Individuals who are appointed to serve on ABIM boards or committees are expected to have ABIM's mission as their primary interest when contributing to ABIM's work and therefore must adhere to our policies.
Rajeev Jain, MD, FACP, FASGE, AGAF, Chair
Dr. Jain is a board certified gastroenterologist who has been in private practice in Dallas, Texas since 1999. He is a partner at Texas Digestive Disease Consultants. He served as Chief of Gastroenterology at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas from 2000-2020.
Dr. Jain is Chair of the American Board of Internal Medicine Board of Directors. He served on the American Gastroenterological Association (AGA) Governing Board as a Clinical Councilor and Chair of the AGA Practice Management and Economics Committee. He has participated in clinical guideline development at both the AGA and American Society of Gastrointestinal Endoscopy (ASGE), where he served on the Standards of Practice Committee from 2008-2010. Additionally, Dr. Jain was a member of the task force that created the AGA colonoscopy bundle framework, and was co-Director of the GI Outlook 2013 Practice Management Course co-sponsored by the AGA and ASGE. Dr. Jain is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians, AGA and ASGE.
Dr. Jain received his bachelor's degree in chemical engineering from The University of Texas at Austin and his medical degree from Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. He completed his residency training in internal medicine and fellowship in gastroenterology at The University of Texas Southwestern Medical School in Dallas.
As of May 2024, Dr. Jain reported the following external relationships:
Dr. Jain serves in significant roles with the following organizations, receiving reimbursement or compensation as listed:
- The Dallas County Medical Society Board of Directors, without compensation
- Texas Digestive Disease Consultants, receiving reimbursement for travel expenses
Robert O. Roswell, MD, Chair-Elect
Dr. Robert Roswell is Associate Dean for Diversity and Inclusion at the Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell in New York where he also serves as Associate Professor of Science Education & Cardiology. Board certified in Internal Medicine and Cardiovascular Diseases, he is co-Director of the Cardiac ICU and the Associate Cardiology Fellowship Director at Northwell Health's Lenox Hill Hospital. Dr. Roswell serves as Secretary of the American Board of Internal Medicine Board of Directors.
A champion of promoting equity in medicine, Dr. Roswell is a graduate of the American Association of Medical College's Healthcare Executive Diversity and Inclusion Certificate program and has worked to integrate the social determinants of health, implicit bias, and cultural humility into the medical education curriculum. He has been awarded the Certificate of Appreciation from the Student National Medical Association and an Outstanding Mentorship Award from Internal Medicine Residents for his role in medical education.
Dr. Roswell's academic focus is at the nexus of acute cardiac care and health care disparities. Earlier in his career, he was honored by the American Heart Association and was a recipient of the Young Heart Award for outstanding care to patients. He is on the Steering Committee for the Critical Care Cardiology Trials Network and is active in the leadership of the American College of Cardiology as a New York Councilor and chair of the New York Diversity & Inclusion Taskforce. He is also a member of the Association of Black Cardiologists and is a strong advocate for health equity by providing high-quality, evidence-based care delivered with cultural humility to all patients.
Throughout his career, Dr. Roswell has given numerous talks and authored several publications on acute cardiac care, cardiogenic shock, and health care disparities.
His medical degree was conferred with honors from New York University School of Medicine where he completed residency and chief residency. He went on to fellowship at Georgetown University School of Medicine/Washington Hospital Center in Washington, DC.
As of July 2024, Dr. Roswell reported the following external relationships:
Dr. Roswell Dr. Roswell serves in significant roles with the following organization, receiving reimbursement or compensation as listed:
- American College of Cardiology, Board of Trustees, Equality Taskforce, without compensation.
Erica N. Johnson, MD, FACP, FIDSA, Secretary and Council Director
Dr. Johnson is Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, the Program Director for the Internal Medicine Residency at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center and Associate Vice Chair for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in Medical Education for the Johns Hopkins Department of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland. She is board certified in Internal Medicine and Infectious Disease and is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians and the Infectious Disease Society of America.
