Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) is wrangling with new CMS Administrator Donald Berwick, MD, over obtaining a list of donors providing funding to Dr. Berwick's former employer, the not-for-profit Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) in Cambridge, Mass. Grassley says he was promised the information but Berwick never delivered.
"The reason for seeking key donor information by correspondence is Dr. Berwick was recess-appointed without even a committee hearing, which would have looked at his organization's funding and identified possible conflicts of interest in his control of the nation's health care programs," Grassley says.
Berwick responded to Grassley (pdf) with a letter on Aug. 26 stating he has no financial interest in IHI, its donors or clients. He referred to his Public Financial Disclosure Report with the Office of Government Ethics for a list of his financial history and work with donors.
Part B News obtained the report, referred to as a SF-278, and a letter from Berwick to an HHS ethics official. In the letter Berwick promised that upon confirmation to the administrator post, he would divest his interests in a handful of companies (which mostly appear to be green energy companies such as Evergreen Solar and Gamesa Corp.), resign from his president/CEO job at IHI and leave various positions with the following groups:
- Bevan Commission, National Health Service (NHS) Wales (he was a member of the commission)
- Brown Medical School (member of corporation board)
- Children's Hospital Medical Center, Boston (courtesy staff in pediatrics)
- Department of Social Medicine and Social Inequities, Brigham and Women's Hospital (senior scientist)
- Harvard University (course director)
- Harvard Medical School (clinical professor of pediatrics and health care policy)
- Harvard School of Public Health (professor of health policy and management)
- Massachusetts General Hospital (consultant in pediatrics)
- Physicians for Human Rights (member of the board)
- The Leape Foundation for Patient Rights (trustee)
He's held other positions in the past, such as a board member position with Tufts Health Plan Foundation in Cambridge, Mass., and a stint on an advisory board with The Commonwealth Fund in New York, which he left in April 2010.
As for donor information to IHI, the SF-278 shows IHI received payments in excess of $5,000 from 17 organizations (such as NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement, London; Kaiser Permanente, Oakland, Calif.; Jonkoping County Council, Sweden; and Bellin Health, Green Bay, Wis.) for consulting work and lectures involving Berwick.
IHI's website doesn't list the tax forms detailing the donor information that Grassley seeks. But like most charitable organizations, IHI lists donors on its website. For example, the BlueCross BlueShield Association contributed at least $5 million during IHI's 5 Million Lives Campaign to "protect patients from five million incidents of medical harm." The Cardinal Health Foundation also donated between $1 million and $5 million. Aetna and Blue Shield of California Foundation contributed between $250,000 to $499,999, each.