Donald Berwick appears to be President Obama’s choice to run the Medicare and Medicaid programs. Berwick is president and CEO of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) a nonprofit that promotes innovative ways to improve patient care. Thousands of healthcare providers participate in IHI’s work. You can learn more about it by clicking here.

Dr. Berwick is a pediatrician and a clinical professor at the Harvard Medical School. He has served as a leader and advisor on a number of government councils and task forces aimed at improving the quality of healthcare.

And he’s a Baldrige guy. From 1989 through 1991, Berwick served on the Panel of Judges for the Baldrige Award. His Baldrige experience has influenced his vision of what is possible in healthcare. In his book, Escape Fire: Designs for the Future of Health Care, Berwick writes, “When I compare our aims for improvement in health care to those in the world-class companies I saw as a Baldrige judge, nothing impresses me as much as our timidity…World-class organizations don’t shy away. That’s where Motorola’s Six Sigma goals came from. That’s how Roger Milliken decided to take Milliken Corporation to unprecedented cycle times, and how Xerox and Ritz Carlton have committed to 100% customer satisfaction. They understand bold aims; we don’t yet.”

Berwick gets high marks from his peers. In Modern Healthcare (April 12, 2010), Nancy Nielsen, immediate past president of the American Medical Association, wrote, “Dr. Berwick is widely known and well respected for his visionary efforts that focus on optimizing the quality and safety of patient care in hospitals and across healthcare settings.”

He would seem to be the perfect choice to lead Medicare and Medicaid through the changes that are sure to come as a result of healthcare reform and the need to improve patient care. Yet Republicans are already threatening to block the nomination as part of an ongoing partisan effort to oppose many of Obama’s nominees.

If you believe, as I do, that Dr. Berwick is uniquely qualified to lead the Medicare and Medicaid programs, email your Senators and voice your support. We need more Baldrige people leading the charge to improve our government agencies.

To read more about Baldrige in government, click on these articles:

• Advice for the Country’s First CPO
• Federal Government OFIs
• The City as a Baldrige System
• Transforming Politics
• Serving Citizens Better

(5 votes, average: 4.60 out of 5)

 Loading ...