Asaf Bitton
Asaf Bitton, M.D., M.P.H., is the executive director of Ariadne Labs, a health systems innovation center at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. He is an Associate Professor of Medicine and Health Care Policy at both Harvard Medical School and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
A globally-recognized leader in health systems innovation, he leads Ariadne Labs’ efforts to design, test, and spread scalable systems-level solutions that improve health care processes, enhance purposeful interactions between patients and their providers, and impact populations at scale.
As a practicing primary care physician and expert in primary health care policy, financing, and delivery, he has served as a senior advisor for primary care policy at the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation since 2012. He has helped design and test three major comprehensive primary care payment and delivery initiatives, representing the largest tests of combined primary care payment and clinical practice transformation work in the United States. He currently serves on the Center for Strategic and International Studies Bipartisan Commission on Strengthening America’s Health Security, the National Advisory Council for Healthcare Research at the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality in the U.S., and is an elected member of the International Academy of Quality and Safety.
He previously served as director of Ariadne Labs’ Primary Health Care Program, leading primary care measurement and improvement initiatives in Central America, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Eastern Europe along with previous work at the Harvard Medical School Center for Primary Care directing regional primary care practice learning collaboratives in Massachusetts. He is a core founder and steering committee member of the Primary Health Care Performance Initiative, a partnership that includes more than 20 countries and the World Bank, the World Health Organization, UNICEF, The Global Fund, and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation dedicated to improving the global provision of primary health care. Dr. Bitton practices primary care at Brigham and Women’s South Huntington clinic, a team-based community primary care practice in Boston that he helped found in 2011.

Committee announcement builds on momentum of recent Primary Health Care International Conference Ariadne Labs Executive Director Asaf Bitton, MD, MPH, has recently been appointed to the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) Standing Committee on Primary Care. This newly established committee comprises experts in primary care delivery, research, and policy who will help… Continue reading Asaf Bitton Named to National Academies Standing Committee on Primary Care

A publication from leading experts in U.S. primary care issues a dire warning: primary care is in crisis. The paper, published in NEJM Catalyst and co-authored by Ariadne Labs Executive Director Asaf Bitton, MD, MPH, shares findings from the largest national survey of primary care clinicians conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings highlight the… Continue reading Primary Care in Need of Emergency Action

In the first of a series of events to mark Ariadne Labs’ ten-year anniversary, Asaf Bitton, MD, MPH, the labs’ Executive Director, led a discussion on April 5, 2023, about the future of public health and health care with Michelle A. Williams, SM, ScD, Dean of the Faculty of Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public… Continue reading The Future of Public Health and Health Care
Why has life expectancy declined in the United States – one of richest countries in the world? Ariadne Labs Executive Director Asaf Bitton, MD, MPH, and Michelle Williams, SM, ScD, Dean of the Faculty of Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, sat down with Washington Post reporter Frances Stead Sellers for an April 10th… Continue reading Why are Americans Dying Sooner?

Dr. Asaf Bitton and Dean Michelle Williams join “Explaining America” to discuss the current state of health care in the United States and strategies for improving care.

By Asaf Bitton, MD, MPH; Evan Benjamin, MD, MS, FACP; Margaret Ben-Or, MPH Many K–12 schools in the United States are closing in on the end of their first term of the 2020–2021 school year, a year unlike anything we have experienced in recent history due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Some schools have opened their… Continue reading Good News: In The Debate About School Re-opening, There Are A Few Things Schools Don’t Actually Need To Do

March 13, 2020 (Updated March 17, 2020)Download a printable PDF version of this article here. I know there is some confusion about what to do next in the midst of this unprecedented time of a pandemic, school closures, and widespread social disruption. As a primary care physician and public health leader, I have been asked… Continue reading Social Distancing: This is Not a Snow Day
Drs. Rebecca Weintraub and Asaf Bitton are signatories on the latest report of the CSIS Working Group on Routine Immunizations and Global Health Security.
Dr. Asaf Bitton co-authors a commentary in NEJM Catalyst on a new typology of primary care delivery innovations in the U.S. to spark meaningful discussion among stakeholders and policy makers on their impact, ramifications, and value

Incorporating genetic sequencing into cancer screenings could facilitate early cancer detection.

How Costa Rica became a bright spot for primary health care practices.