Dr. Anne Beal has been named chief operating officer for the
Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute, a Washington-based not-for-profit research organization created by Congress under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
“Dr. Beal has dedicated her career to improving health and the quality of health care in America,” said Dr. Joe Selby, the institute's executive director in a news release. “Her experience and accomplishments in grant-making, health policy, health services research and addressing health disparities are an excellent fit with PCORI's mission.”
The institute is tasked with setting priorities and funding comparative effectiveness research as prescribed by the healthcare reform law. It has funding targets set at $210 a year for the first three years, but it expected to spend as much as $3 billion by the end of the decade, according to
recent article in the New England Journal of Medicine co-authored by its chairman, Dr. A. Eugene Washington.
Beal previously served as president of the Aetna Foundation and assistant vice president of the program on healthcare disparities at the Commonwealth Fund. She has conducted health services research at the Center for Child and Adolescent Health Policy at Massachusetts General Hospital and has served on the faculty of Harvard University in its schools of public health and medicine.
She has a bachelor's degree from Brown University, a medical degree from Cornell University Medical College.
