As Chief Quality Officer and Executive Director of the BHCS Institute for Health Care Research and Improvement, as well as president of the STEEEP Global Institute, Dr. Ballard is responsible for designing, implementing, and evaluating clinical quality improvement initiatives across BHCS which has received many awards for its health care improvement accomplishments under David’s leadership, including the 2007 Leapfrog Patient-Centered Care Award, the 2008 National Quality Healthcare Award of the National Quality Forum and the 2010 Medical Group Preeminence Award of the American Medical Group Association.
Prior to joining BHCS in 1999, David held progressive academic appointments as Assistant and then Associate Professor at the Mayo Medical School, as Associate Professor with tenure at the University of Virginia School of Medicine and as Professor of Medicine with tenure in the Emory University School of Medicine and Professor of Epidemiology in The Rollins School of Public Health of Emory University. David’s leadership roles have included service as founding Head of the Mayo Section of Health Services Evaluation and as Senior Associate Consultant and then Consultant in the Department of Health Science Research (1986-91), founding President, Kerr L. White Institute for Health Services Research (1991-9), President (2001-3) of the International Society for Quality in Health Care and Chair of AHRQ’s Health Care Quality and Effectiveness Research study section (2006 -10). He is Chair-Elect of AHRQ’s Centers for Education and Research on Therapeutics Steering Committee for 2011 and 2012, and full Chair for 2013 and 2014.
He serves on several editorial boards, including Health Services Research, the newly launched Journal of Comparative Effectiveness Research and the Mayo Clinic Proceedings (for which he serves as Health Policy Section Editor). He has published 150+ PubMed listed manuscripts and is a 1995 recipient of the AcademyHealth New Investigator Award, given annually to the outstanding health services research scholar in the United States less than 40 years of age. He is a member of the UNC School of Public Health Foundation Board and the Board of Trustees of The Lawrenceville School and past member of the Board of Trustees of the Texas Hospital Association. David received in 2008 the Distinguished Service Award of the UNC School of Medicine.
A native of Lexington, Kentucky, David graduated with Academic Distinction from The Lawrenceville School where he was selected as its outstanding senior by the faculty (Brainard Award) and by his classmates (Yale Aurelian Award) and was chosen by the National Football Foundation’s Delaware Valley Chapter as its outstanding Scholar-Athlete. A board-certified internist, he trained at the Mayo Graduate School of Medicine following completion of degrees in chemistry, economics, epidemiology and medicine at the University of North Carolina where he was a Morehead Scholar, North Carolina Fellow and junior year Phi Beta Kappa inductee.
Publications on PubMed