Rosenberg Lecture on Healthcare Quality
Featuring: Dr. Dirk Perritt, Chief Executive Officer at MD Health Pathways
The 2025 Rosenberg Lecture for Healthcare Quality highlighted the journey of MD Health Pathways, a venture driven by the critical need for immediate, accessible care. Initial funding challenges exposed a significant demand for services, leading to the development of a sustainable financial model that avoids new tax burdens. By focusing on community-level outcomes—such as reductions in non-emergent 911 calls and decreased school absences—the discussion redefined "quality care" on a broader scale. Creative approaches to sustainability, including strategic partnerships and diverse funding avenues, were explored, demonstrating how technology and local collaboration can drive transformative, equitable health solutions. The impact of a text-first model on healthcare access and overall community health was also examined as part of this broader conversation.
A Tribute to Stephen N. Rosenberg, MD, MPH
Dr. Stephen N. Rosenberg (1941-2010 ) was a “Renaissance man” and a treasure. With a charming and supportive disposition, all who knew him were blessed that he had passed through their lives. As someone proficient at multi-tasking, Steve was a practitioner, administrator, educator, researcher, policy setter, author, board and committee member and international consultant often doing many things simultaneously. Importantly, Steve adored his family - wife, Barbara who died December 2012, and 2 children, Jordy who is on faculty at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and Amanda who is a physician, living in Australia.
Finishing medical school at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and then an MPH from Harvard during the height of the Viet Nam war, Steve was part of a generation of physicians who selected to dedicate their careers to public health. Steve began by working as a health officer in the South Bronx for the New York City Department of Health (DOH) and after time in their central office, adventured out as a county health officer in Southern California before settling back in New York City (NYC).
Dr. Rosenberg was a pioneering academic and visionary with early work in containing costs and assuring quality through practice at DOH and the Mayor’s Office of Labor Relations (OLR) and conducting utilization studies in health services research. He monitored the quality of Medicaid services delivered in NYC in 1970. At OLR in the 1980-90’s, Steve changed how NYC negotiated its labor benefits. He created a cost/quality component in the city’s purchase of health insurance so that over one million employees, retirees and dependents received high quality health care at a reasonable price. Steve’s legacy in improving outcomes and effectiveness in NYC includes second surgical opinion, pre-authorization for high cost claims, and quality review of plans.
Steve came to the School of Public Health (SPH) in 1974 and continued to work full time for NYC from 1975-94. He was a talented storyteller which made him an admirable and much anticipated lecturer. Steve taught the core Health Administration course and also taught courses on Quality Assurance, patient and physician relationship and community medicine. He spread his good humor and keen observations through numerous SPH committees and work groups. In Steve’s honor, the Department of Health Policy and Management holds a well-attended annual lecture series focusing on healthcare quality.
Steve’s passion for writing led him to write The Brenda Maneuver, a detective story about uncovering fraud based on what Steve was seeing in his work. While at DOH when Medicare and Medicaid became law, clinics delivering neighborhood services committed fraud in their billing. The clinics were organized as shadow corporations so it was difficult to find the liable parties. Steve told the story of the analogy between “The Brenda Maneuver” and Medicaid fraud every semester in the core Health Administration course. The book was reviewed by the New York Times. Steve also wrote a Johnson and Johnson First Aid Book which was translated into multiple languages. Steve was working on a prescient second novel about a global pandemic which is unfinished.