ABIM Foundation Announces New Officers and New Members of Board of Trustees

PHILADELPHIA, July 6, 2016 - The ABIM Foundation announces the appointments of Anita Samarth and David B. Reuben, MD, as new members of its Board of Trustees as well as the election of Elizabeth A. McGlynn, PhD, as Chair. Holly J. Humphrey, MD, becomes immediate Past Chair, and the Board elected Christine A. Sinsky, MD, as Vice Chair and Gregory P. Poulsen, MBA, as Secretary-Treasurer.

"As a researcher and innovator, Dr. McGlynn leads patient-centered efforts to evaluate effectiveness and safety, pinpoint problems and design solutions to improve health care delivery," said Richard J. Baron, MD, President and CEO of the American Board of Internal Medicine and ABIM Foundation. "It is exciting that with Dr. McGlynn as Chair of the Board of Trustees, the Foundation will be able to use her expertise to guide our work to advance medical professionalism and help clinicians and patients engage in conversations about reducing inappropriate care through the Choosing Wisely campaign. I am also happy to welcome two new members to the Board of Trustees."

Dr. McGlynn is the Director of Kaiser Permanente's Center for Effectiveness & Safety Research (CESR). She is responsible for the strategic direction and scientific oversight of CESR, which is designed to improve the health and well-being of Kaiser Permanente's more than 10 million members and the public by conducting comparative effectiveness and safety research and implementing findings in policy and practice. Prior to joining Kaiser Permanente in 2011, Dr. McGlynn was the Associate Director of RAND Health and held the RAND Distinguished Chair in Health Care Quality. She received AcademyHealth's Distinguished Investigator Award in 2012. In addition to her role on the ABIM Foundation Board of Trustees, Dr. McGlynn chairs the National Advisory Council for the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and serves on the Board on Health Care Services, National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, Health and Medicine Division. She also chairs the Scientific Advisory Group for the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, co-chairs the Coordinating Committee for the National Quality Forum's Measure Applications Partnership and is a member of the National Academy of Medicine.

Ms. Samarth is the CEO and Co-founder of Clinovations Government + Health, a management consulting firm focused on the intersection of health and policy enabled by technology. She has over 20 years of experience in health care technology, working with more than 150 hospitals and leading government-funded health information technology (IT) initiatives. She is also a member of the Board of Directors for Costs of Care, a non-profit that educates, advocates for and supports caregivers in deflating medical bills by using information technology and decision-support tools. Her current focus is in bridging the gap between commercial health care and government initiatives in the area of health IT, information exchange and clinical quality measurement.

Dr. Baron observed, "Ms. Samarth's knowledge of emerging technology's impact on health and policy will be a huge asset to the work we do at the Foundation."

Dr. Reuben is Director of the Multicampus Program in Geriatrics Medicine and Gerontology and Chief of the Division of Geriatrics at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Center for Health Sciences. He is the Archstone Foundation Chair and Professor at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and Director of the UCLA Claude D. Pepper Older Americans Independence Center and the UCLA Alzheimer's and Dementia Care program. He sustains professional interests in clinical care, education, research and administrative aspects of geriatrics, maintaining a clinical primary care practice of frail older persons and attending on inpatient and geriatric psychiatry units at UCLA. In 2012, Dr. Reuben received one of the first U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Health Care Innovation awards to develop a model program to provide comprehensive, coordinated care for patients with Alzheimer's disease and other dementias. In 2014, he was one of three principal investigators to be awarded a multicenter clinical trial (STRIDE) by the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) and the National Institute on Aging (NIA) to reduce serious falls related injuries. Dr. Reuben previously served on the ABIM Foundation Board of Trustees from 2009 to 2012.

"Dr. Reuben's groundbreaking work to improve care for older adults will be critical to identify challenges to medical professionalism and opportunities to promote quality care," Dr. Baron said.

The Board of Trustees oversees the ABIM Foundation and advances work in medical professionalism. The Board includes many national leaders in the health care community who have served on the American Board of Internal Medicine's Board of Directors.

Chair: Elizabeth A. McGlynn, PhD, Director, Kaiser Permanente Center for Effectiveness & Safety Research

Immediate Past Chair: Holly J. Humphrey, MD, Ralph W. Gerard Professor of Medicine and Dean for Medical Education, The University of Chicago

Vice Chair: Christine A. Sinsky, MD, Vice President, Professional Satisfaction, American Medical Association, and General Internist, Medical Associates Clinic and Health Plans

Secretary-Treasurer: Gregory P. Poulsen, MBA, Senior Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer, Intermountain Healthcare

Richard J. Baron, MD, President and CEO, American Board of Internal Medicine and ABIM Foundation

Clarence H. Braddock III, MD, MPH, Vice Dean for Education in the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles.

John G. Harold, MD, Clinical Professor of Medicine in the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California at Los Angeles; Attending Physician, Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute

David H. Johnson, MD, Donald W. Seldin Distinguished Chair in Internal Medicine and Chairman of the Department of Internal Medicine, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center

Jackie Judd, Health Care Communications Consultant

Sharon A. Levine, MD, Director, Geriatric Educational Innovations and Professor of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine

Mary D. Naylor, PhD, RN, Marian S. Ware Professor in Gerontology and Director, NewCourtland Center for Transitions and Health, University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing

David B. Reuben, MD, Multicampus Program in Geriatrics Medicine and Gerontology and Chief, Division of Geriatrics at the University of California, Los Angeles Center for Health Sciences

Anita Samarth, CEO and Co-founder of Clinovations Government + Health

Martín-J. Sepúlveda, MD, IBM Fellow and Vice President, Health Industries Research, IBM

About the ABIM Foundation
The mission of the ABIM Foundation is to advance medical professionalism to improve the health care system. We achieve this by collaborating with physicians and physician leaders, medical trainees, health care delivery systems, payers, policy makers, consumer organizations and patients to foster a shared understanding of professionalism and how they can adopt the tenets of professionalism in practice. To learn more about the ABIM Foundation, visit www.abimfoundation.org, connect with us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter.