Investigator, Other (M) General Internal Medicine, Mass General Research Institute

consumer participation; consumer satisfaction; information services; patient participation; patient satisfaction; patient-centered care; physicians, primary care; professional-patient relations; quality assurance, health care; quality of health care; vulnerable populations

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

A constant advocate of understanding the patient's perspective on healthcare, Susan has been the co-principal investigator on the Harvard Consumer Assessment of Health Plans Study (CAHPS) study from 1995 to the present and she 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, The CAHPS Improvement Guide, and has authored many papers and other publications on patient-centered care.

She is a co-author of the Institute of Medicine 2006 report, The Future of Drug Safety: Promoting and Protecting the Health of the Public. Ms. Edgman-Levitan serves on several boards and national advisory committees, including the Foundation for Informed Medical Decision Making, the National Patient Safety Foundation, the National Health Services Corps Advisory Council, the Patient-Centered Primary Care Collaborative, and is a member of the Lucian Leape Institute.

Ms. Edgman-Levitan is a graduate of the University of Michigan and the Duke University Physician Assistant program where she received the Distinguished Alumni award from the Duke Physician Assistant Program and was inducted into the Duke University Medical Center Hall of Fame in 2004