The Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics (LDI) was established at the University of Pennsylvania in 1967 in response to growing national need for high quality research and education to inform policies critical to the financing and management of the nation’s increasingly costly and complex health care system.

The Institute bears the name of Leonard Davis, one of the foremost innovators in private health insurance. He is founder of Colonial Penn Group, Inc., a company that has pioneered in insurance for older Americans. Both Mr. Leonard Davis and Mrs. Sophie Davis are generous benefactors of the University of Pennsylvania, contributing basic support for LDI activities.

The Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics (LDI) is the primary locus of the University of Pennsylvania's activities and programs in health services research, policy analysis, and education. A formal cooperative venture among Penn's schools of medicine, business, nursing, and dental medicine, LDI works to improve the health of the public through multidisciplinary studies on the medical, economic, social, and ethical issues that influence how health care is organized, financed, managed, and delivered. LDI represents one of the earliest efforts to promote collaborative scholarship in health care through formal partnerships within the same university among the clinical, management, and social sciences.

Past and Present Executive Directors of LDI

The Leonard Davis Institute strives to:

• Improve health care delivery through research on the efficient allocation and appropriate use of health resources and development of innovative health care delivery systems.
  
• Guide and influence health policy at the national, state, and local levels.
  
• Attract and retain scholars in health services research at Penn.
  
• Attract the highest quality students and trainees to Penn and train then to become future leaders in health care research, management and policy.
  
• Serve as the locus of Penn's activities and programs in multidisciplinary health services research, policy and executive education, contribute to multidisciplinary health education by working through the schools.
  
• Strengthen and expand high quality, multidisciplinary health services and policy research and education at Penn by increasing collaboration among investigators and academic units active in these fields.
  
• Establish and maintain LDI and the University of Pennsylvania as internationally recognized leaders in health care research, policy and education.
  
• Disseminate information to improve health care delivery through efficient allocation and appropriate use of health resources and development of innovative health care delivery systems.

Research

Health Policy

Health Care Management Executive Education Program

LDI's Senior Fellows include some of the world's most distinguished scholars in medicine, management,economics, insurance, nursing, dental medicine, anthropology, communications, sociology, education, history,engineering, and law. Its resources in the health, management, social, and behavioral sciences have produced a caliber of scholarship that ranks LDI among the world's leading centers of its kind.

For more information on LDI Senior Fellows click here.

Name	Title	Email
David A. Asch, MD, MBA	LDI Executive Director, Robert D. Eilers Professor of Medicine and Health Care Management and Economics, Chief of the Health Services Research Service at the Philadelphia Veterans Affairs Medical Center	asch@wharton.upenn.edu
Joanne H. Levy, MBA, MCP	Associate Director	levyj@wharton.upenn.edu
Janet Weiner, MPH	Associate Director for Health Policy	weinerja@mail.med.upenn.edu
Agnieshka Baumritter, MA	Project Manager	baumrita@wharton.upenn.edu
Rachel Katz Cogan	Business Manager	cogan@wharton.upenn.edu
Jennifer O'Donohue	Administrative Coordinator	odonohu2@wharton.upenn.edu
Sheryl Warfield	Office Administrative Assistant	warfield@wharton.upenn.edu
Executive Education
Kathryn Pearson, Ph.D.	Director of Health Care Executive Education	kpearson@grace.wharton.upenn.edu
Sherill Rosoff, MS	Managing Director of Health Care Executive Education	rosoffs@wharton.upenn.edu
Debbye Wallace	Health Care Executive Education Coordinator	wallaced@wharton.upenn.edu