In 2014, Dr. Johnson completed an 11-year career in the U.S. Army Medical Corps, where she served as the Associate Program Director for the Internal Medicine Residency and Infectious Disease Fellowship Programs in the San Antonio Uniformed Services Health Education Consortium. She also served as a clinical investigator with the Infectious Disease Clinical Research Program.
Dr. Johnson is the Chair of the American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM) Infectious Disease Board and ABIM Council member. She is active in the Academic Alliance of Internal Medicine and the Infectious Diseases Society of America. She is also a member of the Accreditation Council Graduate Medical Education Residency Review Committee for Internal Medicine. Dr. Johnson has been recognized with numerous research, teaching and community service awards, including the Johns Hopkins Institute for Excellence in Education Teaching Award for Faculty, the Johns Hopkins Martin Luther King Jr. Award for Community Service, the Women of Color Science, Technology, Engineering and Math Conference Technology Rising Star Award, and the C. Lockard Conley Award for Teaching Excellence from the Maryland Chapter of the American College of Physicians.
Dr. Johnson received her bachelor’s degree in classics from the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Virginia, and her medical degree from the University of Maryland in Baltimore, Maryland. She completed a residency in internal medicine at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, DC, and a fellowship in infectious disease at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas.
As of May 2024, Dr. Johnson reported the following external relationships:
Dr. Johnson serves in significant roles with the following organizations, receiving reimbursement or compensation as listed:
- Infectious Diseases Society of America, Education Committee, Member, without compensation
- Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education, Review Committee for Internal Medicine, Member, without compensation
C. Seth Landefeld, MD, Treasurer
Dr. Landefeld, board certified in Internal Medicine and Geriatrics, is Professor and Chair, Department of Medicine, University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB). He serves on the Boards of Directors of the UAB Health System and the University of Alabama Health Services Foundation.
Previously, Dr. Landefeld served as Chief of the Division of Geriatrics and Associate Chair for Strategic Planning in the Department of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). He also served as Associate Chief of Staff for Geriatrics and Extended Care, San Francisco VA Medical Center. He was previously Chief, Division of General Internal Medicine and Health Care Research in the Department of Medicine, Case Western Reserve University. Dr. Landefeld practiced general internal medicine and geriatrics in his previous positions; his practice is currently limited to hospital medicine.
Dr. Landefeld has developed novel approaches to improve outcomes of seriously ill older people. He and his colleagues invented Acute Care for Elders Units and demonstrated their beneficial effects for patients, families, physicians and nurses as well as on costs of care. Currently, Dr. Landefeld is a member of the American Board of Internal Medicine Board of Directors. Previously, he served as President of the Society of General Internal Medicine and on the Board of Directors of the American Geriatrics Society. He is the 2016 Laureate, Alabama Chapter, American College of Physicians and an elected member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation and the Association of American Physicians.
Dr. Landefeld received a bachelor’s degree in history and science from Harvard College and his medical degree from Yale University. He also received a bachelor’s degree in philosophy and theology from Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar. He completed house staff training at University of California San Francisco, where he served as chief medical resident, and fellowship training in general internal medicine and clinical epidemiology at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital.
As of July 2023, Dr. Landefeld reported the following external relationships:
Work as an author or editor for following company, with compensation as listed:
- McGraw-Hill, receiving compensation as an author for a chapter in Current Diagnosis and Treatment: Geriatrics, 2nd edition
Dr. Landefeld also serves on the Boards of Directors of the University of Alabama-Birmingham Health System and of the University of Alabama Health Services Foundation, without compensation.
Richard J. Baron, MD, President & CEO
Dr. Baron, board certified in Internal Medicine and Geriatrics, is President and Chief Executive Officer of the American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM) and the ABIM Foundation. Dr. Baron was a former Chair of the ABIM's Board of Directors and served on the ABIM Foundation Board of Trustees.
Previously, Dr. Baron served as Group Director of Seamless Care Models at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Innovation Center, where he led efforts related to accountable care organizations and primary care. Prior to his CMS appointment, Dr. Baron practiced general internal medicine and geriatrics for almost 30 years at Greenhouse Internists, P.C., located in Philadelphia. Greenhouse was a pioneer in the comprehensive adoption of electronic health records in the small-practice environment. Until joining the federal government, Dr. Baron also served on the board of the National Quality Forum and its Health Information Technology Advisory Committee, as well as the Standards Committee of the National Committee for Quality Assurance.
