Bloomberg Distinguished Professor
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Johns Hopkins Carey Business School
Bruce V. Rauner Professor of Business Administration, Mary Ellen Jay and Jeffrey Jay Fellow
Harvard Business School; Professor of Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School
Executive Vice President and Chief Physician, Value-Based Care & Innovation
UnitedHealth Group
Deputy Administrator and Director of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation
Medicare and Medicaid Services
President and Chief Executive Officer
Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts
Chairman and Co-founder
International Consortium for Health Outcomes Measurement (ICHOM); Senior Advisor in Healthcare and Life Sciences
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
Professor of Medicine
UFRGS, Brazil; Coordinator of National Institute for Health Technology Assessment, CNPq; Chief of Cardiology, Hospital Moinhos de Vento; PEV Consulting in Health Care
Editorial Director
NEJM Catalyst
Senior Researcher, Department of Quality of Care and Health Economics, National Institute for Public Health and the Environment; Associate Professor, Department of Public Health and Primary Care/Health Campus The Hague
Leiden University Medical Centre
Melinda J.B. Buntin, PhD, joined the faculties of Health Policy and Management at the Bloomberg School of Public Health and of the Carey Business School in July 2023. As one of the top academic health policy leaders in the nation, once approved by the appointment processes and the JHU Board of Trustees, Dr. Buntin will be part of the University’s Knowledge to Action and the Business of Health Bloomberg Distinguished Professor Cluster.
Dr. Buntin joins Hopkins from Vanderbilt University, where she was the University Distinguished Professor in the Departments of Health Policy and of Medicine, Health, & Society and held the Mike Curb Chair for Health Policy as Chair of the Department of Health Policy, Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. Dr. Buntin trained in health policy with a concentration in economics at Harvard University where she received her PhD in 2000. She started her professional career at RAND Health and transitioned into several health policy leadership roles during her 12 years in Washington, DC. She was the Director of the Office of Economic Analysis, Evaluation and Modeling at the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology and was Deputy Director of Health, Retirement and Long-Term Analysis at the Congressional Budget Office.
In 2013, she became the founding Chair of the Department of Health Policy at Vanderbilt University, a multidisciplinary department within a medical school. During her tenure she grew the faculty from 9 to 22, started a Health Policy track in the MPH program, as well as a PhD program in Health Policy. Under her leadership and vision, it has become one of the leading departments of its kind.
Dr. Buntin will be primarily based at 555 Pennsylvania Avenue where she aims to inform health care policy through a newly established health systems and policy modeling center. Dr. Buntin’s body of work has built bridges between health care policy and public health by advancing our understanding of health care delivery and costs, with an emphasis on improving the value created by the health care system. This new center will address emerging issues in health policy with rigorous empirical work — predictive models and causal inference methods from econometric study designs — with the goal of providing insights to the health care sector, businesses, and policy makers on how to improve health care delivery and outcomes.
Leemore Dafny is the Bruce V. Rauner Professor of Business Administration and the Mary Ellen Jay and Jeffrey Jay Fellow at the Harvard Business School, and Professor of Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School. Dafny is an applied microeconomist whose research examines competitive interactions among payers and providers of healthcare services, and the intersection of industry and public policy. Her work has been published in academic journals such as The American Economic Review and The New England Journal of Medicine, and featured in popular media such as The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. Current projects include studies of patient assistance for pharmaceuticals, vertical integration of insurers and healthcare providers, and effects of private equity acquisition of physician practices.
Dr. Dafny teaches courses on healthcare strategy and policy to master’s students and advises doctoral candidates. She is a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research, an Associate Editor of Management Science and on the Board of Editors of American Economic Journal: Policy, and Treasurer of the American Society of Health Economists.
In addition to her academic roles, Dr. Dafny served on the Panel of Health Advisers to the Congressional Budget for over a decade and was Deputy Director for Health Care and Antitrust at the Federal Trade Commission from 2012-2013. She has testified on competition issues to both houses of Congress and in federal court. Dafny advises companies, government agencies, and nonprofits on a variety of issues including antitrust matters, strategic decisions, and public policy. She is a Partner in the Antitrust and Healthcare Practices at Bates White Economic Consulting.
Dafny has an undergraduate degree in Economics from Harvard College and a PhD in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Wyatt Decker, MD, MBA is UnitedHealth Group's executive vice president and chief physician for Value-Based Care & Innovation. In this role, Dr. Decker serves as the company’s lead ambassador forvalue-based care, working across the enterprise and externally, with key stakeholders to further enable and advance accountable models of care.
Dr. Decker previously served as chief executive officer of Optum Health, UnitedHealth Group's national integrated care delivery platform. During his nearly 5 year tenure, he played a vital role in building out and accelerating Optum Health's, value-based care delivery capabilities and helping over 100,000 employed and contracted physicians achieve lower costs, and deliver better outcomes for more than 100million people - including the nearly 4 million people Optum now serves in fully accountable, value-based arrangements. Under his leadership, Optum Health establish national platforms for care delivery, home and community care, behavioral care benefits, chronic disease management solutions, and the center for advanced clinical solutions, applying cutting edge technologies to solve some of health care’s toughest problems.
Prior to joining Optum, Dr. Decker served as CEO of Mayo Clinic in Arizona. In that role, he established Mayo Clinic in Arizona is the safest hospital in the United States, the state-of-the-art Cancer Center, the second campus of Mayo Clinic Alix school of medicine, and was acknowledged by U.S. News & World Report among the nations top 20 hospitals. At Mayo Clinic, Dr. Decker pioneered the use of digital technologies, including telemedicine and artificial intelligence to deliver healthcare expertise to affiliated care providers nationwide, as well as lead the digital strategy around engaging and empowering patients. Dr. Decker also served as found chair and professor of emergency medicine at the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine where he established and directed the emergency medicine residency training program.
