Summary:
This episode of Smarter Care Connections is the fourth in a special series to recognize VCHI’s 10th Anniversary. Our guests this week are Richard M. Hamrick, III, MD, MBA and Len Nichols, PhD. Dr. Hamrick was a founding board member of VCHI and is still very involved in our work and Dr. Nichols is our go-to health economist and has consulted on a number of VCHI’s projects from the start.
Our Guests:
Dr. Dick Hamrick was the Chief Medical Officer for HCA’s Capital Division. In this position, he spearheaded the division’s activities relating to quality improvement, patient safety and clinical effectiveness, and worked closely with division and hospital personnel and affiliated physicians.
Prior to joining HCA, Dr. Hamrick practiced pulmonary medicine in Richmond, Virginia for more than 22 years as a member of Pulmonary Associates of Richmond, Inc. He was appointed by Virginia Governors to work groups surrounding policy issues. He led the formation and startup phase of Virginia Care Partners, a clinically integrated network with over 200,000 lives now under contract.
Len M. Nichols, PhD is a non-resident Fellow of the Health Policy Center of the Urban Institute and Professor Emeritus of Health Policy at George Mason University. He is a health economist and the PI of the CAPGI project, and was the coauthor, with Lauren A. Taylor, of the paper that initiated this work. Len has been intimately involved in health reform debates, policy development, and communication with the media and policy makers for 25+ years, after he was Senior Advisor for Health Policy at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) in the Clinton Administration. Since that time he has testified frequently before Congress and state legislatures, published extensively and spoken to a wide range of hospital associations, hospital systems, physician groups, boards of directors, and health policy leadership forums around the country.