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David Nash is the newly appointed Founding Dean of the Jefferson School of Population Health on the campus of Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.  Dr. Nash is also the Dr. Raymond C. and Doris N. Grandon Professor of Health Policy and this endowed professorship is one of a handful of such chairs in the nation.  The appointment as the Founding Dean culminates a nearly twenty-year tenure at Jefferson.

Dr. Nash, a Board Certified Internist, founded the original Office of Health Policy in 1990.  Thirteen years later, the Office evolved into one of the first Departments of Health Policy in an American medical college.  In 2008, the Board of Jefferson University approved the creation of the new school.  The Jefferson School of Population Health represents the first time a health-sciences university has placed four Masters Programs under one roof, namely a Masters in Public Health, Health Policy, Healthcare Quality and Safety and Chronic Care Management.  The goal of this innovative school is to produce a new type of healthcare leader for the future.

Dr. Nash is internationally recognized for his work in outcomes management, medical staff development and quality-of-care improvement; his publications have appeared in more than 100 articles in major journals.  He has edited nineteen books, including A Systems Approach to Disease Management by Jossey-Bass, Connecting with the New Healthcare Consumer by Aspen, The Quality Solution by Jones and Bartlett, Practicing Medicine in the 21st Century by ACPE, and most recently, Governance for Healthcare Providers by Performance Press.  In 1995, he was awarded the Latiolais (“Lay-shee-o-lay”) Prize by the Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy for his leadership in disease management and pharmacoeconomics.  He also received the Philadelphia Business Journal Healthcare Heroes Award in October 1997 and was named an honorary distinguished fellow of the American College of Physician Executives in 1998.  In 2006, he received the Elliot Stone Award for leadership in public accountability for health data from NAHDO.  In 2009, Dr. Nash received the Wharton Healthcare Alumni Achievement Award.

Repeatedly named by Modern Healthcare to the top 100 most powerful persons in healthcare list, his national activities include membership on the Board of Directors of the DMAA:  The Care Continuum Alliance, Chair of an NQF Technical Advisory Panel, membership in the American College of Surgeons Health Policy Institute and a recent appointment to the ACP Clinical Guidelines Project - four key national groups focusing on quality measurement and improvement.  He continues as one of the principal faculty members for quality of care issues of the American College of Physician Executives in Tampa, Florida, and is the developer of the ACPE Capstone Course on Quality.  He serves on the Board of the West Virginia Medical Institute (WVMI), the Medicare QIO for Pennsylvania.  For the last decade, he has been a member of the Board of Trustees of Catholic Healthcare Partners in Cincinnati, Ohio – one of the nation’s largest integrated delivery systems and he chaired the Board Committee on Quality and Safety.  He recently was appointed to the Board of Main Line Health – a four hospital system in suburban Philadelphia, PA.  Finally, he now also chairs the Highmark Blue Cross Board Quality Committee in Pittsburgh, PA.

Dr. Nash is a consultant to organizations in both the public and private sectors including the Technical Advisory Group of the Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council (a group he has chaired for the last decade), and numerous corporations within the pharmaceutical industry.  He is on the board of directors and advisory board of multiple healthcare companies.  From 1984 to 1989, he was Deputy Editor, Annals of Internal Medicine, at the American College of Physicians.  Currently, he is Editor-in-Chief of four major national journals including P&T, Population Health  Management, Biotechnology Healthcare and the American Journal of Medical Quality.  Through his writings, public appearances and his digital presence, his message reaches more than 100,000 persons every month.

Dr. Nash received his BA in economics (Phi Beta Kappa) from Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York; his MD from the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry, where he was recently named to the Alumni Council, and his MBA in Health Administration (with honors) from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.  While at Penn, he was a former Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholar and Medical Director of a nine physician faculty group practice in general internal medicine.

Dr. Nash lives in Lafayette Hill, Pennsylvania, with his wife, Esther J. Nash, MD, fraternal twin twenty-two-year old daughters, and eighteen-year old son.  He is an avid tennis player.  Please visit:  http://jefferson.edu/population_health/ and his new blog at http://www.nashhealthpolicy.blogspot.com.