Committee: Comparative Effectiveness Research Prioritization

Committee Membership Information


Project Title:	Comparative Effectiveness Research Prioritization
PIN:	IOM-HCS-09-01
Major Unit:	Institute of Medicine
Sub Unit:	Board on Health Care Services
RSO:	Ratner, Robert
Subject/Focus Area:	Health and Medicine

Committee Membership

Date Posted: 03/19/2009

Dr. Sheldon Greenfield - (Co-Chair)
University of California, Irvine College of Medicine

Sheldon Greenfield, MD, is an internist, having completed his residency at the Beth Israel Hospital in Boston where he began to work on clinical algorithms for nurse practitioners in the early 70's. He has pioneered research in increasing patients’ participation in care and using outcomes to determine the value of that participation. He was Medical Director of the Medical Outcome Study (MOS) which sought to compare systems of care, specialties, various aspects of interpersonal care and resource use to outcome, and, in that position, became one of the leading clinician outcomes researchers in the country. He was Principal Investigator of the Type II diabetes Patient Outcome Research Team (PORT). He was Co-director of the RAND-UCLA Center for Health Policy Study. He is former President of the Society of General Internal Medicine and was Chairman of the Health Care Technology Study Section for the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research. He was the 1995 recipient of the PEW Health Professions Commission Award for lifetime achievement in Primary Care Research. He is a member of the Institute of Medicine. He is Chairman of the Diabetes Quality Improvement Program, a joint venture of the CMS, NCQA and the ADA.

Dr. Harold C. Sox - (Co-Chair)
American College of Physicians

Harold Sox graduated from Stanford University (B.S. physics) and Harvard Medical School. After serving as a medical intern and resident at Massachusetts General Hospital, he spent two years doing research in immunology at the National Institutes of Health and three years at Dartmouth Medical School, where he served as chief medical resident and began his studies of medical decision making. He then spent fifteen years on the faculty of Stanford University School of Medicine, where he was the chief of the division of general internal medicine and director of ambulatory care at the Palo Alto VA Medical Center. In 1988 he returned to Dartmouth where he served for thirteen years as Joseph M. Huber Professor of Medicine and chair of the department of medicine. He became the Editor of the Annals of Internal Medicine in 2001.

Dr. Sox was the President of the American College of Physicians during 1998-1999. He chaired the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force from 1990 to 1995, the Institute of Medicine Committee to Study HIV Transmission through Blood Products, and the Institute of Medicine Committee on Health Effects Associated with Exposures Experienced in the Gulf War. He chaired the Medicare Coverage Advisory Committee of the Center for Medicare Services from 1999 to 2003 and served on the Report Review Committee of the National Research Council from 2000 to 2005. He currently chairs the National Advisory Committee for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Physician Faculty Scholars Program and is a member of the Board of Directors of the Foundation for Informed Medical Decision Making. He was elected to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies in 1993 and to fellowship in the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2002. His books include Medical Decision Making, Common Diagnostic Tests: Selection and Interpretation, and HIV and the Blood Supply: an Analysis of Crisis Decisionmaking.

Dr. Christine K. Cassel
American Board of Internal Medicine

Christine Cassel, MD, MACP, is President and CEO of the American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM) and the ABIM Foundation, and an expert in geriatric medicine, bioethics and quality of care. Dr. Cassel, board certified in internal medicine and geriatric medicine, was the first female board chair of the ABIM, the first female President of the American College of Physicians, and the first female dean of Oregon Health & Science University, Portland. An active scholar and lecturer, she is the author or co-author of 14 books and more than 150 journal articles on geriatric medicine, aging, bioethics and health policy. She chaired influential IOM reports on end-of-life care and public health. Her most recent book is Medicare Matters: What Geriatric Medicine Can Teach American Health Care.

