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| Asaf Bitton, MD, MPH |
Asaf Bitton, MD, MPH, executive director of Ariadne Labs and primary care physician in the Division of General Internal Medicine and Primary Care, received the Primacy Care Collaborative's (PCC) Barbara Starfield Primary Care Leadership Award and David Meyers Research Award. The awards were presented at the Barbara Starfield Dinner Awards on Nov. 16 in Washington, D.C.
The Barbara Starfield Primary Care Leadership Award is given to primary care leaders whose work advances the goals of primary care, including a focus on person-centered care. It was established in honor of the late Barbara Starfield, MD, MPH, for her enduring commitment to the philosophy that all individuals should receive comprehensive, coordinated, continuous and person-focused care. Bitton was chosen for this award for his impactful contributions to the field, as shown through his work on primary care transformation and primary care policy change in the U.S. and globally.
In addition to the Leadership Award, Bitton was part of a team that received the David Meyers Research Award for his co-authored paper “Primary Care in Peril: How Clinicians View the Problems and Solutions.” The lead author was Erin E. Sullivan, PhD, of Harvard Center for Primary Care. The award honors the work of David Meyers, MD, a primary care physician and leader in health policy research at the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. The paper shared findings from the largest national survey of primary care clinicians during the COVID-19 pandemic and detailed the barriers clinicians face in delivering equitable, high-quality patient care, and potential solution pathways forward.
Bitton’s clinical interests include how to design, test and scale clinical improvements at system and national levels. He also is a senior advisor for primary care policy at the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation, helping to design and test some of the largest primary care payment and delivery tests over the last decade for Medicare. He has worked to create, test and study new models for measuring the health and function of primary care systems globally with the World Bank and World Health Organization.
The PCC is a nonprofit membership organization dedicated to advancing an effective and efficient health system built on a strong foundation of primary care and the patient-centered medical home.