Dr. Baron served as Chief Medical Officer of Health Partners, a not-for-profit Medicaid HMO set up by four teaching hospitals in Philadelphia, from 1988 to 1996. He was the architect of the Best Clinical and Administrative Practices program, funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Center for Health Care Strategies, working with medical leadership of Medicaid health plans around the country in learning collaboratives to improve the quality of care for their members. This program reached plans serving more than half of the Medicaid managed care population in the United States.
Dr. Baron received an English degree from Harvard College and his medical degree from Yale University. He completed house staff training at New York University-Bellevue Medical Center and served a three-year obligation in the National Health Service Corps in rural Tennessee.
As of April 2024, Dr. Baron reported no external relationships.
George M. Abraham, MD, MPH
Dr. Abraham is a Professor of Medicine at the University of Massachusetts Medical School and Chief of Medicine at Saint Vincent Hospital in Worcester, Massachusetts. He is board certified in Internal Medicine and Infectious Disease. He served as President of the American College of Physicians from 2021 to 2022. He is currently the Chair-Elect of the Board of Directors of the Federation of State Medical Boards (FSMB). He also previously served as Chair of the American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM) Infectious Disease Board and is the Past Chair of the Board of Registration (Licensing) in Medicine. Prior to this, he served as a Trustee of the Massachusetts Medical Society.
Dr. Abraham has received several awards including the American Osteopathic Association Volunteer Faculty Award, the Outstanding Primary Care Educator Award of the University of Massachusetts Medical School, the Leadership Award of the Massachusetts chapter of ACP, the John H. Clarke Leadership Award of the FSMB and the Phi Lambda Sigma honorary membership of the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, among others.
He is an invited speaker locally, nationally and internationally, and has championed the cause of DEI and written extensively about the same. His research interests include hepatitis C and B, travel medicine and infection control, as well as medication safety and systems improvement. He has authored over 150 publications, abstracts and book chapters.
Dr. Abraham earned his medical degrees from the Christian Medical College & Hospital in Ludhiana, India, completed his residency and chief residency at Saint Vincent Hospital, and received his master's degree in public health from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
As of March 2024, Dr. Abraham reported the following external relationships:
Funding for clinical trial expenses and staff, paid to Saint Vincent Hospital, from the following companies:
Dr. Abraham serves in significant roles with the following organizations, receiving reimbursement or compensation as listed:
- The American College of Physicians, Emeritus President, without compensation.
- The Federation of State Medical Boards, Board of Directors, without compensation.
Abha Agrawal, MD, FACP, FACHE
Dr. Agrawal is the President and Chief Executive Officer of Lawrence General Hospital in Lawrence, Massachusetts. She is board certified in Internal Medicine and Clinical Informatics. Dr. Agrawal has a robust and impactful leadership record in both private and public health care settings as well as in the health information technology (IT) sector. Her executive leadership focus includes turnaround and transformation of failing hospitals, leading them to clinical and financial excellence as model community hospitals. Previously, she has served as Chief Medical Officer at Humboldt Park Health in Chicago, Chief Medical Officer and Chief Medical Informatics Officer at Kings County Hospital Center (NYC Health + Hospitals), a 627-bed academic teaching center in New York City, and as teaching faculty at Harvard Medical School.
Dr. Agrawal is the founder of two startups: a health IT company in New York (2006) and A4 clinics in India (2017), a positive social impact venture aimed at reducing the burden of unnecessary disability through advanced robotic- and technology-enabled rehabilitation made affordable to the average citizen. She serves on various boards, including the Board of Trustees of the American College of Healthcare Executives and the Advisory Board of Even, a health care technology company based in India.
