Ben Scirica, M.D., MPH

Chief Medical Officer, Accelerator for Clinical Transformation, Mass General Brigham; Associate Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School; Associate Physician, Brigham and Women’s Hospital; Senior Investigator, TIMI Study Group, Brigham and Women’s Hospital

Dr. Benjamin Scirica is a cardiologist and clinical researcher at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He is Director of Innovation in the division of Cardiovascular Medicine, a Senior Investigator at the TIMI Study Group, and an Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. His clinical focus is on the identification and application of novel therapeutic strategies across the spectrum of cardiometabolic diseases and testing the optimal methods to implement guideline-directed care.

Christopher Cannon, M.D.

Education Director, Accelerator for Clinical Transformation, Mass General Brigham; Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School; Senior Physician, Brigham and Women’s Hospital

Dr. Cannon is a Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, and senior physician in the Preventive Cardiology section of the Cardiovascular Division at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He serves as Education Director in the Cardiovascular Innovation group and has recently joined the remote faculty at the CPC Clinical Research Institute. Previously, he was an investigator in the TIMI Study Group. He has been principal investigator of more than 20 multicenter clinical trials, including TACTICS-TIMI 18, PROVE IT, IMPROVE IT, RE-DUAL PCI and VERTIS CV trials.  He has published over 1000 original articles, reviews, or book chapters in the field of acute coronary syndromes and prevention and has authored or edited 20 books. In his role at Cardiovascular Innovation, he is helping implement quality improvement programs using telemedicine for lipids, hypertension and diabetes.

Naomi Fisher, M.D.

Director of Hypertension, Remote CV Health; Director, Hypertension Specialty Clinic; Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Hypertension; Associate Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School

Dr. Naomi Fisher directs our hypertension program. She is an endocrinologist widely recognized for her work dedicated to innovative ways to evaluate and treat high blood pressure. Dr. Fisher directs the Hypertension Specialty Clinic at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and also has a longstanding clinical research career at Harvard University. She is national co-PI in a study of renal denervation to treat hypertension. Her bibliography includes original scientific reports in high impact medical journals, as well as standards of care, clinical guidelines, reviews and online resources. She is a veteran teacher, directing and lecturing in several medical education courses.

Jorge Plutzky, M.D.

Director, Preventative Cardiology, Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital

Jorge Plutzky, M.D., is the Director of Preventive Cardiology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) and a widely recognized authority on preventive cardiology. He directs the BWH Lipid/Prevention Clinic — a high volume referral center for patients with complex lipid, cholesterol and atherosclerotic disorders. Dr. Plutzky is actively involved in translational research projects that integrate closely with his NIH-funded basic science laboratory.

Dr. Plutzky, the current chair of the American Heart Association’s Diabetes Committee, received his B.A. With Highest Distinction (Echol’s Scholar) from the University of Virginia and his M.D. from the University of North Carolina. He completed medical residency and cardiology fellowship at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and research fellowships at NIH and MIT.

Alexander Blood, M.D., M.Sc

Associate Director, Accelerator for Clinical Transformation, Mass General Brigham; Instructor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School; Associate Physician, Brigham and Women’s Hospital; Senior Clinical Investigator, Data Science Office, Mass General Brigham; Director of the Cardiac Intensive Care Unit, Newton Wellesley Hospital, Associate Director of Cardiovascular Inpatient Services, Newton Wellesley Hospital

Dr. Alexander J. “AJ” Blood is a cardiologist as well as a critical care physician and clinical researcher at Brigham and Women’s Hospital where he is the Director of Clinical Operations and Innovation and a Senior Clinical Investigator at the Mass General Brigham Data Science Office.

AJ is an Instructor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. He leads clinical care transformation efforts in remote healthcare delivery. He designs, conducts, and publishes implementation science studies across the cardiometabolic spectrum across the Mass General Brigham healthcare system. Through his work at the Data Science Office, AJ conducts studies in the development, validation, and approval of artificial intelligence and machine learning models from conceptualization through regulatory approval.

