Chief of the Division of General Internal Medicine and Primary Care, Brigham and Women’s Hospital
Medical Director, Clinical and Quality Analysis, Information Systems, Mass General Brigham, Inc.
Chief Executive Officer
OptumLabs (UnitedHealth Group R&D)
Partner at Venrock, Senior Fellow at the USC Schaeffer Center for Healthcare Policy and Economics, and Adjunct Professor
Stanford Medicine
Editor-in-Chief, NEJM Catalyst Innovations in Care Delivery; Co-Chair, NEJM Catalyst Editorial Board; Chief Medical Officer, Press Ganey Associates, Inc.
Member, Editorial Board, New England Journal of Medicine
Enterprise Chief Medical Information Officer, Cleveland Clinic Health System
Editorial Director,
NEJM Catalyst
President and Chief Executive Officer
National Quality Forum
Deputy Director General, Chief Medical Officer, and Chief Innovation Officer
Sheba Medical Center
Dr. David Westfall Bates is Chief of the Division of General Internal Medicine and Primary Care at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and is the Medical Director of Clinical and Quality Analysis, Information Systems at Mass General Brigham. He is a Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Professor of Health Policy and Management at the Harvard School of Public Health, where he is the Co-Director of the Program in Clinical Effectiveness. He is a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies and edits the Journal of Patient Safety.
Ranju Das is the Chief Executive Officer of OptumLabs, the research and development engine of UnitedHealth Group. In this role, he is responsible for efforts focused on performing state of the art research, conducting disruptive product development, and driving engineering, clinical, and scientific innovations by leveraging big data insights, artificial intelligence, and machine learning.
Previously, Ranju was part of the technical leadership team at Amazon Web Services, where he leveraged expertise in distributed systems, architecture, web-scale analytics, big data, machine learning and high performance computing to help customers bring their ideas to life through technology. During his time at Amazon, he played a role in introducing significant new features and products to retail customers like Amazon Drive and Amazon Prime Photos. Ranju also led the development of the Amazon Rekognition and Amazon Textract Service from its inception. Prior to Amazon, Ranju helped deliver the Nook Tablet, led the big data and database development for Barnes & Noble, and was founder and CEO of two startups.
Bob Kocher, MD, is a Partner at Venrock and focuses on health care IT and services investments. He currently serves on the Boards of Devoted Health, Virta Health, Aledade, Renew Health, Lyra Health, Newco Health, and Premera Blue Cross. He is a Board Observer at Grand Rounds, Stride, Doctor on Demand, and Suki.
Additionally, he is an Adjunct Professor at Stanford University School of Medicine and a Non-Resident Senior Fellow and Advisory Board Member at the Leonard D. Schaeffer Center for Health Policy and Economics at USC. He also serves on the Advisory Board of the National Institute of Healthcare Management (NIHCM).
Prior to Venrock, Bob served in the Obama Administration as Special Assistant to the President for Healthcare and Economic Policy on the National Economic Council, as a Partner at McKinsey & Company, and is an internal medicine doctor.
Dr. Thomas Lee is Editor-in-Chief of NEJM Catlayst Innovations in Care Delivery. He is Chief Medical Officer of Press Ganey, and an internist and cardiologist who practices at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. He is a Professor of Medicine, part time, at Harvard Medical School and Professor of Health Policy and Management at the Harvard School of Public Health. Prior to joining Press Ganey, he served as Network President for Partners Healthcare System and Chief Executive Officer for Partners Community HealthCare, Inc., the integrated delivery system founded by Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital.
He is a member of the Board of Directors of Geisinger Health System, Chairman of the Board of Directors for the Geisinger Health Plan, Geisinger Quality Options, Inc., and Geisinger Indemnity Insurance Company Board of Directors. He is also a member of the Board of Directors of Health Leads; the Board of Overseers of Weill Cornell Medical College; the Special Medical Advisory Group (SMAG) of the Veterans Administration; and the Panel of Health Advisors of the Congressional Budget Office. He is a member of the Editorial Board of the New England Journal of Medicine, as well as Editor-in-Chief of NEJM Catalyst Innovations in Care Delivery and Co-Chair of the NEJM Catalyst Editorial Board.
He is the author of more than 260 academic articles and three books, Chaos and Organization in Health Care, Eugene Braunwald and the Rise of Modern Medicine, and An Epidemic of Empathy in Healthcare.
Named in his honor, the Thomas H. Lee Award for Excellence in Primary Care is given each year to recognize a primary care physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital who meets the needs of his or her patients exceptionally well.
Tom holds a bachelor’s degree in History and Science from Harvard College, a medical degree from Cornell University Medical College, and a master’s degree in Epidemiology from the Harvard School of Public Health. He lives in Milton, Massachusetts, with his wife, Dr. Soheyla Gharib, who is Chief of Medicine at Harvard University Health Services. The couple has three daughters.
Amy Merlino, MD, FACOG, is Enterprise Chief Medical Information Officer and a staff member of Obstetrics and Gynecology for the Cleveland Clinic Health System. Dr. Merlino obtained her medical degree from Case Western Reserve University, School of Medicine and completed her training at MetroHealth Medical Center in Cleveland, Ohio. She was named Director of Clinical Informatics in 2010, promoted to Associate Chief Medical Information Officer in 2015, and promoted to Enterprise Chief Medical Information Officer in 2017.
As Editorial Director for NEJM Catalyst, Edward Prewitt oversees all editorial content for the monthly journal, NEJM Catalyst Innovations in Care Delivery; monthly Insights reports; and quarterly events. He works closely with NEJM Catalyst advisors, authors, and colleagues to ensure that editorial content advances the national and international dialogue to drive innovation in health care delivery, while upholding NEJM Group’s high standards for quality.
Professor Eyal Zimlichman serves as Deputy Director General, Chief Medical Officer, and Chief Innovation Officer at Sheba Medical Center, Israel’s largest hospital. Previously, he held the position of Lead Researcher at Partners HealthCare’s Clinical Affairs Department in Boston and was heavily involved in the efforts to implement a strategic care redesign initiative there. Prof. Zimlichman has served on several advisory committees commissioned by the Office of the National Coordinator for health information technology at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and is chairing as well as participating in several committees at Israel’s Ministry of Health. He is also a founding member of the International Academy for Quality and Patient Safety.
Prof. Zimlichman is Founder and Director of Sheba’s ARC innovation program, which aims to redesign health care through digital health solutions by 2030. He is board certified in internal medicine, completed a degree at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and earned his MD at the Technion Israel Institute of Technology.