Dr. Agrawal received a degree in medical informatics from Yale University School of Medicine. She was a 2011 Fulbright Scholar, and has edited several books on patient safety and health information technology. Her numerous accolades include:
- Diversity, Equity, Inclusivity Leadership Award (2023) from the Chicago Health Executives Forum
- Top 20 Global Women of Excellence Award, Chicago (2019), from the U.S. Congress
- "130 Women Hospital and Health System Leaders to Know" (2013, 2014 and 2015) by Becker's Hospital Review
As of May 2024, Dr. Agrawal reported the following external relationships:
Work as an author or editor for the following companies, with compensation as listed:
- Springer, compensation as an author for EndNote 1-2-3 Easy!: Reference Management for the Professionaland editor for Patient Safety and Safety of Health IT.
Dr. Agrawal serves in significant roles with the following organization, receiving reimbursement or compensation as listed:
- The American College of Medical Quality, Board, Member, without compensation
M. Safwan Badr, MD
Dr. Badr is Professor and Chair of the Wayne State University (WSU) School of Medicine Department of Internal Medicine. He is also a Professor of Physiology and Biomedical Engineering, and a staff physician at the John D. Dingell VA Medical Center. Dr. Badr is board certified in Internal Medicine, Pulmonary Disease, Critical Care Medicine and Sleep Medicine.
Previously, Dr. Badr served as Chief, Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine at WSU School of Medicine (1998-2017), Associate Chair of the Department of Internal Medicine (2004-2008), Chief Medical Officer of the Detroit Medical Center (DMC) (2008-2010), Board of Directors, DMC’ s Michigan Pioneer Accountable Care Organization (2013-2017) and Chief Medical Officer of the WSU Physician Group (2016-2017).
He has also served on multiple national and international medical societies. Dr. Badr is a member of the American Board of Internal Medicine Board of Directors. Previously, he served on the Board of Directors of the American Thoracic Society
Dr. Badr is an internationally known sleep disorders researcher and research mentor. He has mentored numerous trainees and junior faculty members who have launched successful academic careers.
Dr. Badr is invested in outstanding medical education. He was the founding Director of the WSU Sleep Medicine Fellowship program, and he teaches and mentors students, residents and fellows in multiple departments across the medical school.
A graduate of Damascus University Medical School in Syria, Dr. Badr completed a residency in internal medicine at Cook County Hospital in Chicago, Illinois, followed by clinical and research fellowships in pulmonary, critical care and sleep medicine at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. In addition, he completed a master of business administration degree at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville.
As of August 2023, Dr. Badr reported the following external relationships:
Work as an author or editor for the following company, with compensation as listed:
- UpToDate®, receiving compensation for authorship relating to sleep medicine topics.
Dr. Badr also reported serving on two editorial boards.
Krisda H. Chaiyachati, MD, MPH, MSHP, FACP
Dr. Krisda Chaiyachati is the National Medical Director for Clinical Transformation at Ascension, the largest non-profit health system in the US with 2600+ sites of care and 130+ hospitals across 20 US states. In this role, he leads the strategic vision and operational implementation of national programs to transform clinical care, including initiatives to improve patient engagement, clinical workflow, and consumer experiences by leveraging advances in new technology, virtual care, and remote patient monitoring.
Most recently, Dr. Chaiyachati had leadership roles at Verily, a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc, as the Senior Medical Director for Care Delivery, the Physician Lead for Value-based Care and Innovation, and cofounded the Health Equity Center of Excellence. Prior to Verily, he held leadership roles at the University of Pennsylvania Health System, notably as the founding Medical Director for Penn Medicine OnDemand Virtual Care and PennOpen Pass, and the inaugural Director for the Leonard Davis Institute-Penn Medicine Research Laboratory.
He is an expert on how to design, implement, and evaluate strategies that improve equity, efficiency, and access to care through transformative digital health initiatives. While in academia, through funding from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, the National Institutes of Health, and the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute, Dr. Chaiyachati developed and evaluated technology-facilitated interventions to improve equitable access to care and automate care delivery processes. His peer-reviewed research (80+) has been covered in The New York Times and Washington Post, and he has articles of the year awards from AcademyHealth, Telemedicine and e-Health, and the Annals of Internal Medicine. For his work, he has been awarded Penn’s Division of General Internal Medicine Excellence in Innovation in Clinical Practice Award and the Society of General Internal Medicine Quality & Practice Innovation Award.
