Donald Berwick, M.D., president and CEO at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, will be nominated as administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, according to numerous published reports over the weekend. Charlene Frizzera, COO of CMS and acting administrator since January 2009, will remain COO once Berwick becomes administrator, according to a spokesperson.

Based in Cambridge, Mass., the Institute for Healthcare Improvement is an independent, not-for-profit organization that brings together stakeholders to share lessons, and identify gaps in quality and best practices. Berwick also serves as a clinical professor of pediatrics and health care policy at Harvard Medical School, and a professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management at Harvard School of Public Health. He also is a member of the Institute of Medicine.

His selection is likely to intensify efforts at CMS to move towards systems emphasizing -- and rewarding -- the use of evidence-based medicine and demonstrated quality outcomes.

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