Dr. Kay Dickersin
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

Kay Dickersin, PhD, is Professor of Epidemiology at Johns Hopkins Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and Director of the Center for Clinical Trials. She is also the Director of the US Cochrane Center (USCC) and is Director of the Cochrane Eyes and Vision Group US Satellite. The USCC supports Consumers United for Evidence-based Healthcare (CUE), a partnership with health and consumer advocacy organizations, started in 2003. Kay is President of the Society for Clinical Trials (2008-9), and a member of the Institute of Medicine. Dr. Dickersin's main research contributions have been in clinical trials, systematic reviews, publication bias, trials registers, and the development and utilization of methods for the evaluation of medical care and its effectiveness. At the IOM, she has been a member of the Committee on Reviewing Evidence to Identify Highly Effective Clinical Services, the Committee on Reimbursement of Routine Patient Care Costs for Medicare Patients Enrolled in Clinical Trials, the Committee on Defense Women's Health Research, and the Committee to Review the Department of Defense's Breast Cancer Research Program. Dr. Dickersin received a Master’s Degree in Zoology, specializing in Cell Biology, from the University of California, Berkeley, and a Ph.D. in Epidemiology from Johns Hopkins University's School of Hygiene and Public Health.

Dr. Alan M. Garber
Stanford University

Alan M. Garber is the Henry J. Kaiser Jr. Professor and a Professor of Medicine at Stanford, where he directs the Center for Health Policy and the Center for Primary Care and Outcomes Research.. He is a Staff Physician at the Palo Alto VA and directs the Health Care Program of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). He is a member of the Panel of Health Advisers of the Congressional Budget Office, the American Society for Clinical Investigation, the Association of American Physicians, and the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences. He served as the Chair of the Medicare Evidence Development and Coverage Advisory Committee (Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services) and as a member of the National Advisory Council on Aging (National Institutes of Health), and as a member of many committees of the National Institutes of Health and of the National Academies. His work addresses methods for improving health care delivery and financing, particularly for the elderly. It encompasses technology evaluation, analysis of the causes of health expenditure growth, and health care productivity. A summa cum laude graduate of Harvard College, he received his Ph.D. in economics from Harvard and an M.D. with research honors from Stanford, and trained in medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

Dr. Constantine Gatsonis
Brown University

Dr. Gatsonis is Professor of Medical Science (Biostatistics) and founding Director of the Center for Statistical Sciences at Brown University. Dr. Gatsonis is a leading authority on the evaluation of diagnostic and screening tests and has extensive involvement in methodologic research in medical technology assessment and in health services and outcomes research. He is Group Statistician of the American College of Radiology Imaging Network (ACRIN), a NCI funded collaborative group conducting multi-center studies of diagnostic imaging and image-guided therapy for cancer. In his ACRIN work, Dr Gatsonis is chief statistician of the Digital Mammography Imaging Screening Trial (DMIST) and chief statistician for ACRIN’s arm of the National Lung Screening Trial (NLST).

Dr. Gary L. Gottlieb
Brigham and Women's Hospital

Gary L. Gottlieb, M.D., M.B.A., serves as President of Brigham and Women’s/Faulkner Hospitals; a position he has held since March 1, 2002. He is a Professor of Psychiatry at the Harvard Medical School. Partners HealthCare recruited Dr. Gottlieb to become the first chairman of Partners Psychiatry in 1998 and he served in that capacity through 2005. In 2000, he added the role of President of the North Shore Medical Center where he served until early 2002. Prior to coming to Boston, Dr. Gottlieb spent 15 years in positions of increasing leadership in health care in Philadelphia. In 1983, he arrived at the University of Pennsylvania as a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholar. Through that program, he earned an M.B.A with Distinction in Health Care Administration from Penn’s Wharton Graduate School of Business Administration. He credits the program with building a foundation of interest in health policy, management and academic leadership. Dr. Gottlieb went on to establish Penn Medical Center’s first program in geriatric psychiatry and developed it into a nationally recognized research, training and clinical program. Dr. Gottlieb rose to become Executive Vice Chair and Interim Chair of Penn’s Department of Psychiatry and the Health System’s Associate Dean for Managed Care. In 1994, he became Director and Chief Executive Officer of Friends Hospital in Philadelphia, the nation’s oldest, independent, freestanding psychiatric hospital. In addition to his noteworthy academic, clinical and management record, Dr. Gottlieb has published extensively in geriatric psychiatry and health care policy. He is a past President of the American Association of Geriatric Psychiatry. Dr. Gottlieb also was a Director of NASDAQ traded OVID Technologies from 1997-1998 and participated in its acquisition by Wolters Kluwer Publishing.

