David A. Asch, MD, MBA

David Asch is Executive Director of the Penn Medicine Center for Health Care Innovation. He is Professor of Medicine and Professor of Medical Ethics and Health Policy at the Perelman School of Medicine and Professor of Health Care Management and Professor of Operations and Information Management at the Wharton School. He is Director of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholars Program at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Asch’s research aims to understand and improve how physicians and patients make medical choices in clinical, financial, and ethically charged settings, including the adoption of new pharmaceuticals or medical technologies, the purchase of insurance, and personal health behaviors. His research combines elements of economic analysis with psychological theory and marketing in the field now called behavioral economics. He is the author of more than 250 published papers. He teaches health policy at the Wharton School and he practices internal medicine at the Philadelphia Veterans Affairs Medical Center, where he created and from 2001 to 2012 directed the Center for Health Equity Research and Promotion—the Department of Veterans Affairs’ national center to support vulnerable populations and reduce racial disparities. He created and from 2001 to 2014 directed the RWJF Health & Society Scholars Program at the University of Pennsylvania. From 1998 to 2012 he was Executive Director of the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics. He is a partner at VAL Health, the world’s leading firm devoted to behavioral economics and health. At the University of Pennsylvania, Dr. Asch has received the Resident Teaching Award (1986), the John M. Eisenberg Teaching Award (1995), the Samuel P. Martin, III Award in Health Services Research (1999) the Arthur K. Asbury Award for Outstanding Faculty Mentorship (2004), the Christian R. and Mary F. Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching in the University (2006), the Perelman School of Medicine’s Distinguished Graduate Award (2012), and the Luigi Mastroianni Clinical Innovator Award (2014).