Bio: 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.
Placement: Institute for Healthcare Improvement
Mentors: Donald Berwick, M.D., M.P.P., F.R.C.P.; David Blumenthal, M.D., M.P.P.
Project: Inside the Black Box of Pay-for-Performance: Physician Motivation and Incentivization
Description: James Mountford's project explored frontline physicians' views on the effectiveness of financial incentives, and other motivational and organizational determinants of behavior. He carried out case studies at four U.S. health care systems (Kaiser Permanente, HealthPartners Medical Group, Veteran's Health Administration, and Brigham & Women's Hospital), where he conducted close to twenty interviews with primary care physicians, specialists, and managers.