Primary Care is Essential and Under Siege
Bitton A, Rouleau K.
NEJM Catalyst Innovations in Care Delivery. 2023. 4(7).
Associate Professor of Medicine
Medicine-Brigham and Women's Hospital
Harvard Medical School
Associate Professor of Health Care Policy
Health Care Policy
Harvard Medical School
Asaf Bitton, M.D., M.P.H., is the executive director of Ariadne Labs, a health systems innovation center at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. He is an Associate Professor of Medicine and Health Care Policy at both Harvard Medical School and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. A globally-recognized leader in health systems innovation, he leads Ariadne Labs’ efforts to design, test, and spread scalable systems-level solutions that improve health care processes, enhance purposeful interactions between patients and their providers, and impact populations at scale.
As a practicing primary care physician and expert in primary health care policy, financing, and delivery, he has served as a senior advisor for primary care policy at the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation since 2012. He has helped design and test three major comprehensive primary care payment and delivery initiatives, representing the largest tests of combined primary care payment and clinical practice transformation work in the United States. He currently serves on the Center for Strategic and International Studies Bipartisan Commission on Strengthening America’s Health Security, the National Advisory Council for Healthcare Research at the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality in the U.S., and is an elected member of the International Academy of Quality and Safety.
He previously served as director of Ariadne Labs’ Primary Health Care Program, leading primary care measurement and improvement initiatives in Central America, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Eastern Europe along with previous work at the Harvard Medical School Center for Primary Care directing regional primary care practice learning collaboratives in Massachusetts. He is a core founder and vice chair of the steering committee for the Primary Health Care Performance Initiative, a partnership that includes more than 20 countries and the World Bank, the World Health Organization, UNICEF, The Global Fund, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and others, dedicated to improving the global provision of primary health care. Dr. Bitton practices primary care at Brigham and Women’s South Huntington clinic, a team-based community primary care practice in Boston that he helped found in 2011.
Elected Member, International Academy of Quality and Safety
International Society for Quality in Health Care
Sandler Scholar in General Medicine
Massachusetts General Hospital
Harvard Medical School Certificate of Excellence in Tutoring
Harvard Medical School
SGIM Annual Quality and Practice Innovation Award for BWH South Huntington
Society of General Internal Medicine
Harvard Medical School Certificate of Excellence in Tutoring
Harvard Medical School
Milton Hamolsky Junior Faculty Award
Society of General Internal Medicine
Innovation Fellow, Harvard Medical School Center for Primary Care
Harvard Medical School Center for Primary Care
Fellow, American College of Physicians
American College of Physicians
CIMIT Young Clinician Research Award
Center for Integration of Medicine and Innovative Technology
Mack Lipkin Sr. Associate Award
Society of General Internal Medicine
James W. Winshall Award for Ambulatory Teaching
Brigham and Women's Hospital
Bitton A, Rouleau K.
NEJM Catalyst Innovations in Care Delivery. 2023. 4(7).
Sullivan E, Etz R, Gonzalez M, Reves S, Deubel J, Stange K, Green L, Bitton A, Griffiths E, Sinsky C, Linzer M.
NEJM Catalyst Innovations in Care Delivery. 2023. 4(6).
Landon B, Weinreb G, Bitton A.
NEJM Catalyst Innovations in Care Delivery. 2022. 3(5):1-15.
Phillips RL, George BC, Holmboe ES, Bazemore AW, Westfall JM, Bitton A.
Acad Med. 2022 05 01. 97(5):643-648. PMID: 35020616
Kim JH, Bell GA, Bitton A, Desai EV, Hirschhorn LR, Makumbi F, Nabiwemba E, Ratcliffe HL, Wabwire-Mangen F, Kibira SPS, Schwarz D.
BMC Health Serv Res. 2022 Mar 01. 22(1):275. PMID: 35232451
Barnett ML, Bitton A, Souza J, Landon BE.
Ann Intern Med. 2021 12. 174(12):1658-1665. PMID: 34724406
Kim JH, Bell GA, Ratcliffe HL, Moncada L, Lipsitz S, Hirschhorn LR, Bitton A, Schwarz D.
Int J Qual Health Care. 2021 Aug 20. 33(3). PMID: 34318883
Raoof S, Kennedy CJ, Wallach DA, Bitton A, Green RC.
Nat Med. 2021 Jul. 27(7):1139-1142. PMID: 34211183
Pesec M, Spigel L, Granados JMM, Bitton A, Hirschhorn LR, Brizuela JAJ, Pignone M, Sáenz MDR, Schwarz D, Villegas Del Carpio O, Wilson IB, Zamora Méndez E, Ratcliffe HL.
Health Policy Plan. 2021 Jun 03. 36(5):740-753. PMID: 33848340
Panda N, Sinyard RD, Henrich N, Cauley CE, Hannenberg AA, Sonnay Y, Bitton A, Brindle M, Molina G.
J Patient Saf. 2021 06 01. 17(4):256-263. PMID: 33797460
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Harvard Chan School's Asaf Bitton offered advice on choosing a COVID-19 vaccine booster.