Dr. Tom Isaac is an internist serving as the Chief Medical Officer Population Health for Optum Health East. He oversees the strategy for quality, safety, affordability, and risk adjustment across Optum East. He is also serving as the interim president of the Optum East Risk bearing entity.
Dr. Isaac joined Atrius Health in 2012 following his position as an academic internist at Beth Israel Hospital. He completed his medical degree at Thomas Jefferson Medical College and his residency and chief residency in internal medicine at Rhode Island Hospital. He also completed his MBA at Widener University, and MPH at Harvard School of Public Health.
Dr. Isaac had previously overseen the Department of Performance Excellence and Population Health at Atrius Health as Chief Quality Officer. He oversaw the strategic leadership of quality, safety, patient experience, medical management, infection control, and implementation research. He also oversaw the central population health personnel, including case managers, social workers, population managers, and clinical pharmacists.
Dr. Isaac originally started at Atrius as a Medical Director of Practice Pattern Variation in the Quality department and gained expertise in discussing unblinded data with clinicians. This dialogue led to more appropriate care and substantial reductions in low-value screening labs ordering, imaging for low back pain, use of stress tests for low-risk chest pain, etc. As a result of these efforts, the Massachusetts Health Policy Commission has consistently rated Atrius as a leader in reducing low value care.
Dr. Isaac’s role steadily grew to include leadership of overall performance on quality measures, including the Next Generation ACO, Medicare Advantage, commercial insurers, and Medicaid. These efforts have required skills in working with multifunctional teams on strategic planning, engaging with service-line leaders, creating guidelines, developing and tracking appropriate metrics, implementing clinical decision supports in the medical record, and messaging to front-line clinicians.
Dr. Isaac has two children, age 14 and 9. He loves spending time on the beach in Maine, and skiing in the winter.
