Donald M. Berwick, MD, MPP is President Emeritus and Senior Fellow at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), an organization that Dr. Berwick co-founded and led as President and CEO for 19 years. He is one of the nation’s leading authorities on health care quality and improvement. In July, 2010, President Obama appointed Dr. Berwick to the position of Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), which he held until December, 2011.
A pediatrician by background, Dr. Berwick has served as Clinical Professor of Pediatrics and Health Care Policy at the Harvard Medical School, Professor of Health Policy and Management at the Harvard School of Public Health, and as a member of the staffs of Boston’s Children’s Hospital Medical Center, Massachusetts General Hospital, and the Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He has also served as vice-chair of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, the first “Independent Member” of the Board of Trustees of the American Hospital Association, and chair of the National Advisory Council of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. He is an elected member of the American Philosophical Society, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and of the National Academy of Medicine (formerly the Institute of Medicine). Dr. Berwick served two terms on the IOM’s governing Council and was a member of the IOM’s Global Health Board. He served on President Clinton’s Advisory Commission on Consumer Protection and Quality in the Healthcare Industry.
He is a recipient of numerous awards, including the 1999 Joint Commission’s Ernest Amory Codman Award, the 2002 American Hospital Association’s Award of Honor, the 2006 John M. Eisenberg Patient Safety and Quality Award for Individual Achievement from the National Quality Forum and the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, the 2007 William B. Graham Prize for Health Services Research, the 2007 Heinz Award for Public Policy from the Heinz Family Foundation, the 2012 Gustav O. Lienhard Award from the IOM, and the 2013 Nathan Davis Award from the American Medical Association. In 2005, he was appointed “Honorary Knight Commander of the British Empire” by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, the highest honor awarded by the UK to non-British subjects, in recognition of his work with the British National Health Service.
Dr. Berwick is the author or co-author of over 200 scientific articles and six books. He also serves now as Lecturer in the Department of Health Care Policy at Harvard Medical School.
