John Billings, JD
Chairman
John Billings was one of the founders of the Foundation and currently serves as its board chair. He is an associate professor at the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service at New York University, and is the director of the school's Center for Health and Public Service Research. In 1986-7, Mr. Billings was a Visiting Professor at Duke University, conducting research on the physician decision making process and the quality of medical evidence. Mr. Billings holds a law degree from the University of California at Berkeley.

Mr. Billings is currently involved in several studies as co-principal or principal investigator, including:

The Safety Net Assessment Project, an initiative funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to examine the performance of health care safety nets in 70 U.S. cities.

Another project funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation assesses models for delivering primary care to low-income populations. Working with Columbia University and the United Hospital Fund of New York, he is evaluating the impact of Medicaid managed care in New York City.

A project supported by the Commonwealth Fund to monitor use of emergency departments by uninsured patients in New York City -- to learn more about the factors that contribute to emergency room use for conditions that could be treated effectively in a primary care setting.

Evaluation of the New York City Asthma Initiative, which seeks to improve asthma outcomes in low-income neighborhoods in New York City.

Mr. Billings is also participating in a CDC-funded project to reduce racial disparities in health outcomes in the South Bronx, involving improving health care delivery, educating patients on self care management, and organizing community-based organizations to help implement and monitor the project activities.

He earned a B.A. from Dartmouth College, and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Computer Science from Stanford University.

Robert A. Derzon, MHA, MBA, LLD
Robert A. Derzon is Senior Vice President Emeritus with the Lewin Group, and former head of the Lewin Group's San Francisco office. Prior to joining Lewin, Mr. Derzon served as the first Administrator of the U.S. Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA). He is the author of numerous articles on comparative performance of non-profit and for-profit hospitals. He acts as a consultant on health policy issues, and has become involved in issues related to rights of the disabled.

Mr. Derzon holds a Masters of Business Administration from the Amos Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth, as well as a Masters of Public Health from the University of Minnesota.

Richard A. Deyo, M.D., M.P.H.
Professor of Medicine and of Health Services, University of Washington; Co-Director, University of Washington Center for Cost and Outcomes Research. Co-Director, Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program, University of Washington.

Susan Edgman-Levitan, PA
Susan Edgman-Levitan, PA, is Executive Director of the John D. Stoeckle Center for Primary Care Innovation at Massachusetts General Hospital, and is a lecturer in the Department of Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital. She is also an Associate in Health Policy at Harvard Medical School. Ms. Edgman-Levitan was the founding President of the Picker Institute.

Ms. Edgman-Levitan was the co-principal investigator on the Harvard Consumer Assessment of Health Plans Study from 1995-2001 and is also on the Harvard CAHPS II study team, 2002-2007. She has served as Chair of the IHI Breakthrough Series Collaborative on Improving Service Quality, and is the IHI Fellow for Patient and Family-Centered Care.

She is an editor of Through the Patient's Eyes, a book on creating and sustaining patient-centered care. She serves on several boards including Planetree, the National Patient Safety Foundation, the Center for Information Therapy, and the American Academy on Physician and Patient.

Ms. Edgman-Levitan is a graduate of the University of Michigan and the Duke University Physician Assistant program, magna cum laude.

Floyd J. Fowler, Jr., PhD
Floyd Jackson Fowler Jr. was chosen to be President of the Foundation in 2002. He has worked with the Foundation since its inception, on the dual tasks of understanding patient perspectives on treatment decisions and evaluating the programs designed to help patients make decisions. Dr. Fowler is a social scientist who specializes in survey research methods, and he has been a Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Survey Research at UMass Boston since 1971. Dr. Fowler has been a major contributor to research on patient outcomes, and on how patients are affected by the treatments they receive.

Margaret E. O'Kane
Since 1990, Margaret E. O'Kane has served as President of the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA), an independent, non-profit organization whose mission is to improve the quality of health care everywhere. Under Ms. O'Kane's leadership, NCQA has developed broad support among the employer and health plan communities; today many Fortune 100 companies will only do business with NCQA Accredited health plans. About three quarters of the nation's largest employers use Health Plan Employer Data and Information Set (HEDIS®) data to evaluate the plans that serve their employees.

In 2000, Ms. O'Kane received the Centers for Disease Control's Champion of Prevention award, the agency's highest honor. The CDC names a Champion of Prevention infrequently, and only when an individual has made a truly notable contribution to advancing preventive health care.

In 2002, Ms. O'Kane was voted by her peers as one of Modern Healthcare's "100 Most Powerful People in Health Care."

Alonzo Plough, MA, MPH, Ph.D
Vice President, Strategy, Planning & Evaluation
The California Endowment 
Dr. Alonzo Plough joined The California Endowment in July 2005.  As Vice President of Strategy, Planning and Evaluation, Dr. Plough is responsible for the leadership, management and overall direction of The Endowment’s planning and development, evaluation, research and organizational learning.  

Plough served for 10 years as Director and Health Officer for the Seattle and King County Department of Public Health, one of the foremost metropolitan health departments in the nation.  He continues his appointment as Professor of Health Services at the University of Washington School of Public Health & Community Medicine in Seattle. 

Prior to that, Plough served for eight years as Director of Public Health for the Boston Department of Health and Hospitals. During his many years in Boston he held academic appointments at the Harvard University School of Public Health, Tufts University Department of Community Medicine, and Boston University School of Management.  

Plough’s distinguished career includes many awards recognizing exemplary public service and leadership, service on numerous boards of directors of nonprofit organizations, an extensive body of scholarly publications and book chapters, and extensive engagement in the media through opinion articles and television appearances on public health issues ranging from bioterrorism to community empowerment.

Lee Sechrest, PhD
Lee Sechrest is Professor Emeritus of Psychology at the University of Arizona and founder of the Evaluation Group for Analysis of Data, a methodological interest group that has been meeting on a continuing basis for 16 years.

The major portion of his current work is aimed at the development of more effective methods of research and data analysis, including dealing with large data sets, longitudinal designs and their analysis, and calibration of measures.

He has co-authored or edited 20 books and monographs and has had published nearly 50 papers, chapters, and articles. He is Past-President of the American Evaluation Association, the American Association for Applied and Preventive Psychology, the Division of Evaluation, Measurement, and Statistics of the American Psychological Association, and the Division of Clinical Psychology of the American Psychological Association.

Harold C. Sox, MD
Harold Sox graduated from Stanford University (B.S. physics) and Harvard Medical School. After serving as a medical intern and resident at Massachusetts General Hospital, he spent two years doing research in immunology at the National Institutes of Health and three years at Dartmouth Medical School, where he served as chief medical resident and began his study of medical decision making.

In 2001, Dr. Sox became the Editor of the Annals of Internal Medicine. He chaired the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force from 1990 to 1995, the Institute of Medicine Committee to Study HIV Transmission through Blood Products, and the Institute of Medicine Committee on Health Effects Associated with Exposures Experienced in the Gulf War. He chaired the Medicare Coverage Advisory Committee of the Center for Medicare Services from 1999 to 2003 and serves on the Report Review Committee of the National Research Council. He was elected to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences in 1993 and to fellowship in the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2002.

His books include Medical Decision Making, Common Diagnostic Tests: Selection and Interpretation, and Graduate Education in Internal Medicine: a Resource Guide.