Winner of the Corning Award from the Society for Health Care Strategy and Market Development

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Comments on Emily Friedman's Speaking:

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