David Blumenthal, M.D., M.P.P. is the Director of the Institute for Health Policy and a Physician at The Massachusetts General Hospital/Partners HealthCare System in Boston, Massachusetts. He is also Professor of Medicine and Professor of Health Care Policy at Harvard Medical School.

From 1987-1991 he was Senior Vice President at Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital, a 720-bed Harvard teaching hospital. From 1981 to 1987 he was Executive Director of the Center for Health Policy and Management and Lecturer on Public Policy at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. During the late 1970s, Dr. Blumenthal was a professional staff member on Senator Edward Kennedy’s Senate Subcommittee on Health and Scientific Research.

He is a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences and serves on several editorial boards, including The New England Journal of Medicine, American Journal of Medicine, Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law, and the Bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine. He serves on advisory committees to the National Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Medicine, the National Academy of Social Insurance and several foundations.

Dr. Blumenthal is currently Executive Director for The Commonwealth Fund Task Force on the Future of Academic Health Centers and Chairman of the Board of the Massachusetts Peer Review Organization. He is the founding chairman of the Academy for Health Services Research and Health Policy, the national organization of health services researchers. Dr. Blumenthal is also Director of the Harvard University Interfaculty Program for the Improvement of Health Care Policy and Systems.

His research interests include the future of academic health centers under health care reform, quality management in health care, the determinants of physician behavior, access to health services, and the extent and consequences of academic-industrial relationships in the health sciences.