Dr. David Nash

David B. Nash is the Founding Dean Emeritus, and he remains on the full-time faculty as the Dr. Raymond C. and Doris N. Grandon Professor of Health Policy, at the Jefferson College of Population Health (JCPH). His 11 year tenure as Dean completes more than 35 years on the University faculty. JCPH is dedicated to developing healthcare leaders for the future.

A board-certified internist, Dr. Nash is internationally recognized for his work in public accountability for outcomes, physician leadership development, and quality-of-care improvement. More recently, he achieved wide acclaim for his Covid19 thought leadership and served as the inaugural Chief Health Advisor for the Philadelphia Convention and Visitor’s Bureau (PHL-CVB) during the pandemic.

Dr. David Nash is a recognized governance expert in both the public and private sectors. He has chaired the Technical Advisory Group (TAG) of the Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council (HC4) for more than 30 years and he is widely recognized as a pioneer in the public reporting of outcomes. Dr. David Nash has been a hospital trustee for 20 years. He served on the Board of Trustees of Catholic Healthcare Partners (now Mercy Partners), in Cincinnati, OH (1998–2008), where he was the inaugural chair of the board committee on Quality and Safety. He concluded his tenure (2009-2017) on the board of Main Line Health, a four-hospital system in suburban Philadelphia, PA, where he also chaired the board committee on Quality and Safety. He now serves on the board of the Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine (GCSOM). Dr. Nash joined the board of CAHME – the Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Management Education in 2021.

In the for-profit sector, Dr. David Nash completed nearly a decade as a member of the Board of Directors for Humana, Inc., one of the nation’s largest publicly traded healthcare companies. In 2014 he joined the board of InfoMC, a leading information technology company in suburban Philadelphia. He is on the health care advisory board for Arsenal Capital Partners in NYC and just completed his tenure on the board of MaxHealth, a portfolio company of Arsenal. Finally, he is a board member of FOX Rehab, a portfolio company of Blue Wolf Capital.

Dr. Nash has received many awards in recognition of his achievements over the past three decades. He received the top recognition award from the Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy (1995), the Philadelphia Business Journal Healthcare Heroes Award (1997), and was named an honorary distinguished fellow of the American College of Physician Executives (now AAPL) in 1998.

In 2006 he received the Elliot Stone Award for leadership in public accountability for health data from NAHDO. Wharton honored Dr. Nash in 2009 with the Wharton Healthcare Alumni Achievement Award and in 2012 with the Joseph Wharton Social Impact Award. Also in 2012, he received the Philadelphia Business Journal award for innovation in medical education. In 2021, he was honored as a top national communicator for his work with the Philadelphia Convention and Visitors Bureau and he received the Champion Award from the regional Health Information Exchange (HIE). In 2023, he received the AAPL Inaugural Lifetime Achievement Award having taught 6,000 members in person.

Dr. Nash’s work is well known through his many publications, public and virtual appearances, and his 17 years as a columnist for MedPage Today. He has authored more than 100 peer-reviewed articles and edited 25 books, including The Healthcare Quality Book, Demand Better, and most recently his best selling book, How Covid Crashed the System: A Guide to Fixing American Healthcare. He was the inaugural Deputy Editor of Annals of Internal Medicine (1984-1989). After 25 years of service, he just stepped down as the Editor-in-
Chief of the American Journal of Medical Quality and Population Health Management.

Dr. David Nash received his BA in economics (Phi Beta Kappa) from Vassar College; his MD from the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry and his MBA in Health Administration (with honors) from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. While at Penn, he was a former Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholar and Medical Director of a nine-physician faculty group practice in general internal medicine. He has received honorary doctorates and awards from Salus University in Philadelphia, GCSOM, the University of Rochester and Rowan University / Cooper Medical School. Dr. Nash has delivered a score of endowed and named lectures across the country and has given more than 15 commencement addresses.

Dr. Nash lives in Ardmore, PA, with his wife of 45 years, Esther J. Nash, MD. They have three adult children and three grandchildren. He enjoys tennis, swimming, and biking. Together, the Drs. Nash have endowed an eponymous annual prize, across all learners throughout Jefferson, in healthcare quality and safety (which debuted in October 2021). This prize is the first of its kind in the nation.