Two New Members Join PCORI Board of Governors

Washington, DC — The Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) this week welcomes two new Board of Governors members. The U.S. Comptroller General, who is responsible for appointing Board members, named Russell Howerton, MD, Chief Medical Officer and Vice President of Clinical Operations at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center, and Kathleen Troeger, MPH, Director of Outcomes Research at Hologic, Inc., a global healthcare and diagnostics company.

Howerton and Troeger join a board whose 21 members represent a wide range of health and healthcare stakeholders, including patients and other healthcare consumers, per PCORI’s authorizing legislation. The Comptroller General selected them to fill seats being vacated by Steven Lipstein, MHA, of BJC HealthCare and Harlan Weisman, MD, SM, of And-One Consulting LLS. 

“We're delighted to have Ms. Troeger and Dr. Howerton join PCORI's Board and our efforts to advance patient-centered comparative clinical effectiveness research," said PCORI Executive Director Joe Selby, MD, MPH. "They represent important constituencies and will bring fresh perspectives to our initiatives and we look forward to learning from their insights and benefiting from their expertise." 

"As we welcome our newest fellow members, we also extend our gratitude to Harlan and Steve for all the time, energy, and wisdom they have invested in helping to oversee PCORI as it grew from concept to achieving its full potential," said Board Chair Grayson Norquist, MD, MSPH, Vice-Chair of the Emory University Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, and Chief of Psychiatry Service at Grady Health System in Atlanta.

Howerton oversees all four hospitals of Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center, headquartered in Winston-Salem, N.C., as well as its ambulatory clinics and group practices. He is also responsible for the center’s ambulatory dialysis network and rehabilitation services. He is particularly interested in quality of care and moving from “volume to value” in clinical services, including improvements in the care and experience for patients with complex chronic conditions and co-morbidities. Howerton has served in many leadership roles, including as chair of the Chief Medical Officers Group of the Association of American Medical Colleges. 

At Hologic, Inc., of Marlborough, Mass., Troeger provides strategic direction for research to demonstrate the value of diagnostic and surgical products to patients, providers, and policy makers. Her areas of focus include in vitro diagnostics, molecular diagnostics, cytopathology, preventive and diagnostic imaging, endocrinology, and reproductive health. She has served on several working groups of the Advanced Medical Technology Association, including the Diagnostic Value Framework Task Force. Troeger previously held positions at Organon Pharmaceuticals and Pfizer/Parke-Davis Women’s Health Care.

In addition, the Comptroller General named Norquist to a second three-year term as Board Chair and reappointed four other Board members to second six-year terms through September 2022: 

• Christine Goertz, DC, PhD, Vice Chancellor for Research and Health Policy at Palmer College of Chiropractic and the Palmer Center for Chiropractic Research in Davenport, Iowa
• Sharon Levine, MD, Associate Executive Director for the Permanente Medical Group of Northern California
• Ellen Sigal, PhD, Chairperson and founder of Friends of Cancer Research, a cancer research think tank and advocacy organization in Washington, D.C.
• Robert Zwolak, MD, PhD, a vascular surgeon at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, New Hampshire