Akshay S. Desai, M.D., M.P.H.

Director, Cardiomyopathy and Heart Failure, Center for Advanced Heart Disease, Cardiovascular Division, Brigham and Women’s Hospital; Associate Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School

Akshay Desai, MD, MPH is a cardiologist and clinical researcher at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, MA. He is currently the Director of the Cardiomyopathy and Heart Failure Program in the Advanced Heart Disease Section of the Division of Cardiovascular Medicine and an Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. He divides his time between clinical care of patients with advanced heart disease (including those requiring cardiac transplantation and mechanical circulatory support) and clinical research focused on the design, implementation, and analysis of cardiovascular clinical trials, emphasizing strategies to enhance ambulatory disease management and optimize medical therapy for patients with heart failure.

Ozan Unlu, M.D.

Clinical Fellow in Cardiovascular Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School; Fellow in Clinical Informatics, Mass General Brigham, Harvard Medical School; Fellow, Accelerator for Clinical Transformation, Mass General Brigham

Dr. Ozan Unlu has completed his internal medicine training and Chief Residency in Quality Improvement and Patient Safety at New York-Presbyterian Hospital, Weill Cornell Medical Center. He is currently a fellow in Cardiovascular Medicine at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, as well as a fellow in Clinical Informatics at Mass General Brigham. He is also concurrently pursuing a Master of Biomedical Informatics at Harvard Medical School. He has an interest in implementation studies and pragmatic clinical trials with a particular focus on validation and application of information science and novel technologies to improve healthcare delivery, reduce costs, and increase efficiency in clinical and research workflows.

Simin Gharib Lee, M.D., M.B.A

Clinical Fellow, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Division of Cardiovascular Medicine

Simin Gharib Lee is a Harvard MD/MBA-trained cardiology fellow at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital with research interests in behavior change and healthcare delivery innovation.  To pursue these interests, she has devoted her research fellowship to evaluating the impact of a remote hypertension management program within Mass General Brigham; implementing behavioral science-based interventions to improve patient enrollment in this program; and studying home blood pressure monitoring behavior with a novel cuffless blood pressure monitoring technology.

Lee-Shing Chang, M.D.

Instructor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School; Associate Physician, Brigham and Women’s Hospital

Dr. Lee-Shing Chang is an endocrinologist and clinical researcher at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. His clinical focus is on type 2 diabetes and cardiometabolic disease. His research focuses on evaluating novel therapeutics for diabetes, obesity, and cardiovascular disease, as well as designing and implementing strategies to optimize guideline-directed therapy.

John Ostrominski, M.D.

John W. Ostrominski, MD is a fellow in both cardiovascular disease and obesity medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School. Prior to this, he completed medical training at the University of Texas Joe R. and Teresa Lozano Long School of Medicine (San Antonio, TX) and residency in internal medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hosptial/Harvard Medical School (Boston, MA), where he was also a chief medical resident at the West Roxbury Veterans Affairs Medical Center (West Roxbury, MA). His research focuses on clinical trials, implementation of cardio-renal-metabolic drug therapies, and healthcare innovation, with a specific interest in the intersection between cardiometabolic disease, multimorbidity, and excess adiposity. He additionally serves as an investigator on trials relating to hypertrophic cardiomyopathy and anti-obesity pharmacotherapy.

Tom Gaziano, M.D., M.Sc

Associate Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School; Director of Health Economic Evaluations, Cardiovascular Innovation, Brigham and Women’s Hospital

Thomas A. Gaziano M.D., M.Sc. is an Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School in the Division of Cardiovascular Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH). He is Director of Economic Evaluations within Cardiovascular Innovations at BWH where he evaluates innovative prevention programs in clinical services. He is currently a principal or co-principal investigator on three NIH-funded grants in Argentina and South Africa, the main focus of which are the implementation of effective cardiovascular therapies or policies in low-income settings. His CVD PREDICT model is used to evaluate health outcomes, financial impacts, and the cost-effectiveness of CVD intervention strategies.

