Neil R. Powe

Neil R. Powe, M.D., M.P.H., M.B.A., serves as Chief Science Officer, advising the Commonwealth Fund on its analytic and research activities. A core member of the Fund’s grant proposal review committee, he works with program leaders on methodological strategies while also contributing to the foundation’s efforts to ensure equitable health care outcomes. Powe is Chief of Medicine at San Francisco General Hospital and the Constance B. Wofsy Distinguished Professor and Vice Chair of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. For San Francisco’s flagship public hospital, Powe oversees 14 divisions, more than 700 employees engaged in clinical practice, medical education, and research, and a budget of $180 million. His work combines medicine and public health, with the goal of saving and improving quality of human lives. Powe’s landmark investigations in outcomes research, the effect of payment policies, and value-based care have been published in leading medical journals such as the New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA, and the Annals of Internal Medicine and have influenced clinical practice and health care policy. He was also the founding director of the Johns Hopkins Evidence Based Practice Center. Powe earned his undergraduate degree from Princeton University, his medical degree from Harvard Medical School, and his M.P.H. from the Harvard School of Public Health. He completed his medical residency at the University of Pennsylvania, where he also earned an M.B.A.