“Betterment is a perpetual labor. The world is chaotic, disorganized, and vexing, and medicine is nowhere spared that reality.” – Atul Gawande, MD, MPH
The imperative toward betterment is the same force that drives innovation in healthcare delivery. But as Atul Gawande observes, the daily work of clinicians is as complex as human life, and is influenced by myriad forces outside the controlled environment of a laboratory. How do we hold real-world innovation in care delivery, patient-centered care, or digital technology to rigorous and reproducible standards?
NEJM Catalyst Editors Thomas H. Lee, Namita Seth Mohta, and Edward Prewitt have a nuanced discussion of healthcare innovation and how to test and affirm its applicability in novel settings. They cover what real-world innovation looks like, how that work can be adopted and put to immediate use by researchers and organizational stakeholders, and why the NEJM Catalyst Innovations in Care Delivery journal is the best source for reproducible innovations.
About the speakers
Dr. Thomas Lee is Chief Medical Officer of Press Ganey, and an internist and cardiologist who practices at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. He is a Professor of Medicine, part time, at Harvard Medical School and Professor of Health Policy and Management at the Harvard School of Public Health. Prior to joining Press Ganey, he served as Network President for Partners Healthcare System and Chief Executive Officer for Partners Community HealthCare, Inc., the integrated delivery system founded by Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital.
He is a member of the Board of Directors of Geisinger Health System, Chairman of the Board of Directors for the Geisinger Health Plan, Geisinger Quality Options, Inc., and Geisinger Indemnity Insurance Company Board of Directors. He is also a member of the Board of Directors of Health Leads; the Board of Overseers of Weill Cornell Medical College; the Special Medical Advisory Group (SMAG) of the Veterans Administration; and the Panel of Health Advisors of the Congressional Budget Office. He is a member of the Editorial Board of the New England Journal of Medicine, as well as Editor-in-Chief of NEJM Catalyst Innovations in Care Delivery and Co-Chair of the NEJM Catalyst Editorial Board.
Namita Seth Mohta, MD, is a physician executive with expertise in healthcare delivery transformation. As the Executive Editor for NEJM Catalyst Innovations in Care Delivery, she is part of the founding leadership team and has responsibility for content strategy and quality. Most recently, Dr. Mohta served as the Director, Serious Illness Care Program (SICP), at Ariadne Labs, a health system innovation center at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. SICP is focused on the design, test, and spread of solutions to improve care for patients and caregivers experiencing serious illness. Dr. Mohta has been part of the founding Population Health and ACO leadership teams as Medical Director, both at Partners HealthCare (now MassGeneral Brigham) and the New England Quality Care Alliance (Tufts Medical Center), both in Boston. Her responsibilities have included designing and implementing value-based care with a focus on scaling tailored clinical interventions, integrating analytics and measurement, and leading system-wide change management efforts. Dr. Mohta has worked with multiple start-ups, including PatientPing (now Bamboo Health), a digital health company, as their Physician Lead, with a focus on building products that improve care. She often consults with organizations to provide strategic and technical expertise and leadership. She worked as a management consultant with the Boston Consulting Group prior to medical training.
Dr. Mohta practices internal medicine as a hospitalist at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital and is Assistant Professor in the Department of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Mohta is former faculty at the Center for Healthcare Delivery Sciences and current associate faculty at Ariadne Labs. She completed her Internal Medicine and Primary Care residency training at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Dr. Mohta is a graduate of Yale College and Yale School of Medicine.
As Editorial Director for NEJM Catalyst, Edward Prewitt oversees all editorial content for the monthly journal, NEJM Catalyst Innovations in Care Delivery, monthly Insights reports, and quarterly events. He works closely with NEJM Catalyst advisors, authors, and colleagues to ensure that editorial content advances the national and international dialogue to drive innovation in healthcare delivery, while upholding NEJM Group’s high standards for quality.