Dr. Gottlieb received his BS cum laude from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and his M.D. from the Albany Medical College of Union University in a six-year accelerated biomedical program. He completed his internship and residency and served as Chief Resident at New York University/Bellevue Medical Center. Now, as a recognized community leader in Boston, Dr. Gottlieb also focuses his attention on workforce development and disparities in health care. He was appointed by Mayor Thomas Menino as Chairman of the Private Industry Council, the City’s workforce development board, which partners with education, labor, higher education, the community and government, to provide oversight and leadership to public and private workforce development programs. In 2004-2005, he served as co-chair of the Mayor’s Task Force to Eliminate Health Disparities.

Mr. James A. Guest
Consumers Union

Mr. Guest became President and Chief Executive Officer of Consumers Union in February 2001 after a long career in public service and the consumer interest, including 21 years as Chair of Consumer Union’s Board of Directors. Consumers Union is the nonprofit, ad-free publisher of Consumer Reports and ConsumerReports.org. The organization was founded in 1936 when advertising first flooded the mass media, and consumers lacked any reliable source of information they could depend on to help them distinguish hype from fact and good products from bad ones. Since then, Consumers Union has filled that vacuum with an expert, independent, nonprofit organization whose mission is to Test, Inform, Protect and Connect, while working for a fair, just, and safe marketplace for consumers. Mr. Guest is a member of the Institute of Medicine’s Roundtable on Evidence-Based Medicine, the Quality Alliance Steering Committee and the Lucian Leape Institute of the National Patient Safety Foundation. He has spoken before several key stakeholder groups including the Association of Academic Health Centers, America’s Health Insurance Plans, the World Health Care Congress, the National Business Group on Health, and others. Mr. Guest also serves as Vice President of Consumers International, a federation of more than 225 consumer organizations from 115 countries that serves as the global campaigning voice for consumers around the world.

Mr. Guest’s public service career spans more than three decades. After graduating from Harvard Law School and completing a Woodrow Wilson fellowship in economics at MIT, he worked as legislative assistant to Senator Ted Kennedy. In the early 1970s, Mr. Guest moved to Vermont where he served as Banking and Insurance Commissioner, Secretary of State, and Secretary of Development and Community Affairs. Over the last 20 years, he has served as CEO of several service organizations and advocacy groups including Planned Parenthood of Maryland, Handgun Control Inc. and the Center to Prevent Handgun Violence. He was the founding Executive Director of the American Pain Foundation, a national consumer information, education, and advocacy organization for pain prevention and management.

Dr. Mark Helfand
Oregon Health & Science University

Dr. Helfand is a professor in the departments of Medicine and Medical Informatics and Clinical Epidemiology at Oregon Health & Science University and a practicing physician at the Portland VA Medical Center. Dr. Helfand has been a leader in methods for comparative effectiveness research. From 1998-2002, Dr.Helfand led a team that helped the US Preventive Services Task Force prioritize topics and develop evidence-based guidelines.. In the area of comparative effectiveness, he was a founder of the Drug Effectiveness Review Project (2003-2006) and, since 2004, has served as director of the Scientific Resource Center for AHRQ’s Effective Health Care program. He has directed the Oregon Evidence-based Practice Center since 1997 and is also Editor-in-Chief of the journal, Medical Decision Making. Dr. Helfand received his A.B. and B.S. from Stanford University and his M.D.and MPH from the University of Illinois School of Medicine. he specialized in Internal Medicine at Stanford, where he also completed a fellowship and earned an M.S. in health services research.

