Elizabeth Docteur Joins HSC as Vice President and Director of Policy Analysis

News Release
Jan. 6, 2009

FURTHER INFORMATION, CONTACT:
Alwyn Cassil (202) 264-3484 or acassil@hschange.org

WASHINGTON, DC—Elizabeth Docteur, M.S., former deputy director of the health division of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), will join the Center for Studying Health System Change (HSC) on Jan. 11 as vice president and director of policy analysis.

Docteur will play a key role in HSC's management and direct HSC's growing policy analysis agenda to provide timely and objective information to policy makers about critical issues facing the nation's health system.

"As HSC expands to provide rigorous and objective policy analyses, Beth's policy expertise, coupled with her in-depth knowledge of developed nations' health systems and strong management background, make her the ideal person to serve as HSC vice president and director of policy analysis," said HSC President Paul B. Ginsburg, Ph.D.

Most recently, Docteur has served as an independent health policy consultant, returning to the United States in early 2009 after spending seven years with OECD in Paris, the final four as deputy head of the health economics and policy division. Docteur's areas of expertise include: health care financing and insurance arrangements, pharmaceutical policies and pricing practices, measurement and improvement of health care quality and access to services, mechanisms to contain costs and increase efficiency of expenditure, the U.S. Medicare program, and managed care.

Before joining OECD, Docteur served as director of health policy at the nonpartisan, nonprofit National Academy of Social Insurance, where she managed a multi-study project on Medicare reform with contributions from leading national experts and co-authored a publication on governance issues.

Docteur has held positions in both the legislative and executive branches of the U.S. government, working for the Clinton administration's Advisory Commission on Consumer Protection and Quality in Health Care, whose work provided the foundation for the National Quality Forum. Subsequently, she was research director at the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC), where she worked to develop a new line of work on the quality of health care furnished to Medicare beneficiaries.

Early in her career, she worked as a senior policy analyst with the Physician Payment Review Commission, a predecessor to MedPAC. She holds a master's degree in public policy analysis and a bachelor's degree in political science and history, magna cum laude, from the University of Rochester.

The Center for Studying Health System Change is a nonpartisan policy research organization committed to providing objective and timely research on the nation's changing health system to help inform policy makers and contribute to better health care policy. HSC, based in Washington, D.C., is funded in part by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and is affiliated with Mathematica Policy Research.