Harkness Project Title: The Impact of Incentives for U.S. Physicians on Quality and Other Measures of Organizational Performance

Mentor: David Blumenthal, M.D., and Donald Berwick, M.D.

Placement: Harvard School of Public Health and Institute for Healthcare Improvement

Biography at time of Harkness Fellowship: James Mountford, B.M., B.Ch., a 2005-06 Commonwealth Fund Harkness Fellow in Health Care Policy, is a qualified doctor and project manager at McKinsey and Company, London. After obtaining a degree in physiological sciences at Lincoln College, Oxford, Mountford completed his bachelor of medicine and bachelor of surgery in 1998 at Oxford's Clinical School. He went on to be a house officer in general medicine in Oxford, and in general surgery/orthopaedics in Winchester. More recently, he held positions of senior house officer: accident and emergency at the Royal London Hospital (1999–2000) and senior house officer: cardiothoracic and general surgery at St. George's Hospital, London (2000–2001). In his position at McKinsey, he has worked in organizational design and performance management in a wide variety of industries but is mainly focused on the health care sector, including work with both health care providers and in medical devices/pharmaceuticals. His most recent work has focused on the design and impact of system reform to the U.K.'s NHS, and on strategy for U.K. hospital trusts. He is particularly interested in how behavioral change can be driven at the front-line in public-sector health care.

Career Activity Since Fellowship

• Director of Quality, UCL Partners, 2010.
• Improvement Fellow, NHS Institute for Innovation & Improvement

E-mail: james.mountford@uclpartners.com

Harkness-Related Publications

Mountford J, Davie C. “Toward an Outcomes-Based Health Care System: A View From the United Kingdom,” JAMA. 2010; 304(21):2407-2408.

Mountford J, Webb, C. “When Clinicians Lead: Health Care Systems that are Serious About Transforming Themselves Must Harness the Energies of Their Clinicians as Organizational Leaders.” The McKinsey Quarterly, February 2009.

“A Three-Part Approach to Patient Safety.” Healthcare Executive, September/October 2008; 23(5): 70-72,74. Column by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, Maureen Bisognano, chief operating officer, with contributions by Tom Nolan, Lindsay Martin, James Mountford, Chuck Neumann, and Dan Schummers.

Campbell, E.G., Gruen, R.L., Mountford, J., Miller, L.G., Clearly, P.D., Blumenthal, D., "A National Survey of Physician–Industry Relationships," New England Journal of Medicine 2007; 356: 1742–1750.