For Patrick Conway, M.D., M.Sc., the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) was a springboard into the upper echelons of government.
A former RWJF Clinical Scholar, Conway, a high-ranking medical officer at the Department of Health and Human Services, was recently asked to head up a 15-member federal council overseeing the nation’s investments in pharmaceutical comparative-effectiveness research. The council will help executive branch agencies coordinate $1.1 billion in federal spending on comparative-effectiveness and related health research.
It’s a position Conway said he would not have gotten had he not first been a Foundation scholar. “The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation training allowed me to be successful in a policy role,” he said in a recent interview.
Conway is not alone; several other former RWJF scholars, investigators, and fellows are now serving in high-ranking health-related positions in the Obama administration.
David Blumenthal, M.D., M.P.P., an Investigator Awards alumnus and former member of its National Advisory Committee, is now serving as the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology at the Department of Health and Human Services. In this role, he is carrying out President Obama’s vision to implement a nationwide health information technology infrastructure that will enhance patients’ access to medical records. That, Blumenthal believes, will improve efficiency in the health care system and give patients an added sense of security about the quality and safety of the care they receive.
“The Foundation support enabled me to do work on health information technology that was critical to preparing me for this role,” he said, noting that he has participated in numerous health information reports and research projects funded by RWJF.
Also serving in the administration is Kavita Patel, M.D., M.S.H.S., a former Clinical Scholar who is now a senior staff member for presidential adviser Valerie Jarrett. Patel advises Jarrett on domestic policies involving health care, education and other issues. She previously served as deputy staff director for health on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.
Tom Valuck, M.S., M.H.S.A., J.D., meanwhile, was asked to become a member of the comparative-effectiveness council headed up by Conway. A former RWJF Health Policy Fellow, Valuck is currently a senior adviser on Medicare management at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
Current, Former Scholars Guided by Past Foundation Work
Nicole Lurie, M.D., M.S.P.H., B.A., was recently nominated to serve as assistant secretary for preparedness and response at the Department of Health and Human Services. A former Clinical Scholar, Lurie is a senior natural scientist and professor of policy analysis at the RAND Corporation.
Earlier this year, Kelly Devers, Ph.D., a former Scholar in Health Policy Research served as a member of President Obama’s transition team. An associate professor of health administration at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Devers co-led an effort to analyze results of a series of health care community discussions held around the country after the November elections. She helped draft a report that was submitted to the President and other key stakeholders at a White House health care summit in March.
The Foundation’s training, she said, gave her a broader understanding of health care history and policy as well as an enhanced facility with data analysis methods, which prepared her for successful completion of the March health care report. “It was very helpful to understand the history of health reform and where things often falter,” she said.
In addition, two RWJF scholars were selected in late June as prestigious White House Fellows: Anish Mahajan, an internist and health services researcher who was a RWJF Clinical Scholar; and Mehret Mandefro, a primary care physician and HIV prevention researcher who was a RWJF Health & Society Scholar at the University of Pennsylvania.
White House Fellows typically spend a year working as full-time paid special assistants to senior staff in the White House and in various executive branch agencies and are responsible for duties ranging from speechwriting to policy-making to representing their respective agencies on Capitol Hill and in international treaty negotiations.