National Quality Forum names Cassel president and CEO

The National Quality Forum named Dr. Christine Cassel to succeed Janet Corrigan as president and CEO.

Cassel will join the National Quality Forum next summer from the American Board of Internal Medicine, where she is president and CEO of the board and its foundation. Cassel said in April she would step down from her ABIM leadership role when her term ended in July 2013.

The National Quality Forum announced Corrigan's departure last March.

Cassel said her priority as incoming chief executive of the forum will be to expand and streamline its measures to better adapt to changes in healthcare. She said she also believes the NQF is uniquely positioned to convene the spectrum of individuals and organizations working on quality improvement to identify measures that will enable providers to improve quality.

Previously, Cassel served as the president of the American College of Physicians, the first woman to be named to that role, the NQF said as it announced her appointment.

She was also the first woman to serve as dean of the Oregon Health and Science University's School of Medicine, where she was also vice president for medical affairs. She previously held other academic leadership roles at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, and the University of Chicago.

She is also past-president of the American Federation for Aging Research.

She is co-chairperson of a report on health information technology for the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, to which she was named by President Barack Obama.

Cassel, one of Modern Healthcare's 2012 most influential physician executives, contributed to development of the Institute of Medicine's “To Err is Human” and “Crossing the Quality Chasm.” Cassel declined to provide her age.