Dr. Decker holds an MD from Mayo clinic Alix School of Medicine, a MBA from Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, and a Bachelor of Science from the University of California, Santa Cruz. He has published numerous scientific articles and is recognized among the nations top 100 healthcare leaders by Modern Healthcare.
Dr. Elizabeth Fowler is Deputy Administrator and Director of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation at CMS. Dr. Fowler previously served as Executive Vice President of programs at The Commonwealth Fund and Vice President for Global Health Policy at Johnson & Johnson. Before that, she was special assistant to President Obama on health care and economic policy at the National Economic Council. From 2008 to 2010, she was Chief Health Counsel at the Senate Finance Committee, where she played a critical role developing the Senate version of the Affordable Care Act. She also played a key role drafting the 2003 Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement and Modernization Act (MMA).
Dr. Fowler has over 25 years of experience in health policy and health services research. She earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania, a Ph.D. from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and a law degree (J.D.) from the University of Minnesota. She is admitted to the bar in Maryland, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. Supreme Court. Dr. Fowler is a Fellow of the inaugural class of the Aspen Health Innovators Fellowship and was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2022.
Sarah Iselin is President and Chief Executive Officer of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, one of the largest independent Blue Cross Blue Shield plans in the country with 3 million members and 20,000 employer customers. Sarah has a long history with the company, serving earlier in her career as President of its foundation and as the company’s Chief Strategy Officer and Senior Vice President of Strategy, Policy, and Community Partnerships. Before returning to Blue Cross, Sarah was the Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer at Blue Shield of California, and she also held a variety of executive leadership roles at GuideWell/Florida Blue and Optum. In addition, Sarah served twice in the Patrick Administration, first as commissioner of the Massachusetts Division of Health Care Finance and Policy and again to lead the state’s efforts to turn around the implementation of its health insurance exchange website.
Sarah sits on the boards of the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce, the Boston Green Ribbon Commission, and the National Institute of Health Care Management. She received a Master of Science degree in Health Policy and Management from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Sarah is the proud mother of three young adults who live in various parts of North America.
Dr Stefan Larsson, MD, PhD, trained at the Karolinska Institute (KI), Harvard Medical School, and MRC Human Genomics unit in Edinburgh. He is an Associate Professor at KI. His PhD research was in pediatric nephrology and cell physiology and his postdoctoral work focused on the role of the Wilm’s Tumor 1 gene.
He joined the Stockholm office of The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) in 1996 and worked with the firm for 25 years. He was the founder and first leader of BCG’s Payer and Provider sector (2011–2017) and its Global Health Systems sector (2017–2020). He is since 2011 a BCG Fellow responsible for value-based health care. Stefan is now a Senior Advisor to the firm.
Stefan is a cofounder and the Board Chair of ICHOM, International Consortium of Health Outcomes Measurement. A not-for-profit co-founded with Prof. Michael Porter of HBS and Martin Ingvar of the KI, the organization has developed global standards for measurement of outcomes that matter to patients covering 60% of the global burden of disease. He is a Distinguished Fellow with the World Economic Forum’s Health and Healthcare group. In November 2022, McGraw Hill published his book The Patient Priority with coauthors Jennifer Clawson and Joshua Keller.
Stefan lives in Stockholm, Sweden. He is married and has two adult children.
Dr. Thomas Lee 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 HealthcarNamed 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.
Dr. Carisi Anne Polanczyk is an Associate Professor of Medicine at Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), senior researcher from the Brazilian National Agency (CNPq), attending physician and preceptor at the Cardiology Division at Hospital de Clínicas de Porto Alegre, and Chief of the Cardiology Division at Hospital Moinhos de Vento, since 2013. Prof. Polanczyk is the Coordinator of the Institute for Health Technology Assessment (IATS/CNPq) and has dedicated the last decades on studies on health economics, technology assessment, and strategies to increase efficiency and value for the health care system, with emphasis on cost-effectiveness, management, and incorporation of new technology.
Lately, she is working on value-based health care (VBHC) implementation and research initiatives, focusing on applying ICHOM standard sets and time-driven activity-based costing methodology. She is a co-founder of a Brazilian consulting firm (PEV) on VBHC and real-world evidence projects. Additional studies focus on coronary artery disease and perioperative care, with national and international collaboration. Also, she is a consultant to the Ministry of Health, a member of the Brazilian HTA Network (Rede Brasileira de Avaliação de Tecnologias em Saúde, REBRATS), and the Brazilian Society of Cardiology. To date, Prof. Polanczyk has published 253 complete manuscripts in scientific journals of national and international circulation, 77 of which were published in the last 5 years, with an h-index of 43.
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.
Dr. Stuijs is a 2013-14 Dutch Harkness Fellow in Health Care Policy and Practice, is a senior researcher at the Centre of Prevention and Health Services Research, National Institute of Public Health and the Environment, where he has been conducting research since 2000. He is also a senior researcher at Erasmus University Rotterdam. Prior to his work in health policy, Struijs was a practicing physiotherapist. Struijs’ research covers a broad range of topics surrounding payment reform and innovations in the organization of health care systems, particularly in primary care.
His recent work has looked at the effects of bundled payments – newly introduced into the Dutch health care system – on the health care delivery process, quality of care, and health care expenditures. Jeroen has published peer-reviewed articles in journals such as Health Affairs, Health Policy, and New England Journal of Medicine. He is member of the editorial board of the International Journal of Integrated Care, and board member of the International Foundation for Integrated Care. Struijs holds a Ph.D. degree in health services research from University of Amsterdam, and two master’s degrees – one in health sciences from Maastricht University, and one in health services research from Erasmus University Rotterdam.