Ms. Maria Carolina Hinestrosa
National Breast Cancer Coalition

Maria Carolina Hinestrosa is the Executive Vice President for Programs and Planning at the National Breast Cancer Coalition –NBCC-, and founder and former executive director of Nueva Vida, a support organization for Latinas with cancer. She is a breast cancer survivor, having been diagnosed with this disease in 1994 and in 2000. In 2008, she was diagnosed with a radiation-induced sarcoma, a consequence of her prior breast cancer treatment. Ms. Hinestrosa chairs the Integration Panel of the Department of Defense Breast Cancer Research Program, serves on the National Advisory Council and on the Stakeholder Group of the Effective Healthcare Program at the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality; on the Roadmap and the Communications Groups of the Institute of Medicine’s Roundtable on Evidence Based Medicine, and on the Oversight Body of the Ethical Force of the American Medical Association, among other national committees. She has served on the IOM’s committees on Technologies for the Early Detection of Breast Cancer (Mammography and Beyond) and Reauthorization of MQSA (Improving the Quality of Breast Imaging Standards); as well as on the Breast Cancer Technical Panel of the National Quality Forum, on the National Action Plan on Breast Cancer and on the National Cancer Institute’s Central IRB.

Ms. Hinestrosa is an economist from Universidad del Rosario in Bogota, Colombia; obtained a masters degree in economics from Western Illinois University as a Fulbright Scholar, and a Masters of Public Health from the George Washington University in Washington, DC. Prior to her service as a consumer advocate, she worked as a business economist and strategic planner in Colombia and New Zealand.

Dr. George J. Isham
HealthPartners, Inc.

Dr. Isham, Chief Health Officer and Plan Medical Director, is responsible for health promotion and disease prevention, research, and health professionals’ education. He is also responsible for the health dimension of HealthPartners’ strategic plan and is active in state and national health policy issues. As plan Medical Director, he is responsible for quality and utilization management for HealthPartners Health Plan. He is a founding board member of the Institute for Clinical Systems Improvement, a collaborative of Twin Cities medical groups and health plans that is implementing clinical practice guidelines in Minnesota. Dr. Isham is currently a co-chair of a State of Minnesota Health Care Reform Task Force that is working on defining episodes of care. Dr. Isham provides leadership to other care delivery systems through service on the board of directors for Presbyterian Health Services in Albuquerque, NM and the External Advisory board of the Marshfield Clinic in Marshfield, WI.

Dr. Isham is active nationally as a member of the board of directors of the American’s Health Insurance Plans, the Alliance of Community Health Plans, the Accreditation Association for Ambulatory Care, and Bridges to Excellence. He is past co-chair and current member of the National Committee for Quality Assurance’s (NCQA) Committee on Performance Measurement which oversees the Health Plan quality measurement standards and currently chairs the NCQA’s committee on Physician Recognition Programs. He is a member of the National Priority Partners effort convened by the National Quality Forum, chairing the population health workgroup of that effort. He has served on the Center for Disease Control’s (CDC) Task Force on Community Preventive Services, on the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality’s (AHRQ) Advisory Board for the National Guideline Clearinghouse and currently is a member of the US Task Force on Clinical Preventive Services. He currently serves on the advisory board for the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review at Harvard. Dr. Isham has served on the Institute of Medicine’s (IOM) Board on Population Health and Public Health Practice and chaired the IOM committees that authored the reports Priority Areas for National Action, Transforming Health Care Quality and The State of the USA Health Indicators. Dr. Isham currently chairs the IOM Roundtable on Health Literacy. He was invited to present the Institute of Medicine’s Rosenthal Lecture for 2005 on “Next Steps Toward Higher Quality Health Care.” In addition, he has served on a number of committees, has presented to a number of workshops, and served as a reviewer of reports and workshop proceedings. In 2003 Dr. Isham was appointed as a lifetime National Associate of the National Academies of Science in recognition of his contributions to the work of the Institute of Medicine.

Mr. Arthur A. Levin
Center for Medical Consumers

Arthur Aaron Levin is co-founder and the Director of the Center for Medical Consumers, a New York City based non-profit organization committed to informed consumer and patient health care decision-making, patient safety, evidence-based, high quality medicine and health care system transparency. It receives no funding from the drug, device or health care industry. Mr. Levin was a member of the Institute of Medicine’s (IOM) Committee on the Quality of Health Care that published the “To Err is Human” and “Crossing the Quality Chasm” reports. He also served on the IOM committee that evaluated the federal quality effort and made recommendations to Congress in its’ report “Leadership Through Example.” More recently he was a member of the IOM’s Subcommittee on Performance Measures which reported to the Committee on Redesigning Health Insurance Benefits, Payment and Performance Improvement Program. Levin also was a member of the committee that issued a letter report in October 2007; Opportunities for Coordination and Clarity to Advance the National Health Information Agenda, and on the committee that wrote Knowing What Works in Health Care: A Roadmap for the Nation published last fall. He is a member of the IOM Board for Health Care Services.

