Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute Names Beal Chief Officer for Engagement

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Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute

Mar 21, 2013, 10:30 ET

PCORI plans for transition, seeks new Chief Operating Officer

WASHINGTON, March 21, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) announced today the appointment of Anne C. Beal, MD, MPH, as Chief Officer for Engagement (COE), reflecting PCORI's commitment to working with healthcare stakeholders to guide its work.

Beal will continue to serve as PCORI's Deputy Executive Director after she takes on her duties in the newly created COE position. She will transition from her current position as Chief Operating Officer (COO) in the coming few months once PCORI has identified a new full-time COO to support its growing administrative, programmatic, and research funding activities.

Beal's appointment to the newly created COE position reflects an ongoing commitment to the key role the healthcare stakeholder community plays in PCORI's efforts to generate and disseminate high-quality patient-centered comparative effectiveness research with the potential to improve practice.

"Anne has been a highly valued member of our executive team since joining us in October 2011 and a great partner in helping to build PCORI from the ground up," said PCORI Executive Director Joe Selby, MD, MPH. "Her new, enhanced and full-time focus on our engagement efforts will assure that the voices of patients, caregivers, researchers, clinicians and other stakeholders guide our growing portfolio of rigorous research. Bringing on a new full-time COO, meanwhile, will assure that our operational needs continue to be managed at the highest levels of professionalism and efficiency."

Building on the success of PCORI's multiple engagement initiatives to date, Beal will oversee efforts to further develop the robust patient-centered research community essential to the institute's work. PCORI's engagement focus is based on the belief that, if "end users" are actively and meaningfully involved in the process of developing and producing healthcare research, the results are likely to be more patient-centered, trustworthy, and used to make a difference in the real world.

"Effective patient and stakeholder engagement is critical to PCORI's success," Beal said. "I look forward to working with all stakeholders across the healthcare community to help PCORI conduct research that is meaningful to patients and those who care for them and help to see the results widely disseminated and implemented."

As COO, Beal has been responsible for ensuring that PCORI developed the structure and capacity needed to carry out its mission. She oversaw recruitment and development of a talented, diverse staff of professionals charged with implementing PCORI's research agenda, built new relationships with patients, caregivers, policymakers and other stakeholder groups, provided oversight of PCORI's funding application review process, and steered the effort to bring broad public perspective and feedback into many of PCORI's activities.

A pediatrician and public health specialist, Beal has devoted her career to providing access to high-quality health care. She joined PCORI after serving as president of the Aetna Foundation, the independent charitable and philanthropic arm of Aetna Inc. There, she led the Foundation's grant-making work to improve health care in the United States, particularly for vulnerable patient groups.

Prior to her work at the Aetna Foundation, Beal was assistant vice president for the Program on Health Care Disparities at The Commonwealth Fund, a private foundation that aims to promote a high-performing health care system that achieves better access, improved quality, and greater efficiency, particularly for society's most vulnerable.

Beal holds a BA from Brown University, an MD from Cornell University Medical College, and an MPH from the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health.

SOURCE Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute