MPP, John F. Kennedy School of Government
MD, Harvard Medical School
Impeccable liberal credentials
DOCTOR JOSEPH MENGELE
Posted on 03/27/2010 12:44:21 PM PDT by Cheap_Hessian
(Reuters) - President Barack Obama has picked a top health policy expert to run Medicare and Medicaid, an administration official said on Saturday, filling a role at the heart of his historic healthcare reform.
Obama plans to nominate Dr. Donald Berwick as administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, a unit of the Department of Health and Human Services, the official said.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
DOCTOR JOSEPH MENGELE
New CZAR?
His main job will be to hide the growing deficit in Medicare until Obama is no longer President.
George Bush’s CMS (Centers for Medicare) chief was Mark McClellan, the treacherous Scott McClellan’s brother.
Dr. Berwick was chair of the Health Services Research Review Study Section of the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research from 1995–1999, and Chair of the National Advisory Council of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality from 1999 through 2001. He was vice chair of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force from 1990 through 1996. From 1996 through 1999, Dr. Berwick served as the first "Independent Member" of the Board of Trustees of the American Hospital Association. He also served from 1989 through 1991 as a member of the Panel of Judges for the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award program. He is a member of several editorial boards, including that of Journal of American Medical Association (JAMA). From 1987 through 1991, Dr. Berwick was co-founder and Co-Principal Investigator for the National Demonstration Project on Quality Improvement in Health Care (NDP). He is a past president of the International Society for Medical Decision-Making. He is an elected member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, and since 2002 serves on the IOM's governing Council and as the liaison to the IOM's Global Health Board.
Dr. Berwick was appointed by President Clinton to serve on the Advisory Commission on Consumer Protection and Quality in the Healthcare Industry in 1997 and 1998. Co-chaired by the Secretaries of Health and Human Services and Labor, the Commission was charged with developing a broader understanding of the issues facing rapidly evolving healthcare delivery systems and to help build consensus on ways to assure and improve the quality of health care.
Dr. Berwick has received numerous awards and honors for his work, including the 1999 Ernest A. Codman Award, and, in 2001, the first Alfred I. DuPont Award for excellence in children’s health care from Nemours, one of the nation's largest pediatric health care provider organizations. In 2002, he was given the "Award of Honor" from the American Hospital Association for outstanding leadership in improving health care quality, and in 2004 he was inducted as a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians in London. In 2005, in recognition of his exemplary work for the National Health Service in the U.K., he was appointed honorary Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire—the highest award given to non-British citizens.
A summa cum laude graduate of Harvard College, Dr. Berwick holds a master of Public Policy degree from the John F. Kennedy School of Government and an MD cum laude from the Harvard Medical School. The father of four children (Ben, Dan, Jessica, and Rebecca), he is married to Ann (Greenberg) Berwick, an environmental attorney and former Chief of the Environmental Protection Division in the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office.
MPP, John F. Kennedy School of Government
MD, Harvard Medical School
Impeccable liberal credentials
Of course the same scenario w/ a Republican president committing the crime would be rephrased thus:
filling a role at the heart of his partisan, controversial, healthcare reform.
He is dead. But I suppose Obama will find a proper replacement. I know this question has been asked but again. Why does anyone think a loser like Obama can make rational decisions about anything. The answer is he can’t. Obama supporters are lower than pond scum.
Berwick’s vision for health care is an adaptation from the Institute of Medicine’s six improvement aims for the health care system – care that is safe, effective, patient-centered, timely, efficient, and equitable. IHI calls this the “No Needless List”:
No Needless Deaths
No Needless Pain or Suffering
No Helplessness in Those Served or Serving
No Unwanted Waiting
No Waste
No One Left Out
I wonder if there will be a rush of recess appointments by Obama now that Congress isn’t in session.
President Obama will name Jack Kevorkian for the post!!!! Of course he will do it while congress is in recess!
That doesn’t stop the $523 BILLION CUT & GUT of Medicare.
Dr. Donald Berwick receives the Heinz Award in Public Policy for his dedication to overhauling the nation's mistake-prone health care industry.
A physician and innovative health care reformer, Dr. Donald Berwick has provided trailblazing leadership to improve the ways health care providers and institutions care for patients. As co-founder of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) and clinical professor of pediatrics and health care policy at Harvard Medical School, he has been an energetic and determined champion behind a movement to overhaul the nation's mistake-prone health care system.
While most renowned doctors are focused on curing life-threatening illnesses, Dr. Berwick has spent over 20 years trying to cure health care by reducing medical mistakes and streamlining medical processes. Along the way, Dr. Berwick has diverged from the normative view in medicine that embraces independence and autonomy. Instead, he suggests that more collaboration and less variation among doctors and other hospital staff will help to improve patient safety and ultimately save lives.
He must be doing something right. He and his colleagues at IHI have pioneered an array of reforms in how hospitals and medical practices care for patients, greatly reducing the millions of incidents of medical harm that IHI estimates occur annually.
Dr. Berwick began his career as a pediatrician at the Harvard Community Health Plan, becoming vice president of quality-of-care measurement. After learning what he could from quality improvement leaders in other industries - including those at Bell Labs and Toyota - he became convinced that health care could be transformed by embracing the same techniques.
In 2004, Dr. Berwick and IHI launched the 100,000 Lives Campaign, which encouraged U.S. hospitals to focus on improvements in care and evidence-base medical protocols in six areas. IHI estimates that the 3,000 participating hospitals avoided approximately 122,000 unnecessary deaths during the 18-month campaign period. While this result cannot be attributed solely to IHI's work, the campaign clearly contributed to overall improvement in hundreds of hospitals. Building on this success, Dr. Berwick and IHI launched the 5 Million Lives Campaign in late 2006, expanding the focus to 12 improvements in care designed to significantly reduce medical harm in U.S. hospitals.
Dr. Berwick's influence ranges well beyond the United States. Under his guidance, broad scale improvement initiatives are underway in Canada, Denmark, the U.K., Sweden, South Africa and Malawi.
Armed with courage of conviction and a steadfast willingness to take on an entrenched industry, Dr. Donald Berwick has helped bring about comprehensive reforms within the health care system - reforms that have significantly reduced the prevalence of all-too-frequent medical errors. He has provided the conscience for change, leading a revolution - sometimes quiet although often loud and persistent - that puts well-coordinated, safe patient care foremost for health care providers.
Note: This profile is excerpted from the commemorative brochure published at the time of the awards' presentation.
I wonder what that work was, exactly...
Was he formerly Dr. Tiller’s assistant.
Seems that’s the only type of person who would want to serve this current occupant.
LOL, I was going to mention Kevorkian as well! That’s why I’ve learned to read the replies first.
I don’t know for some reason I though of Jack the dripper when I read this!
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