Bitton Named Executive Director of Ariadne Labs

Ariadne Labs announced that health system innovation leader Asaf Bitton, MD, MPH, a Harvard professor and Brigham primary care physician, has been selected as its new executive director. He succeeds Atul Gawande, MD, MPH, who now assumes the role of chairman of the Ariadne Labs Governance Council.

“Asaf is the ideal next leader for Ariadne Labs. He has a big heart, big ideas and demonstrated capacity for big impact,” said Gawande, who led a national search with Brigham Health President Betsy Nabel, MD, and Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health Dean Michelle Williams, SM, ScD. “Ariadne Labs is an engine of innovation and discovery for health systems change, and we could not be more excited to pass the keys to Asaf.”

A public health expert whose research spans international tobacco control policy and the global burden of chronic disease, to U.S. health care payment reform, Bitton has been the director of the Ariadne Labs Primary Health Care Program since 2014. In that role, he has been a leader of the Primary Health Care Performance Initiative, which the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the World Bank and the World Health Organization launched in 2015 at the United Nations with Ariadne Labs to strengthen primary health care systems worldwide. Bitton also has collaborated with international health leaders to build novel health system innovations in Estonia, China and Ghana, and is a technical leader for a global Joint Learning Network of 10 countries working to strengthen integrated health care service delivery.

Nationally, Bitton has served as a senior advisor to the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation since 2012, developing a national demonstration project to transform care delivery and payment models. Today, it has expanded into Medicare’s largest primary care initiative, known as Comprehensive Primary Care Plus, with 13,000 clinicians in nearly 3,000 practices serving 15 million patients across 18 regions in the U.S.

As a practicing physician at Brigham Health, Bitton helped found South Huntington Advanced Primary Care Associates, an innovative team-based, primary care practice serving patients with complex psychosocial and clinical needs. The practice, which opened in 2010, is a patient-centered medical home and was cited in the Annals of Family Medicine as one of 23 high-performing U.S. practices. Bitton will continue to practice medicine at the South Huntington clinic.

He will take the helm of Ariadne Labs effective May 1. A joint center of Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Ariadne Labs has 110 faculty and staff and a portfolio of public health projects around the world.

Bitton holds a bachelor’s degree in health and society from Brown University, an MD from University of California San Francisco School of Medicine and a master’s degree in public health from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

Paterson Named Interim Senior Director of Patient/Family Relations

Nivetha Paterson, senior consultant in Strategy and Implementation, has been appointed interim senior director of Patient/Family Relations, effective immediately.

Paterson will lead the development and execution of an advocacy strategy, including defining, standardizing and executing best practices for patient advocacy throughout the organization. Reporting to Maddy Pearson, DNP, RN, NEA-BC, chief nursing officer and senior vice president of Patient Care Services, Paterson will work with the Patient/Family Relations team to continue engaging care team members in ensuring that patients’ rights and dignity are respected in health care decision-making. The team will also continue providing a wide range of services to support patients and families and contribute to an optimal experience at the Brigham.
Since coming to the Brigham last year, Paterson has coordinated numerous initiatives and projects in support of the Brigham’s strategic goals. These include the successful hand hygiene improvement initiative, as well as other quality, safety, patient and staff satisfaction and efficiency efforts.

Prior to joining the Brigham, Paterson was the administrative director for Urology, Gynecology and Gastrointestinal units at London’s Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust, the largest and most comprehensive cancer center in Europe. She was accountable for their national waiting targets, ambulatory operations and three inpatient units and led work to improve outpatient access to the three specialties. Before that, she served as the administrative lead for precision medicine at Guy’s and St. Thomas’ Hospital, where she managed the resources and portfolio for research pertaining to biomarkers, co-diagnostics, imaging and devices. She has held several other positions in health care administration, with a focus on research, strategy and operations.

Paterson earned her BSc in medical engineering from Queen Mary University in London and a post-graduate diploma in management studies from the Greenwich School of Management.