Peter Basch, MD, is the medical director of Ambulatory Electronic Health Records (EHR) and Health Information Technology (IT) Policy at MedStar Health. He also is a certified internal medicine provider at MedStar Health and MedStar Washington Hospital Center. As a clinician, Dr. Basch believes in the importance of prevention, screening, nutrition, exercise, and sleep. As an expert in health IT, he is passionate about projects in which the effective use of IT advances the quality, safety and value of patient care.
In his capacity as medical director of Ambulatory EHR and Health IT Policy, Dr. Basch is responsible for managing the advanced protocol editor and point-of-care clinical decision support capabilities of MedStar’s EHR system. He also serves on the Clinical Informatics Leadership Council for MedStar Health.
Dr. Basch has been named by Becker’s Health IT and CIO Magazine as one of the “Smartest People in Health IT,” has been awarded the Physician IT Leadership award by the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society and served as a health IT advisor to President Obama’s transition team. Dr. Basch has received recognition for his clinical practice by the American Diabetes Association and the National Committee for Quality Assurance.
His research has been published in the New England Journal of Medicine, Annals of Internal Medicine, and Trustee: the Journal for Hospital Governing Boards. He regularly presents his work at meetings of professional societies and foundations, on topics ranging from “Integration of Health IT to Support High Value Care” and “Optimizing EHR-Enabled Care” to “Improving Blood Pressure Control.”
Dr. Basch is a fellow of the American College of Physicians (ACP). In addition to serving on many EHR-related task forces, he serves as chair of the ACP’s Medical Informatics Committee, as a visiting scholar at the Engelberg Center for Health Care Reform at the Brookings Institution, and as a senior fellow in Health IT Policy, Center for American Progress. Dr. Basch also maintains memberships in the Association of Medical Directors of Information Systems, Medical Society of the District of Columbia and Physicians for Human Rights.
His medical degree is from the George Washington University School of Medicine, where he also completed an internship and residency in primary care/internal medicine.
Research Interests
Dr. Basch’s research interests include
Use of electronic medical records to advance health cost savings, clinical informatics, health information, technology preventive medicineSelected Research
Reducing administrative costs and improving the healthcare system
Dr. Basch and colleagues have published their research on reducing the administrative costs of healthcare (New England Journal of Medicine 2012;367:1875-1878. doi: 10.1056/NEJMp1209711).
Dr. Basch is currently collaborating with Dr. Vanita Aroda on two large multi-center federally sponsored trials:
Glycemia Reduction Approaches in Diabetes: A Comparative Effectiveness Study (GRADE)
Dr. Basch is a collaborating investigator on the GRADE project, the first comprehensive, long-term comparative effectiveness study of the major pharmacologic treatments for type 2 diabetes. This project is also intended to further advance understanding of how to individualize diabetes therapy.
Vitamin D and Type 2 Diabetes (D2d)
Dr. Basch also is collaborating on the D2d study, which is the first to directly examine whether vitamin D will help prevent development of type 2 diabetes in people with prediabetes and whether gender, age or race affect the potential of vitamin D to reduce diabetes risk.
Research Areas
- Biostatistics/BioinformaticsHealth Services/Quality/OutcomesOther Medical