David W. Baker, M.D., FACP, MPH is the new executive vice president in the Division of Healthcare Quality Evaluation in the Joint Commission. He will oversee the Departments of Quality Measurement, Health Services Research and Standards and Survey Methods. Baker also will oversee the Joint Commission’s biostatistics and data analysis activities, public reporting of performance measurement data, and the development, implementation and maintenance of the performance measures used in accreditation and certification programs.
After an extensive nationwide search, Baker was chosen to fill the vacancy left by Jerod Loeb, Ph.D., who died in October 2013. He began on Feb. 17, 2015.
Since 2002, Dr. Baker served as chief of the Division of General Internal Medicine and Geriatrics at the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University, as well as deputy director of its Institute for Public Health and Medicine. In this capacity, he oversaw the largest division of the Department of Medicine, including clinical practices, residents’ continuity of care clinics, and research programs.
Baker is the chairman of the American College of Physician’s Performance Measurement Committee and serves as its representative to the Measures Application Partnership Coordinating Committee.
Before Northwestern, Baker was associate professor of medicine and epidemiology-biostatistics at Metro-Health Medical Center and Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. He also has worked at Grady Memorial Hospital and Harbor-UCLA Medical Center.
Baker completed his bachelor’s degree at the University of California, and his medical degree at UCLA School of Medicine. He finished a master’s degree in public health at the UCLA School of Public Health. He completed a residency in internal medicine at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center and a research fellowship with the RWJ Clinical Scholars Program at UCLA.
