Lawton R. Burns

Lawton R. Burns Profile

Lawton R. Burns is passionate about healthcare and has taught several courses on topics related to the field including healthcare strategy, organization and management.

He is currently a professor and the chair of University of Pennsylvania Wharton School’s health care systems department, as well as the director of the Wharton Center for Health Management & Economics. In 1992, Burns was honored as an Edwin L. Crosby Memorial Fellow for his lengthy research on physician-organization integration.

Among his many works, Burns has written about supply chain management in the healthcare industry, trends of the different sectors of the global health care industry, and the structure of physician networks.

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  Health Care Management Department, Wharton Center for Health Management and Economics

  Lawton R. Burns, Ph.D., MBA, is the Chair of the Health Care Sytems Department, and also the James Joo-Jin Kim Professor, as well as a Professor of Health Care Systems in the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania . He is also Director of the Wharton Center for Health Management & Economics. Dr. Burns teaches courses on healthcare strategy, strategic change, organization and management, managed care, and integrated delivery systems.

  From 1998-2002, he was a Visiting Professor in the Department of Preventive Medicine at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine, where he taught corporate strategy to physicians. He received his doctorate in Sociology and his MBA in Health Administration from the University of Chicago . Dr. Burns taught previously in the Graduate School of Business at the University of Chicago and the College of Business Administration at the University of Arizona.

  Dr. Burns sits on the Governing Board of the Institute of Medicine (Health Services section) and on the editorial board of Health Services Research. He is a past member of the Grant Review Study Section for the Agency for Health Care Policy & Research. He is also a Life Fellow of Clare Hall at the University of Cambridge.

  Dr. Burns has analyzed physician-organization integration over the past twenty years. In recognition of this research, Dr. Burns was named the Edwin L. Crosby Memorial Fellow by the Hospital Research and Educational Trust in 1992. Dr. Burns has also published several papers on the structure and performance of physician networks, the market forces that shape the growth of group practices and investor-owned networks, and the organizational options for physicians in a consolidating industry.

  In addition to this research, Dr. Burns has conducted extensive analyses of the Allegheny Health Education & Research Foundation (AHERF) bankruptcy, and is now completing a book on the bankruptcy and the Philadelphia hospital market.

  Most recently, he has completed a book on supply chain management in the healthcare industry: The Health Care Value Chain (Jossey-Bass, 2002). The study focuses on the strategic alliances and partnerships developing between pharmaceutical firms/distributors, disposable manufacturers, medical device manufacturers, group purchasing organizations, and organized delivery systems. He has also completed a companion volume on The Business of Healthcare Innovation (Cambridge University Press, 2005), which examines the market structure and trends in the pharmaceutical, biotechnology, medical device, and information system sectors of the global health care industry.

  Dr. Burns has also received an Investigator Award from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to study the reasons for failure in organizational change efforts by healthcare providers.

  Dr. Burns teaches one- and two-day management seminars on behalf of the Wharton School and other organizations. These seminars are designed to prepare physicians and administrators for managing integrated delivery systems and strategic change.