Russ Phillips, MD
Russell S. Phillips is the Founding Director of the Harvard Medical School (HMS) Center for Primary Care and the William Applebaum Professor of Medicine and Professor of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School. Phillips is a general internist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, where he provides primary care in Healthcare Associates, a large interprofessional teaching practice.
He is a leader in innovation in practice and payment evaluation in primary care, implementing new care models for patients with chronic illness and, using micro-simulation, evaluating the revenues available to support innovations in care and the level of patient coverage required for global payment to lead to changes in practice that enhance value. Phillips and his colleagues evaluated the effect of increased primary care payment in Rhode Island on total medical costs and quality. He is a coauthor on studies that evaluated the relation between the availability of primary care physicians at the county level and life expectancy, and the effect of increasing the number of primary care physicians in shortage areas on life expectancy in those areas. These studies demonstrated that primary care access increases life expectancy but, in areas with fewer primary care physicians, contributes to the reduction in life expectancy. These studies were cited by the NASEM report on primary care which redefined primary care as a “common good” which should be available to all persons.
He has served on a Massachusetts Health Quality Partners Advisory Group on the future of primary care and nationally, is a member of the Primary Care Centers Round Table, representing the HMS Center for Primary. In Massachusetts and nationally, he is an advocate for improved access to primary care, and primary care innovation supported by increased payments to primary care in the context of a hybrid payment system that includes both global payments and fee-for-service payments for primary care. Current grants include and AHRQ grant that is supporting an analysis of the impact of state-mandated investments in primary care and a grant awarded by the California Health Foundation and the Commonwealth Fund to collect both primary and secondary data that can be used to assist organizations in their investment decisions as they consider investing in advanced services within primary care.
Phillips is a member of the Initiative to Integrate Oral Health Care and Medicine, and a co-leader of the Center for the Integration of Primary Care and Oral Health (CIPCOH), an effort led by the Harvard School of Dental Medicine, UMass Medical School, and the Center for Primary Care at HMS. He also served on a Primary Care Collaborative Advisory Committee on Oral Health Integration.
In Phillips' prior work at BIDMC, which included serving as Chief of the Division of General Medicine and Primary Care for a decade, he led a task force to improve transitions in care, a working group to develop new sustainable practice models for primary care, and a task force to develop strategies for care management for high-risk patients. At the state level, he served on the Massachusetts Coordinating Council on the Patient-Centered Medical Home. Phillips has championed palliative care services in primary care, wellness programs, and innovations to improve the quality of life for patients with chronic illness.
A graduate of Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Stanford University School of Medicine, Phillips has held leadership roles in the Society of General Internal Medicine (SGIM) and the Association of Chiefs and Leaders in General Medicine(ACLGIM), serving as Chairperson of the SGIM Research Committee, as President of ACLGIM, and has served on the leadership council of SGIM.
With more than 300 publications and an H-index of 122 (meaning that 122 of his publications have more than 122 citations), his publications have resulted in nearly 50,000 citations in the published literature. Phillips' research has spanned disparities in care, screening for infection in office practice, patient safety, end-of-life care, and interventions to improve care for patients with chronic disease and innovations in primary care. He is the recipient of the two prestigious awards for mentorship at HMS; the Barger Award and the William Silen Lifetime Achievement in Mentoring Award. He led the Harvard General Medicine Fellowship Program for nearly 15 years, and was Founding Director of the Harvard Research Fellowship Program in Integrative Medical Therapies which he led for 12 years. He held a Mid-Career Mentorship Award (K24) from the NIH to support his mentoring activities. Phillips has mentored more than 50 trainees, most of whom have gone on to successful careers as investigators and leaders in general medicine and in family medicine. His research has received support from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Hartford Foundation, the Macy Foundation, the Commonwealth Fund and the California Health Care Foundation.
In his role as HMS Center for Primary Care Director, he has authored more than 50 research studies, reviews, perspectives, and chapters with a focus on the use of learning collaboratives to transform primary care, the value of primary care, and the impact of changes in primary care practice and payment on the finances of primary care practice. For his work leading primary care at HMS, he has been recognized by the Barbara McNeil Faculty Award for Exceptional Service to Harvard Medical School.