Gene L. Dodaro, Comptroller General of the United States and head of the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), today named a new chair and vice chair for the Governing Board of the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI). Christine Goertz, DC, PhD, was named to a three-year term as chair and Sharon Levine, MD, to a three-year term as vice chair.
“These two individuals bring strong leadership and an impressive breadth of research and clinical experience that should prove invaluable to the PCORI Governing Board as it brings patient-centered research to the forefront in health-care decision making,” Dodaro said. “I am very pleased to name such capable individuals to these top positions.”
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 established PCORI as a nonprofit organization to assist patients, clinicians, purchasers, and policymakers in making informed health decisions by carrying out research projects that provide quality, relevant evidence on how diseases, disorders, and other health conditions can be effectively and appropriately prevented, diagnosed, treated, monitored, and managed.
Brief biographies of the two individuals follow:
Dr. Christine Goertz is the Chief Executive Officer of the Spine Institute for Quality. Beginning in October 2019, Dr. Goertz will join the faculty of the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery at the Duke University School of Medicine as Professor and Director of System Development and Coordination for Spine Health. Prior to her time at the Spine Institute for Quality, she served as Vice Chancellor of Research and Health Policy at Palmer College of Chiropractic for 11 years. Her 25-year research career has focused on working with multi-disciplinary teams to design and implement clinical and health services research studies to increase knowledge regarding the effectiveness and cost of complementary and integrative healthcare delivery. Her primary area of focus is the investigation of patient-centered, non-pharmacological treatments for spine-related disorders. Dr. Goertz formerly chaired the American Chiropractic Association’s Committee on Quality Assurance and Accountability and served as a member of the National Advisory Council for the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health at the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Goertz received her Doctor of Chiropractic degree from Northwestern Health Sciences University and her PhD in Health Services Research, Policy and Administration from the School of Public Health at the University of Minnesota. She has been on the PCORI Board of Governors since 2010 and was named Vice Chair in 2018.
Dr. Sharon Levine is a per-diem physician with the Southern California Permanente Medical Group and is a board-certified pediatrician. She practiced with The Permanente Medical Group, a large multi-specialty group practice in California within Kaiser Permanente’s integrated delivery system, from 1977 to 2017. During her tenure there, she held a broad range of leadership positions within the medical group and Kaiser Permanente, including Chief of Quality Assurance, Chief and Assistant Chief of Pediatrics, Physician-in-Charge, Associate Executive Director, and Director and Senior Advisor. She currently serves on the Board of Directors for the Kaiser Permanente School of Medicine, the Institute for Medical Quality, and Supporting Child Caregivers International as well as serves on the Health Affairs Council on Health Care Spending and Value. She previously served as the President of the Medical Board of California. She also held academic appointments at the schools of medicine at Tufts and Georgetown Universities and spent two years as a clinical associate researching infant nutrition at the National Institutes of Health’s Institute of Child Health and Human Development. Dr. Levine received her MD from the Tufts University School of Medicine and a BA from Radcliffe College, Harvard University. She has been on the PCORI Board of Governors since 2010 and serves as Chair of the Engagement, Dissemination and Implementation Committee.
For more information, contact Rashmi Agarwal on GAO’s Health Care team at (202) 512-4077, or Chuck Young in GAO’s Office of Public Affairs at (202) 512-4800, or visit the GAO Health Care Advisory Committees web page at www.gao.gov/about/hcac.