Mr. Levin is co-chair of the NCQA Committee on Performance Measures that is charged with developing performance measures applicable to health plans. PPO’s and most recently physician practices. He has had past and current service on a number of NQF committees. He is a member of the NQF Consensus Standards Approval Committee (CSAC)
and has participated in a number of steering committees and technical advisory panels. He is also a member of the Board of the Citizens Advocacy Center, a Washington-based non-profit dedicated to serving public membership on state healthcare professional licensing and oversight boards. Most recently, Levin has become a member of the Board of the Foundation for Informed Medical Decision Making, dedicated to supporting patients and families in their health care decision-making.

Levin ended four years of service on the FDA’s Drug Safety and Risk Management Advisory Committee (DSaRM) in May 2007 and continues to serve on select FDA Advisory Committees as a Special Government Employee consultant expert in drug safety and risk management representing consumers. At the state level, Levin has served on numerous state health department task forces and workgroups focused on safety, quality, informed consent and bioethical concerns. Most recently he served as a member of a workgroup formed by the Commissioner of Health to set state policy with regard to office based surgery. That work led to the passage of legislation requiring physicians performing surgery in their offices using moderate or higher levels of sedation to do so in an accredited office setting and to report adverse outcomes to the state department of health. Levin has written and worked to pass legislation on physician profiles, hospital profiles (including performance reporting) and most recently a new state law mandating nosocomial infection reporting by hospitals.

On the health information and exchange technology front, Levin is on the board of THINC RHIO, a not for profit health information organization located in the mid-Hudson Valley and is a founding board member of the public-private partnership coordinating statewide HIT development and implementation, the New York State E-Health Collaborative (NYeC).
Levin earned his Masters of Public Health degree in health policy from Columbia University School of Public Health and a Bachelor of Arts degree in philosophy from Reed College. He has dedicated three decades to consumer advocacy with a special focus on informed consent and decision-making, public accountability, evidence-based practice, improved safety and better quality outcomes.

Dr. JoAnn E. Manson
Harvard Medical School

JoAnn E. Manson, M.D., Dr.P.H., F.A.C.P., is Professor of Medicine and the Elizabeth Fay Brigham Professor of Women’s Health at Harvard Medical School, Chief of Preventive Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH), and Co-Director of the Connors Center for Women’s Health and Gender Biology at BWH. An endocrinologist and epidemiologist, Dr. Manson is actively involved in women’s health research, including several large-scale clinical trials and observational studies of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and cancer. Her research has focused on the role of reproductive and hormonal factors, lifestyle variables such as diet (including vitamin D, calcium, omega-3s, and folic acid) and physical activity, and novel plasma and genetic markers as predictors of CVD, diabetes, and cancer. Dr. Manson is Principal Investigator of the Boston center for the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI), the CVD component of the Harvard Nurses’ Health Study, the Women’s Antioxidant and Folic Acid Cardiovascular Trial, the proposed Vitamin D and Omega-3 Trial, and other studies. She has published more than 600 articles in medical/scientific journals. Dr. Manson is the recipient of numerous awards, including the "Woman In Science Award” from the American Medical Women's Association, the Postmenopausal Cardiovascular Health Research Award from the North American Menopause Society, the International Menopause Society’s Henry Burger Prize, and others. She is a member of the Association of American Physicians and serves on a number of editorial and advisory boards, including the Board of the North American Menopause Society and the Scientific Advisory Board of Nutrition Action HealthLetter. Dr. Manson received her A.B. from Harvard University, her M.D. from Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, and her M.P.H. and Dr.P.H. from the Harvard School of Public Health.

