President Obama is expected to nominate Donald Berwick, MD, to run the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). Berwick is currently president of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement and has won numerous awards for his quality and safety initiatives over the years. He is also a professor of healthcare policy at Harvard Medical School. I have worked with him on several occasions during my time as CEO of Adventist Health System West and feel he would be an excellent choice to lead CMS.

You see, Berwick gets it.

Given his background and experience, Berwick would be able to make sure that hospitals and doctors are given the proper payment incentives to deliver safe and effective care. He would be able to spearhead an agenda that would help change the healthcare delivery system to one that is based on quality and safety. Ultimately this type of agenda will save money and lives with fewer unnecessary tests and less redundancy throughout the system.

Berwick is someone who would make sure decisions are made in terms of what is best for the patient, not in terms of what will be most lucrative for an individual doctor or healthcare system.

I have great respect for Don Berwick and believe he would be an asset to CMS. He is well-respected by many in the healthcare arena and would be able to implement changes that could make a real difference.

Don Ammon blogs regularly at Action for Better Healthcare.