The Joint Commission has appointed Dr. David Baker executive VP of its division of healthcare quality evaluation.
Baker, 56, started in the position on Monday, replacing Jerod Loeb, who died from prostate cancer in October 2013. He was chosen after a nationwide search.
In his new role, Baker oversees the organization's departments of quality measurement, health services research, and standards and survey methods. He'll also oversee biostatistics and data analysis activities, development of performance measures and the public reporting of performance measurement data.
Before joining The Joint Commission, Baker was chief of general internal medicine and geriatrics at the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University and deputy director of the school's Institute for Public Health and Medicine. While there, he established the first fully independent hospitalist program in a major academic medical center, according to the commission's news release.
Before working at Northwestern, Baker held positions at Metro-Health Medical Center, Case Western Reserve University, Grady Memorial Hospital and Harbor UCLA Medical Center.
Baker chairs the American College of Physician's Performance Measurement Committee and serves as its liaison to the Measures Application Partnership Coordinating Committee. He also served on the Measure Implementation and Evaluation Committee of the Physician Consortium for Performance Improvement.
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