Skip to main content

GAO Announces Patient-Centered Outcomes Board

 |  By jsimmons@healthleadersmedia.com  
   September 27, 2010

Gene L. Dodaro, acting comptroller general and head of the Government Accountability Office (GAO), announced the appointment Thursday of 19 members to the board of governors for the new Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI).

The institute was established under the Affordable Care Act earlier this year as a non-profit organization to assist providers, patients, healthcare purchasers, and policymakers in making informed health decisions through research. This research is designed to review relevant evidence on how diseases, disorders, and other health conditions can be appropriately prevented, diagnosed, treated, monitored, and managed.

The law directed the comptroller general to appoint 19 of the 21 members of the PCORI Board of Governors. In addition to the 19 members, the director of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Carolyn Clancy, MD, and the director of the National Institutes of Health, Francis Collins, MD, or their designees are the other two members who will serve on the PCORI Board.

The Act also directs the comptroller general to appoint not more than 15 members to a methodology committee of PCORI. A Federal Register notice calling for nominations to this committee is expected to be issued by Sept. 30.

The members of the board will be appointed for a six-year term and may be reappointed for one subsequent six-year term. The terms of the PCORI board members are staggered, with the first set of appointments made this month set at two, four, and six years.

Commissioners whose first term will expire in September 2016 are:

  • Eugene Washington, MD, MSc, vice chancellor, UCLA Health Sciences, and dean, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California Los Angeles. He will serve as the chair of the PCORI Board of Governors.
  • Steven Lipstein, MHA, president and CEO, BJC Health Care, a nonprofit healthcare delivery system. He will serve as the vice chair of the PCORI Board of Governors.
  • Christine Goertz, DC, PhD, vice chancellor for research and health policy, Palmer College of Chiropractic and Palmer Center for Chiropractic Research.
  • Sharon Levine, MD, associate executive director for The Permanente Medical Group of Northern California, a large multi-specialty group practice within Kaiser Permanente's integrated delivery system.
  • Ellen Sigal, PhD, chairperson and founder of Friends of Cancer Research, a cancer research think tank and advocacy organization.
  • Harlan Weisman, MD, chief science and technology officer, Medical Devices and Diagnostics, for Johnson & Johnson.
  • Robert Zwolak, MD, PhD, a vascular surgeon at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center and professor of surgery at the Dartmouth Medical School.

Commissioners whose first term will expire in September 2014 are:

  • Lawrence Becker, director, Strategic Partnerships and Alliances, Xerox Corporation.
  • Arnold Epstein, MD, the John H. Foster Professor and Chair of the Department of Health Policy and Management at Harvard University School of Public Health, and practicing internist at Brigham and Women's Hospital.
  • Andrew Imparato, JD, president CEO of the American Association of People with Disabilities.
  • Robert Jesse, MD, PhD, principal deputy under secretary for health and national program director for cardiology, Department of Veterans Affairs.
  • Freda Lewis-Hall, MD, chief medical officer and senior vice president of the Pfizer Medical Division.
  • Grayson Norquist, MD, MSPH, professor and chairman, Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior, University of Mississippi Medical Center.

Commissioners whose first term will expire in September 2012 are:

  • Debra Barksdale, PhD, RN, associate professor, University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill School of Nursing.
  • Kerry Barnett, JD, executive vice president of corporate services and chief legal officer, The Regence Group.
  • Allen Douma, MD, CEO of Empower, LLC, and a member of the AARP Board of Directors.
  • Leah Hole-Curry, JD, program director for the Health Technology Assessment (HTA) program, Washington State Health Care Authority.
  • Harlan Krumholz, MD, Harold H. Hines, Jr. Professor of Medicine and Epidemiology and Public Health at Yale University School of Medicine.
  • Richard E. Kuntz, MD, senior vice president and chief scientific, clinical, and regulatory officer of Medtronic, Inc.

Janice Simmons is a senior editor and Washington, DC, correspondent for HealthLeaders Media Online. She can be reached at jsimmons@healthleadersmedia.com.

Tagged Under:


Get the latest on healthcare leadership in your inbox.