Dr. Chaiyachati earned his medical degree from the University of Michigan Medical School and completed residency and chief residency through the Yale Primary Care Internal Medicine program. He has a Master of Public Health from The Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health as a Zuckerman Fellow. He has a Master of Science in Health Policy from the University of Pennsylvania where he was a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholar. He has adjunct appointments within the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine and the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics. He is a member of the American Board of Internal Medicine Board of Directors, a member of Intend Health Strategies Board of Directors, and a board-certified, practicing general internist at the University of Pennsylvania Health System.
As of April 2024, Dr. Chaiyachati reported the following external relationships:
Work as an author or editor for following company, with compensation as listed:
- Cambridge University Press, receiving compensation as an author for Seemed Like a Good Idea: Alchemy versus Evidence-Based Approaches to Healthcare Management Innovation.
Dr. Chaiyachati serves in significant roles with the following organizations, receiving reimbursement or compensation as listed:
- American Telemedicine Association - CEO Advisory Committee for Eliminating Health Disparities, without compensation
- Intend Health Strategies, without compensation
- Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Health Equity Scholars for Action Mentor, receiving honoraria
- University of Pennsylvania, receiving honoraria
Dr. Chaiyachati works full-time at Ascension Health as the National Medical Director for Clinical Transformation. He also receives consulting fees for service on Agency for Health Research and Quality Advisory Panel.
Carladenise Edwards, Ph.D
Dr. Edwards has thirty years of professional experience ranging from Assistant Dean at the University of Pennsylvania to government official at the state and federal level. She is an accomplished health care executive who most recently served as Executive Vice President, Chief Strategy Officer for Henry Ford Health in Detroit where she was responsible for mergers and acquisitions, innovation, government relations, planning, technology transfer and system transformation. Prior to that, she led strategy for Providence St. Joseph Health in Seattle where she also served as Chief Contracting Officer and Chief Administrative Officer for Population Health.
Dr. Edwards has proven success in achieving revenue growth and helping health care companies achieve operational efficiency on the provider and plan sides of the business, not to mention her successful career as a fundraiser. Her academic background and professional experience in the fields of medical sociology, epidemiology, marketing and business development, health information technology and health care financing make her a highly sought-after advisor, speaker and director.
In 2022, she was recognized by Modern Healthcare and Becker's as one of the top Women Leaders in Healthcare; she was also named one of the 50 Women of Excellence by the Michigan Chronicle and elected president of the cohort by her peers. She serves on the board of Clover Health, CancerIQ, Mae. and Sound Physicians. She is also a strategic advisor to Parsley Health, 4L Data Intelligence and the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics.
Dr. Edwards and her husband, Herman Edwards, have endowed two scholarships: one at the University of Pennsylvania's School of Nursing and the other at Johnson C. Smith University in support of African American students seeking higher education. She is most proud of her service to the community, including serving on Heluna Health’s Board of Directors, where she currently serves on the Finance Committee and previously chaired the Advancement Committee. She is also a director for the American Board of Internal Medicine—where she serves on the Finance Committee—and the Healthcare Financial Management Association.
Dr. Edwards holds a Bachelor of Arts and a Master of Science in Education from the University of Pennsylvania; she earned a doctorate in philosophy from the University of Florida. She is enrolled in Harvard University’s Adaptive Leadership Initiative as a fellow. Dr. Edwards is currently devoting her time to community and corporate board service. When she is not working, you can find her reading and spending time with family.
As of June 2024, Dr. Edwards reported the following external relationships:
Dr. Edwards serves on the governing board or as a consultant for the following for-profit healthcare-related organizations, receiving reimbursement for compensation as listed:
- Alpha Insights, consultant, receiving honoraria
- CancerIQ, board member, receiving honoraria and reimbursement for travel expenses.
- Clover Health, board member, receiving reimbursement for travel expenses and stocks/cash options.
- ConcertoCare, board director, stocks
- Mae, board advisor, stocks.
- Miami-Dade County Government, chief administrative officer, receiving salary.
