David Blumenthal

David Blumenthal, MD, MPP, is president of The Commonwealth Fund. He is formerly the Samuel O. Thier Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and chief health information and innovation officer at Partners Healthcare System in Boston. From 2009 to 2011, he served as the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, with the charge to build an interoperable, private, and secure nationwide health information system and to support the widespread, meaningful use of health IT. Previously, Blumenthal was a practicing primary care physician, director of the Institute for Health Policy, and professor of medicine and health policy at Massachusetts General Hospital/Partners Healthcare System and Harvard Medical School. He is the author of more than 250 books and scholarly publications, including most recently Heart of Power: Health and Politics in the Oval Office (University of California Press, 2010). He is a member of the National Academy of Medicine and serves on the editorial boards of the New England Journal of Medicine and the Journal of Delivery Science and Innovation. He has also served on the staff of the US Senate Subcommittee on Health and Scientific Research, is the founding chairman of AcademyHealth, and is a trustee of the University of Pennsylvania Health System.