Opening Keynote: Healthcare in a Post-COVID Era

What has COVID-19 taught the healthcare industry? This is the essential question Marty Makary, MD, MPH, will address while kicking off Virtual OR Excellence during the conference’s opening keynote.

He'll tackle what surgical professionals should take away from the pandemic and the important role they can play moving forward in designing a more responsive, expandable and patient-centered healthcare system.

Health care became the largest business in the United States in January 2018, according to Dr. Makary, a professor at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine & Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore. “But despite spending $3 trillion dollars a year, our rigid system was unable to pivot quickly for a health emergency,” he says. “Research infrastructure, medical journals and capacity management struggled with legacy systems that could not move fast enough.”

Dr. Makary sounded the alarm on the pandemic before many believed it was going to be a problem and will discuss how he became deeply involved in fighting for preparedness, urgency and equity during the greatest pandemic of our generation. “COVID-19 has taught us some valuable lessons,” he says. “Our challenge will be to implement them quickly and never forget the obstacles that hurt us.”

Dr. Makary will also discuss his latest book, The Price We Pay, an honest and eye-opening look at America’s damaged healthcare system, the people who are trying to fix it and a road map for Americans and business leaders to get a better deal on their health care. The book about one woman’s mission to love the overlooked children of Egypt’s garbage slums.

Dr. Makary is one of the nation’s leading health policy experts and a frequent contributor on cable news channels. His current research focuses on the underlying causes of disease and relationship-based medicine. OSM