Ms. Katie Maslow
Alzheimer's Association

Katie Maslow, MSW, was educated at Stanford and received her MSW degree from Howard University. She is Associate Director for Quality Care Advocacy at the Alzheimer’s Association. Her various projects at the Association encompass advocacy on the national level and administrative expertise in projects dealing with many aspects of patient care. She has been the director of the Association’s initiative on managed and acute care and co-director of its joint demonstration project, Chronic Care Networks for Alzheimer’s disease. She also has been overseeing a demonstration project on improving hospital care for people with dementia as well as the Association’s program to develop tips for nurses caring for this population in partnership with the Hartford Institute for Geriatric Nursing. She participated in the national Assisted Living Workgroup. She is the primary author of Alzheimer’s Facts And Figures, 2008. Before joining the Alzheimer’s Association, Ms. Maslow worked for 12 years at the US Office of Technology Assessment studying policy issues in aging, Alzheimer’s disease, long-term care, and case management. She serves on the national board of the American Society of Aging and has won the Society’s annual aware in 2003. She is a member of the American Geriatrics society, the American Public Health Association, the National Association of Social workers, and a fellow of the Gerontological Society of America.

Dr. Mark B. McClellan
The Brookings Institution

Mark McClellan, MD, PhD, is currently is currently the Director of the Engelberg Center for Health Care Reform, Senior Fellow in Economic Studies and Leonard D. Schaeffer Director's Chair in Health Policy Studies at the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC. Before joining Brookings he was the administrator of the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. He is an internist and economist with an interest in developing innovative statistical methods for using observational data to estimate the effects of medical interventions.

His research studies have focused on the economic and policy factors influencing medical treatment decisions and health outcomes; technological change in health care and its consequences for health and medical expenditures; and the relationship between health and economic well-being. He has previously served as a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute; a member of the National Academy of Sciences' National Cancer Policy Board; associate editor of the Journal of Health Economics, and co-principal investigator of the Health and Retirement Study, a longitudinal study of the health and economic well-being of older Americans. During 2001 and 2002 he served in the White House as a senior policy director for health care and related economic issues. He has twice received the Arrow Award for Outstanding Research in Health Economics. He earned his PhD in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, his MD from the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, and completed a residency in internal medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital.

Dr. Sally C. Morton
RTI International

Sally C. Morton, Ph.D. is Vice President for Statistics and Epidemiology at RTI International in Research Triangle Park, NC. She is the 2009 President of the American Statistical Association (ASA) and a member of the National Academy of Sciences Committee on National Statistics (CNSTAT). She served as a member of the Institute of Medicine (IOM) Committee on Reviewing Evidence to Identify Highly Effective Clinical Services. Dr. Morton is an Adjunct Professor of Biostatistics at the UNC-Chapel Hill School of Public Health, and is a Fellow of the ASA and of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). She is a meta-analytic expert for the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) RTI–University of North Carolina (UNC) Evidence-Based Practice Center (EPC). Her methodological work focuses on synthesis in evidence-based medicine, and surveys of vulnerable populations. Dr. Morton received a Ph.D. in statistics from Stanford University, an M.Sc. in statistics from the London School of Economics, an M.S. in operations research from Stanford, and a B.S. in mathematical sciences from Stanford. Prior to joining RTI International, Dr. Morton was the Chair in Statistics and Head of the Statistics Group at the RAND Corporation.

Dr. Neil R. Powe
Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions

Neil R. Powe, MD, is Professor of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. Unitl recently, he was also Professor in the Department of Medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and Director of the Welch Center for Prevention, Epidemiology and Clinical Research, a multidisciplinary research and training center at Johns Hopkins focused on clinical and population-based research. He also was Professor of Epidemiology and Health Policy and Management at Hopkins' Bloomberg School of Public Health. He has published over 270 articles on the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of diseases, value of health care technologies, and the effectiveness of the health care system. His major areas of interest and expertise are kidney and cardiovascular diseases; effectiveness and outcomes research and; economic evaluations in health care. He has studied physician decision making and other determinants of use of medical practices including payers' decisions about insurance coverage for new medical technologies, the effect of financial incentives on the use of technology, efficiency and outcomes in for-profit versus non-profit health care institutions, and the relation between hospital volume, technology and outcomes. Dr. Powe is author of more than 270 articles and among his many honors are membership in the Institute of Medicine, the John M. Eisenberg National Award for Career Achievement in Research from the Society of General Internal Medicine and the Distinguished Educator Award from the Association of Clinical Research Training.