- Parsley Health, strategic advisor, receiving reimbursement for travel expenses and stocks/cash options
- Sami, board advisor, stocks.
- Sound Physicians, board member, stocks
Dr. Edwards serves in significant roles with the following organizations, receiving reimbursement or compensation as listed:
- Healthcare Financial Management Association, receiving reimbursement for travel expenses
- HelunaHealth, board member, receiving reimbursement for travel expenses
- University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing, without compensation.
Yul Ejnes, MD
Dr. Ejnes, a board certified internal medicine specialist, is in outpatient practice at Coastal Medical in Cranston, Rhode Island, which he co-founded in 1995. Prior to joining the Lifespan Health System in 2021, Coastal Medical was Rhode Island's largest private practice. It is a Level 3 Patient Centered Medical Home and a Medicare Accountable Care Organization.
In addition to practicing full-time, Dr. Ejnes is a Clinical Professor of Medicine at the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University. He is the immediate past chair of the American Board of Internal Medicine's (ABIM) Board of Directors, which he joined in 2016, and is a member of the ABIM Foundation Board of Trustees.
Dr. Ejnes is a member of the American College of Physicians' (ACP) delegation to the American Medical Association (AMA) House of Delegates and its Medical Informatics Committee. At ACP, Dr. Ejnes served as Chair of the Board of Regents, Chair of the Board of Governors, Rhode Island Chapter Governor. He also sat on the AMA Relative Value Scale Update Committee for a term. Among his local leadership activities, he is a past President of the Rhode Island Medical Society and the Rhode Island Society of Internal Medicine.
Dr. Ejnes earned his medical degree from Brown Medical School in Providence, Rhode Island in 1985 and did his internal medicine residency and chief medical residency at Rhode Island Hospital, also in Providence.
As of September 2023, Dr. Ejnes reported the following external relationships:
Dr. Ejnes serves in significant roles with the following organizations, receiving reimbursement or compensation as listed:
- American College of Physicians, Member, Delegation to American Medical Association House of Delegates; Rhode Island Chapter: member, Executive Council, receiving reimbursement for travel expenses
- American College of Physicians, Services Political Action Committee, Board Member, without compensation
Alicia Fernandez, MD
Dr. Alicia Fernandez is Professor of Medicine at University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) and a board-certified internist at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital where she practices primary care medicine and attends on the medical wards. Her research is in health and health care disparities, with a focus on diabetes, Latino health, immigrant health, and language barriers.
A member of the UCSF Academy of Medical Educators, she received the Arnold P. Gold Foundation Professorship for Humanism in Medicine (2009-2013). Since 2014, Dr. Fernandez has been a member of the Board of Governors of the Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) and the National Academy of Science Roundtable on Health Literacy. She is co-Editor of the Lange textbook (Second Edition, 2016), Medical Management of Vulnerable and Underserved Patients.
Dr. Fernandez received her bachelor degree at Yale in New Haven, Connecticut, her medical degree from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York and completed her residency, chief residency and fellowship at UCSF.
As of May 2024, Dr. Fernandez reported the following external relationships:
Work as an author or editor for the following companies, with compensation as listed:
- Lange, receiving compensation for work as an editor
Dr. Fernandez serves in significant roles with the following organizations, receiving reimbursement or compensation as listed:
- The Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute, Board of Governors, receiving honoraria and reimbursement for travel expenses
Grant funding for salary support, paid to the University of California, San Francisco, from the following nonprofit health care-related organizations:
- The California Health Care Foundation
- Health Resources and Services Administration
- The National Institutes of Health
Dr. Fernandez has also received philanthropic awards from Bay Area philanthropies to support COVID-19 education work, including salary support, paid to the institution.
Heather L. Heiman, MD
Dr. Heiman is an Associate Professor of Medicine and Medical Education at the University of Illinois College of Medicine. She serves as Interim Associate Dean for Undergraduate Medical Education, where she is responsible for curriculum, assessment and evaluation across the college’s three campuses in Chicago, Peoria and Rockford, Illinois. She also maintains a busy outpatient internal medicine practice within the Academic Internal Medicine division. Prior to moving to the University of Illinois in 2019, she spent sixteen years at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, developing curriculum and assessment within clinical skills and serving as medical director of the standardized patient center.
