Karl Stark’s ‘Follow the Money’ Session: Exploring Hospital Finances Through AHCJ’s Tools and Techniques

The “Follow the Money” series is a new initiative created by AHCJ and Investigative Reporters and Editors to help journalists explore the financial side of healthcare. In the first session of the series, Karl Stark, an AHCJ member and Director of Content Strategy & Editor in Residence at the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics at the University of Pennsylvania, will demonstrate how to use AHCJ’s hospitalfinances.org site and other tools to report on hospitals’ financial well-being.

The “Follow the Money” series is available to journalists for free thanks to the generous support of the NIHCM Foundation. Karl Stark’s work at LDI focuses on encouraging his fellows to write for the public, while prior to his current role he spent over thirty years at The Philadelphia Inquirer holding positions such as Health Editor, Business News Editor, and National/Foreign Editor. His investigative reporting on the bankrupt Allegheny health system led to the indictment of its top three executives.

Stark has also been President of AHCJ and is a co-author of AHCJ’s “Covering the Quality of Health Care – A Resource Guide for Journalists.” His session on covering hospital finances is highly anticipated at AHCJ’s annual meeting. He is a graduate of Yale University, where he was a varsity tennis player, and also competed in skating alongside his sister Julie.