Dr. Joe V. Selby
Kaiser Permanente

Joe V. Selby, MD, MPH, has been the Director of the Division of Research (DOR), Kaiser Permanente, Northern California, since 1998. In this position, Dr. Selby has responsibility for administering a department of 45 MD and Ph.D. investigators and nearly 400 research staff. He also continues to conduct research, primarily in the areas of diabetes outcomes and quality improvement research. He is a family physician, clinical epidemiologist and health services researcher. He also serves as Lecturer in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine, and as a Consulting Professor, Health Research and Policy, Stanford University School of Medicine. Dr. Selby was a member of the Agency for Healthcare Policy and Research study section for Health Care Quality and Effectiveness from 1999 through 2003. He is past chair and a member of Kaiser Permanente’s National Research Council and of the Governing Board of the HMO Research Network. He was a commissioned officer in the Public Health Service from 1976 to 1983 and received the Commissioned Officer's Award in 1981. eDr. Selby has authored or co-authored over 150 peer-reviewed scientific publications, as well as numerous editorials and book chapters. His publications cover a spectrum of topics from colon cancer screening and diabetes outcomes research to the delivery of primary care, quality measurement and quality improvement.

Dr. Lisa Simpson
Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center

Dr. Simpson is Director of the Child Policy Research Center at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center and a Professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Health Policy and Clinical Effectiveness, Department of Pediatrics, University of Cincinnati. Dr. Simpson, a board-certified pediatrician, also serves as the National Director for Child Health Policy at the National Initiative for Children’s Healthcare Quality, an education and research organization dedicated solely to improving the quality of health care provided to children.
A nationally recognized health services and policy researcher, Dr. Simpson has led studies of the safety, quality and effectiveness of care for children and adolescents, the role of health information technology in improving care for children, disparities in care for children and youth, the health policy response to childhood obesity, and the role of policies in advancing child health at both the state and national levels. She was formerly the Deputy Director of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and the Maternal and Child Health Director in Hawaii. Dr. Simpson earned her undergraduate and medical degrees at Trinity College (Dublin, Ireland), a Masters in Public Health at the University of Hawaii, and completed a post-doctoral fellowship in health services research and health policy at the University of California, San Francisco. She is also an elected member of three organizations’ Board of Directors, AcademyHealth, the Coalition for Health Services Research, and the National eHealth Collaborative, as well as numerous other national committees. She previously served on an Institute of Medicine Committee on improving the evidence base for healthcare (2008 and has recently been appointed by Governor Beshear to co-chair the Committee on Child Health and Wellbeing of the Commonwealth of Kentucky’s Commission on Philanthropy. She has received numerous awards including the Excellence in Public Service Award from the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Senior Executive Service Meritorious Presidential Rank Award, the DHHS Secretary's Distinguished Service Award and most recently, the 2007 Health Policy Researcher of the Year award from the Health Policy Institute of Ohio.

Dr. Sean Tunis
Center for Medical Technology Policy

Sean Tunis, MD, MSc., is the Founder and Director of the Center for Medical Technology Policy in San Francisco, where he works with health care decision makers, experts and stakeholders to improve the value of clinical research on new and existing medical technologies. He consults with a range of domestic and international health care organizations on issues of comparative effectiveness, evidence based medicine, clinical research and technology policy.

Through September of 2005, Dr. Tunis was the Director of the Office of Clinical Standards and Quality and Chief Medical Officer at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). In this role, he had lead responsibility for clinical policy and quality for the Medicare and Medicaid programs, which provide health coverage to over 100 million US citizens. Dr. Tunis supervised the development of national coverage policies, quality standards for Medicare and Medicaid providers; quality measurement and public reporting initiatives, and the Quality Improvement Organization program. As Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Tunis served as the senior advisor to the CMS Administrator on clinical and scientific policy. He also co-chaired the CMS Council on Technology and Innovation.

