Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation seeks to improve the health and healthcare of all Americans. To achieve the most impact, RWJF prioritizes grants into four goal areas:

• To assure that all Americans have access to quality health care at reasonable cost.
  
  More than 40 million Americans, nearly 10 million of them children, go without health insurance. This is the single greatest barrier to obtaining timely, appropriate health care services.
• To improve the quality of care and support for people with chronic health conditions.
  
  One hundred million Americans suffer from chronic health conditions, and that number is almost certain to increase as the population ages.
• To promote healthy communities and lifestyles. Health behaviors, level of social interaction, and other factors outside medical care are important influences on overall health.
• To reduce the personal, social and economic harm caused by substance abuse — tobacco, alcohol, and illicit drugs.

To accomplish these goals, RWJF uses a variety of strategies. RWJF supports training, education, research (excluding biomedical research), and projects that demonstrate the effective delivery of health care services. Rather than paying for individual care, RWJF concentrates on health care systems and the conditions that promote better health.

Additional information on RWJF's programs and grantmaking priorities is available online at: www.rwjf.org

Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, MD, MBA
Senior Vice President the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

Dr. Risa Lavizzo-Mourey is the Senior Vice President and Director, Health Care Group at The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Prior to coming to the Foundation, Dr. Lavizzo-Mourey was at the University of Pennsylvania where she was the Director of the Institute on Aging, Chief of the Division of Geriatric Medicine, the Sylvan Eisman Professor of Medicine and Health Care Systems, and Associate Chief of Staff for Geriatrics and Extended Care for the Philadelphia Veterans Administration Medical Center. Dr. Lavizzo-Mourey was the Deputy Administrator of the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research now known as the Agency for Health Care Research and Quality within the Department of Health and Human Services. While in government service, Dr. Lavizzo-Mourey was a member of the White House Health Care Policy team, including the White House Task Force on Health Care Reform where she co-chaired the working group on Quality of Care and consulted to the White House on issues of health policy.

Dr. Lavizzo-Mourey is a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Science, and has served on numerous federal advisory committees including the Task Force on Aging Research, the Office of Technology Assessment Panel on Preventive Services for Medicare Beneficiaries, the Institute of Medicine's Panel on Disease and Disability Prevention Among Older Adults, and the National Committee for Vital and Health Statistics where she chaired the Subcommittee on Minority Populations. In March 1998, she completed service on the President's Advisory Commission on Consumer Protection and Quality in the Health Care Industry. She is currently co-chairing a congressionally requested Institute of Medicine study on racial disparities in health care.

Dr. Lavizzo-Mourey is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians-American Society of Internal Medicine. Her professional memberships also include the American Geriatrics Society, the Association of Academic Minority Physicians, the National Medical Association, the Academy for Health Services Research and Health Policy, and the Gerontological Society of America.

Dr. Lavizzo-Mourey earned her medical degree at Harvard Medical School followed by a Masters in Business Administration at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School. After completing a residency in Internal Medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, Dr. Lavizzo-Mourey was a Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar at the University of Pennsylvania where she also received her Geriatrics training.