Helen Burstin 

Helen Burstin, MD, MPH is the senior vice president for performance measures at the National Quality Forum (NQF), a nonprofit membership organization created to develop and implement a national strategy for health care quality measurement and reporting. Dr. Burstin joined NQF in January 2007 and is responsible for the NQF consensus development process and projects related to performance measures and practices.

Prior to joining NQF, Dr. Burstin was the Director of the Center for Primary Care, Prevention, and Clinical Partnerships at the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). In her role, she oversaw the development of the Health Information Technology (IT) portfolio which invested over $166 million on research at the intersection of health IT and quality of care. Her center also supported the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force and an extensive body of research on primary care and prevention. Prior to joining AHRQ in 2000, Dr. Burstin was an Assistant Professor at Harvard Medical School and the Director of Quality Measurement at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. In her role, she developed a hospital-wide electronic Quality Measurement Reporting System. She also served as the Chair of the Medical Staff Executive Committee on Quality Assurance and Risk Management.

Dr. Burstin is a graduate of the State University of New York at Upstate College of Medicine and the Harvard School of Public Health. She spent a year in Washington, DC as National President of the American Medical Student Association. Dr. Burstin completed a residency in primary care internal medicine at Boston City Hospital. After residency, she completed fellowship training in General Internal Medicine and Health Services Research at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School. Dr. Burstin is the author of over 70 articles and book chapters on patient safety, quality, and disparities. She previously served as a deputy editor of the Journal of General Internal Medicine. She serves on the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation National Advisory Committees for “Prescription for Health: Promoting Healthy Behaviors in Primary Care Practice” and “Project HealthDesign: Rethinking the Power and Potential of Personal Health Records.” She is a member of the Board of Directors of the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA). A board certified general internist, Dr. Burstin is Vice-President of the Board of Directors of La Clínica del Pueblo, a federally qualified Latino health center in Washington, DC, where she is a volunteer physician.