Dr. Tunis joined CMS in 2000 as the Director of the Coverage and Analysis Group. Before joining CMS, Dr. Tunis was a senior research scientist with the Technology Assessment Group, where his focus was on the design and implementation of prospective comparative effectiveness trials and clinical registries. Dr. Tunis also served as the Director of the Health Program at the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment and as a health policy advisor to the U.S. Senate Committee on Labor and Human Resources, where he participated in policy development regarding pharmaceutical and device regulation.

He received a B.S. degree in Biology and History of Science from the Cornell University School of Agriculture, and a medical degree and masters in Health Services Research from the Stanford University School of Medicine. Dr. Tunis did his residency training at UCLA and the University of Maryland in Emergency Medicine and Internal Medicine. He is board certified in Internal Medicine and holds adjunct faculty positions at Johns Hopkins and Stanford University Schools of Medicine.

Dr. I. Steven Udvarhelyi
Independence Blue Cross

Dr. Steven Udvarhelyi, MD, is Senior Vice President and Chief Medical Officer for Independence Blue Cross and its affiliated companies (IBC). In this role, Dr. Udvarhelyi has overall responsibility for medical management programs and policies, provider contracting and provider relations, pharmacy services, and informatics. Specific areas of responsibility in medical management include utilization management; case management; disease management; quality management; prevention and wellness; claim payment policy, and member and provider appeals and grievances. In overseeing informatics, Dr. Udvarhelyi is responsible for corporate-wide information management and reporting activities. Dr. Udvarhelyi also has oversight over IBC’s pharmacy benefit management subsidiary.

Dr. Udvarhelyi is a board certified internist and has over 15 years of experience in the managed care industry. He received an A.B. degree from Harvard College, an M.D. degree from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and a Master of Science degree in Health Services Administration from the Harvard School of Public Health.
Prior to his career in the managed care and insurance industry, Dr. Udvarhelyi was a faculty member at Harvard Medical School and has published numerous articles on quality in health care. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA); the National Council of Physician Executives of the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, and on the Chief Medical Officers Committee of America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP). He is also a member of the Institute of Medicine (IOM) Roundtable on Evidence-Based Medicine, and has served on other IOM committees in the past.

Dr. A. Eugene Washington
University of California, San Francisco

Dr. Washington is currently Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). He is also Professor of Gynecology, Epidemiology, and Health Policy in the School of Medicine. Dr. Washington has been a national leader in assessing medical technologies and shaping health policy. He has published extensively in his major areas of research, which include prenatal genetic testing, cervical cancer screening and prevention, noncancerous uterine conditions management, quality of health care, and racial/ethnic disparities in health outcomes. He is a member of the Institute of Medicine (IOM) of the National Academy of Sciences, where he serves on the governing Council of the IOM.

Dr. James N. Weinstein
Dartmouth Medical School

Dr. James Weinstein is the Director of the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice, Chairman of the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery at Dartmouth Medical School and Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, Third Century Professor at Dartmouth Medical School, and an internationally renowned spine surgeon and health services researcher. He is a leader in advancing “informed choice” to ensure that patients receive evidence-based, safe, effective, efficient and appropriate care. With Dr. John Wennberg, he established the first-in-the-nation Center for Shared Decision-Making. He also started the multidisciplinary Spine Center, which has become an international model for the delivery of health care. He has recently been appointed Vice Chair of the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Board of Governors, with responsibility for oversight of operations for New Hampshire’s only academic medical center, the largest supplier of health services in Northern New England.

Committee Membership Roster Comments

Note (03-16-2009): There has been a change in committee membership with the addition of the following individuals: Dr. Isham, Dr. Gottlieb, Dr. Simpson, and Dr. Washington.
Note (03-17-2009): There has been a change in committee membership with the addition of the following individual: Mr. Levin
Note (03-18-2009): There has been a change in committee membership with the addition of the following individuals: Mr. Guest and Ms. Hinestrosa