Posted on December 2, 2022
Learn about Dr. David Blumenthal, NEHI's 2023 Innovator in Health awardee.
David Blumenthal, MD, MPP
President (retiring), The Commonwealth Fund
David Blumenthal, M.D., M.P.P., is president of the Commonwealth Fund, a national philanthropy engaged in independent research on health and social policy issues.
Dr. Blumenthal 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 (now Mass General Brigham). From 2009 to 2011, he served as the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, where he put in place one of the largest publicly funded infrastructure investments the nation has ever made in such a short time period, in health care or any other field.
Previously, Dr. 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 300 scholarly publications and books, including Heart of Power: Health and Politics in the Oval Office. He is a member of the National Academy of Medicine and serves on a number of boards, including the Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation, The Carol Emmott Foundation, and the editorial board of the New England Journal of Medicine. He has also served on the staff of the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Health and Scientific Research, and is the founding chairman of AcademyHealth, the national organization of health services researchers.
Dr. Blumenthal received his undergraduate, medical, and public policy degrees from Harvard University and completed his residency in internal medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital. He served previously on the boards of the University of Chicago Health System and the University of Pennsylvania Health System, and is recipient of the Distinguished Investigator Award from AcademyHealth, the Graham Prize for Health Services Research, an Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from Rush University and Honorary Doctors of Science from Claremont Graduate University and the State University of New York Downstate.