Samuel (Sandy) Aronson, A.L.M., M.A.

Sr. Director of IT and AI Solutions, Accelerator for Clinical Transformation; Executive Director of Information Technology and AI Solutions, Personalized Medicine, Mass General Brigham; Associate Director, Research Information Sciences and Computing, Mass General Brigham

Mr. Aronson’s team is focused on using technology to improve clinical processes. We partner with clinical leaders to leverage business process engineering and application development capabilities to fundamentally redesign clinical workflows to reduce cost and improve outcomes. Mr. Aronson was one of the founders of GeneInsight. He also previously held several positions with Sapient Corporation, was a Monitor Company consultant and founded both LearningAction and Stanford Data Solutions.

Mr. Aronson holds a Masters in Organizational Behavior and a Bachelors in Computer Science from Stanford University. He also received a Masters focused in Biology from Harvard Extension School.

Michael Oates

Director of Operations, Accelerator for Clinical Transformation, Mass General Brigham

Mr. Oates joined Mass General Brigham in 2012 and helped commercialize the GeneInsight genetics software suite, with an acquisition by Sunquest (NYSE:ROP). He has over 30 years of technology leadership experience. An early employee (3rd) of Sapient (NASD: SAPE), he served as Vice President of Technology responsible for helping Fortune 500 companies achieve business value through the innovative use of technology. He established core capabilities within Sapient to manage project risk, technology reuse, and dissemination of best practices aimed at fueling rapid company growth. Prior to joining Sapient, Mr. Oates worked at Cambridge Technology Partners (NASD: NOVL) and attended Cornell University.

Fei Wang, M.Sc

Chief Architect, Accelerator for Clinical Transformation

Mr. Wang oversees our engineering team and leads the delivery of software solutions for our clinical and research programs. With over 20 years of experience in enterprise software technologies, he has a passion for designing software that is stable, scalable, and maintainable. Previously, he served as the software architect for the Health Innovation Platform (HIP) team and as a principal developer for the GeneInsight team, which was later acquired by Sunquest Systems in 2016. He has also been the technical lead for the CPOE system at PatientKeeper before joining Mass General Brigham.

Mr. Wang holds a Master’s degree in electrical and computer Engineering from University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and a Bachelor’s degree in Electronics Engineering from Tsinghua University, China.

Marian McPartlin

Manager of Operations, Accelerator for Clinical Transformation, Mass General Brigham

Ms. McPartlin joined Mass General Brigham (MGB) in 2012 focusing on operational efforts, acuity and census in the Department of Medicine, Cardiology Department at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. She has also worked with the National Institute of Health and Department of Defense supporting Countermeasures Against Chemical Threats (CounterACT) U54 Grants. In 2015 she joined a team of cardiologists who focused on creating a novel multi-modality clinical care interface for patients using web-based algorithms and non-licensed patient navigators. Prior to joining MGB, Ms. McPartlin was Director of 401(k) Operations at Fidelity Investments. She received her BA in Public Administration from Stonehill College.

Hunter Nichols, PharmD

Advanced Practice Clinical Pharmacy Specialist, Accelerator for Clinical Transformation, Mass General Brigham/Brigham and Women’s Hospital

Hunter Nichols, PharmD, is an residency-trained, Advanced Practice Clinical Pharmacy Specialist and board-certified pharmacotherapy specialist. On the Accelerator for Clinical Transformation team Hunter practices under a Collaborative Drug Therapy Management (CDTM) agreement which allows him to prescribe medications and order corresponding labs under protocols which have been collaboratively developed with the program physician leadership. Hunter divides his time across multiple cardiometabolic initiatives and is an integrated member of the clinical operations and research teams. His focus is on population health, algorithmic care, and collaborative therapy management of lipids, hypertension, heart failure and anti-obesity medicine. Hunter is also a preceptor for the cardiology pharmacy residency program.