Dr. Heiman previously served as Chair of the American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM) Internal Medicine Longitudinal Knowledge Assessment (LKA®) Approval Committee. Prior to this role she served as a member of the now defunct Internal Medicine Board Exam Committee from 2013 to 2020. She received the Midwest Clinician Educator Award from the Society of General Internal Medicine in 2012. She is a fellow of the American College of Physicians.
Dr. Heiman received her undergraduate degree from Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, where she was an Angier B. Duke scholar, a full-tuition award based on academic merit. She obtained her medical degree from Harvard Medical School and completed her internal medicine residency at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.
As of June 2024, Dr. Heiman reported the following external relationships:
Grant funding for salary support, paid to the University of Illinois, from the following company:
- The National Board of Medical Examiners Stemmler Fund, for investigating the relationship between medical school assessments and residency milestones.
Megan M. Koepke, MHA
Meg Koepke, MHA, is a seasoned leader in both government and the private sector leading strategy and implementation of population health and value-based care improvement across Medicare, Medicaid and commercially insured populations. She started her career as care coordinator for a home intravenous infusion company serving patients with chronic and terminal illness where she learned early on how right care, right place, and right time are more dream than reality for many patients and their health coverage. Together with early experiences navigating care and treatment as a patient and family member, Meg developed a true north for continuously improving the link between health policy, strategy and operations. Her areas of expertise include CMS regulatory and payment policy, population health, value-based care model design, strategy and operations.
From 2017-2023, Meg has worked in consulting roles within the health care industry, serving private and public sector clients with strategy and operations to support population health, alternative payment models, and patient engagement. Meg joined the CMS Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI) in 2014, to lead the adaption and scale of alternative payment model tests of change in primary care, ACOs, Medicare-Medicaid integration, Medicare Advantage, and special population models. While there, Meg was a champion integrating care for dual eligible populations, increasing paths to accountable care for rural communities, and engaging stakeholders with on-the-ground experience in population health improvement to improve value-based care across all programs. Meg earned an MHA from University of Minnesota School of Public Health.
As of August 2023, Ms. Koepke reported no external relationships.
Suzanne G. Watnick, MD, FASN (effective 8/1/24)
Dr. Watnick, a board certified nephrologist, is a Professor of Medicine at the University of Washington and practices nephrology at the Seattle VA Medical Center. She provides direct care for chronic kidney disease (CKD) and dialysis patients, teaching nephrology fellows in the outpatient CKD and dialysis environments, having served as the nephrology training program director at Oregon Health & Science University from 2008 to 2016. She served as the Chief Medical Officer at the Northwest Kidney Centers from 2017 to 2023, overseeing the response to the COVID-19 pandemic locally and nationally for the dialysis community. She led the organization’s ESRD [end-stage renal disease] Seamless Care Organization, the first internal medicine specialty-specific accountable care organization, providing novel approaches to value-based care through integrated community models. She received the American Society of Nephrology (ASN) mid-career leadership award in 2022.
Dr. Watnick is currently serving as the inaugural ASN Health Policy Scholar, and is an active member of ASN’s Quality Committee and Policy & Advocacy Committee. She works closely with the Department of Health and Human Services to foster innovation through the KidneyX program and improve care for Medicare beneficiaries on dialysis. She received the National Kidney Foundation’s 2024 Massry Award for her work in policy and advocacy. She has authored over 75 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters, with coverage in The New York Times, National Public Radio and the Associated Press.
Dr. Watnick earned her bachelor’s degree at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, her medical degree at the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester, Massachusetts, completed her residency at the University of California, San Francisco, and completed fellowships in both nephrology and the Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars’ Program at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut.
As of May 2024, Dr. Watnick reported the following external relationships:
Dr. Watnick serves in significant roles with the following organizations, receiving reimbursement or compensation as listed:
- ASN Health Policy Scholar, with compensation.
- ASN Quality Committee and Policy & Advocacy Committee, without compensation