The Business of Health with Chip Kahn
About this Episode
Episode 18, AI Series: When health systems are stressed, Martin McKee has been there taking notes. He’s spent four decades studying collapse and recovery — the post-Soviet transition, the 2008 financial crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, as professor of European public health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and research director of the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies, he’s turned that lens on AI. He arrives at a charged moment: America is locked in a debate over whether AI development should slow down or even pause. Europe made a different choice — binding AI with some of the world’s strictest rules. After a run of episodes examining AI through a U.S. lens, Chip and McKee cross the Atlantic: What does the American debate look like from Europe — and does regulation offer an answer that a pause cannot?
The Host
Charles N. Kahn III is a senior visiting fellow at KFF. He is also a visiting senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a nonresident senior scholar at the University of Southern California’s Schaeffer Center for Health Policy & Economics. He serves as co-chair of the international Future of Health collaborative.
Guest
Martin McKee, CBE, MD, DSc, FMedSci
Professor, European Public Health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine; Co-Director European Observatory on Health Systems & Policy
Martin McKee, CBE, MD, DSc, FMedSci, is Professor of European Public Health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), where he has served since 1990. Throughout his career, he has developed a major research program on health and healthcare in Europe. As Medical Director at LSHTM for eight years, Dr. McKee oversaw professional issues affecting approximately 140 clinical academic staff. During the COVID pandemic, he served on the Independent Scientific Advisory Group on Emergencies (Independent SAGE) in the UK and the World Health Organization’s Pan-European Commission on Health and Sustainable Development.
His contributions to public health have been recognized through numerous honors, including the Andrija Stampar medal from the Association of Schools of Public Health in the European Region (2003), a Commander of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II for services to healthcare (2005), and the Alwyn Smith prize from the UK Faculty of Public Health (2014). He served as President of the European Public Health Association in 2014-2016 and of the British Medical Association in 2022-2023.
Dr. McKee has authored several reports with major policy impact across the European Union and has advised governments worldwide.
SERIES
This weekly podcast features insightful conversations between host Chip Kahn and his guests, who discuss the business of health care, connecting the dots between the health care business, policy, and patients.
The podcast’s first series on AI in health care illuminates how AI is changing health care, and features guests who are deploying this technology, managing its consequences, and designing policy around it.