Berwick Is Medical, Dental Schools’ Class Day Speaker

Donald Berwick ’68, M.D.-M.P.P. ’72, lecturer on
healthcare policy and former
administrator of the Centers for Medicare and
Medicaid Services (CMS), will address Harvard Medical School and Harvard School of Dental
Medicine degree candidates on May 23 as Class Day speaker. Berwick has championed
the interests of patients and consumers while simultaneously speaking out on
the need to ration healthcare and cap spending.

A pediatrician by training, Berwick resigned from the Obama
administration in November 2011—a month before his temporary appointment came to an end—in the
face of Republican pledges to block his confirmation in the Senate. Berwick
came under fire from Republicans because of ideological differences on
healthcare spending; he has been vocal about his frustrations on the issue, calling
it “wasteful,” and blaming in part the outdated regulations enforced by the agency
he was appointed to lead.

Listing five reasons for what he described as the “extremely
high level of waste”—overtreatment of patients, the failure to coordinate care,
the administrative complexity of the healthcare system, burdensome rules, and
fraud—Berwick told
The New York Times: “Much is done
that does not help patients at all, and many physicians know it.”

Obama nominated Berwick to lead CMS in April 2010, sidestepping
Congress by giving him a temporary, recess appointment, a move that enraged
Republicans and even angered some Democrats: “This recess appointment proves
the Obama administration did not have the support of a majority of Democrats
and Republicans in the Senate and sought to evade a hearing,” said Senator Pat
Roberts (R-Kansas) to the Times in 2010.

As Medicare chief, Berwick urged doctors and hospitals to
adopt electronic health records, merge their operations, and coordinate care to
eliminate medical errors that kill thousands of patients each year. “Don
Berwick did outstanding work at CMS,” White House deputy press secretary Jamie
Smith said in November 2011 after Berwick announced
his impending resignation, reported The
Washington Post. “It’s unfortunate that a small group of senators
obstructed his nomination, putting political interests above the best interests
of the American people.”

The founder, former president and CEO of Institute for Healthcare
Improvement (IHI)—a Cambridge nonprofit that trains medical professionals and has supported projects aimed at
lowering the number of heart-failure readmissions, managing advanced disease,
and palliative care—Berwick has long studied the management of healthcare
systems (in 1983 he became Harvard Community Health Plan’s first vice president
of quality-of-care measurement), placing emphasis on using scientific methods
and evidence-based medicine to improve the quality and safety and lower the cost of healthcare.
He has kept a low profile since
his departure from CMS, focusing mainly on writing and speaking engagements as
he determines his next steps, IHI’s media-relations firm told Harvard Magazine. Last month he spoke at
an invitation-only conference of healthcare executives and investors sponsored
by the private equity firm Health Evolution Partners, stating that he remains passionately committed to the goal of providing cost-effective,
quality care to every American.

“We are a nation
headed for justice, for fairness and justice in access to care,” Berwick said in 2011. “We are a nation headed for much more healing and much safer care.
There is a moon shot here. But somehow we have not put together that story in a
way that’s compelling.”

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