Richard Dixon is an internist, infectious disease subspecialist, and epidemiologist. He received his A.B. in history from Princeton University, his M.D. from Vanderbilt University, and trained in medicine and infectious diseases at the University of Washington, the Massachusetts General Hospital, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
He began his professional career as an Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) Officer at CDC. After a year, he was appointed to serve as the first chief of CDC’s Hospital Infections activities, where he served for almost 10 years. During his leadership of that activity, CDC defined the basic scope and magnitude of nosocomial (e.g., hospital-acquired) infections, established standardized surveillance and reporting methods, built a nationwide surveillance system, published some of the first explicitly evidence-based recommendations, made many important discoveries about the causes of – and methods to prevent and control – nosocomial infections, and conducted a nationwide, controlled, study of the efficacy of formal nosocomial infection control programs. During that period, he also staffed the Secretary’s Ethics Advisory Committee when it evaluated the need for assurances of confidentiality in epidemiologic investigations. He investigated 2 employment-related deaths in CDC’s maximum containment laboratory, which led to important changes in laboratory practices. He then developed and managed CDC’s program to treat domestic patients infected with highly-contagious and dangerous agents (e.g., Marburg virus, smallpox, etc.) and represented the United States in WHO’s efforts to prevent spread of such agents.
After 10 years at CDC, Dr. Dixon became Chairman of the Department of Medicine, Director of an internal medicine residency training program, and, subsequently, Physician-in-Chief and Medical Director for a NJ hospital. In addition to his teaching and administrative duties, he conducted an infectious diseases consulting practice and was named by his ID colleagues nationwide as one of the nations “best” infectious disease physicians. He remained active in public health, organizing statewide AIDS, diabetes, heart disease, Alzheimer’s Disease, end-of-life care, and related educational programs working pro bono for the New Jersey Department of Health. He developed adult and pediatric AIDS management protocols that were distributed to every primary care physician in the State. He was elected President of the Society of Hospital Epidemiologists of America (SHEA) and continued to lecture widely and serve on national quality-of-care committees. He received a grant to develop an interactive video-disk program to train clinicians in epidemiology, which won 2 international awards. He taught a course in epidemiology for 2 years at the graduate school, University of Pennsylvania.
In 1993, he was recruited to serve as the Medical Director of a large San Francisco Bay-area physician organization, where he was responsible for clinical programs, quality-improvement, care-management, and physician-payment models. He successfully implemented one of the first capitation payment models for both primary care and specialist physicians, and he reorganized care- and utilization-management processes. He then helped to organize and became Executive Vice President of a nationwide physician organization and then briefly served as a Vice President in The Lewin Group before it closed its San Francisco office. Within 18 months of his arrival in California, he had been selected by his peers to represent California’s provider community with plans and purchasers on PBGH’s Health Services Advisory Committee. He continued his public health activities by co-founding, along with 2 colleagues, the California Cooperative Healthcare Reporting initiative, a not-for-profit utility that collected outcomes data (such as HEDIS data) for all health plans in the State using a single group of data collectors and a single method. He and another colleague were then awarded a grant to promote sharing of electronic health information among all California stakeholders: providers, health plans, purchasers, and the public (the CALINX project). Among other activities, he participated as a member of the Jackson Hole Group; served as a member of NCQA’s Committee on Performance Measurement (HEDIS); worked with California’s QIO to improve prevention programs; advised the American Medical Association about physician leadership; evaluated AHRQ’s National Guideline Clearinghouse and designed specifications for its new measures clearinghouse; led care-management evaluations for 2 Robert Wood Johnson Foundation projects; and designed the epidemiology components of an ASPE project evaluating the nation’s capacity to manage terrorism and emerging infections.
In May 2002, Dr. Dixon returned to CDC and now serves in the Division of Public-Private Partnerships, NCHM, CCHIS as a Distinguished Consultant.
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