James J. Mongan

James J. Mongan, M.D., who passed away May 3, 2011, chaired the Commission on a High Performance Health System. He was a professor of health care policy and social medicine at Harvard Medical School. He served as president and CEO of Partners HealthCare from 2003–2009. From 1996–2002, Dr. Mongan served as president of Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), the largest and oldest teaching affiliate of Harvard Medical School. Before his tenure at MGH, he was, for 15 years, executive director of the Truman Medical Center in Kansas City and dean of the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Medicine. Prior to that, he spent 11 years in Washington, DC. He served as a staff member of the Senate Committee on Finance for seven years, working on Medicare and Medicaid legislation, and he served in the Carter administration as deputy assistant secretary for health and then at the White House as associate director of the domestic policy staff. Dr. Mongan is a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences. He has served on the board of trustees of the American Hospital Association and the Kaiser Family Foundation, and was a member of the Prospective Payment Assessment Commission established by Congress. A native of San Francisco, Dr. Mongan received his undergraduate education at the University of California, Berkeley and Stanford University, and his medical degree from Stanford University Medical School. He completed his internship at Kaiser Foundation Hospital in San Francisco and served two years in the public health service.