Obama to Nominate Berwick to Head Medicare, Medicaid

President Barack Obama plans to nominate Donald Berwick, M.D., as administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, according to published reports.

Berwick currently serves as president and CEO of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, a nonprofit organization based in Cambridge, Mass., that works to accelerate improvement by building the will for change, cultivating promising concepts for improving patient care, and helping healthcare systems put those ideas into action, according to the organization’s Web site.

Berwick also is clinical professor of pediatrics and healthcare policy at Harvard Medical School and professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management at Harvard School of Public Health. He has served as chairman of theUS Preventive Services Task Force, a member of the board of trustees of the American Hospital Association and chairman of the National Advisory Council of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. In addition, he has served on President Bill Clinton’s Advisory Commission on Consumer Protection and Quality in the Healthcare Industry.

If nominated, Berwick will serve at a time when great change is on the horizon for Medicare and Medicaid, with the passage of healthcare reform.