Thomas Tsai, MD, MPH

Thomas Tsai, MD, MPH is Senior Policy Advisor on the White House COVID-19 Response Team. In this role, Dr. Tsai serves as the Testing and Treatment Coordinator directing the federal COVID-19 testing, therapeutics, and Test to Treat efforts. Thomas is also an Assistant Professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School, and Director of Clinical Care Redesign at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He is a faculty member of the Center for Surgery and Public Health, Ariadne Labs, and the Harvard Global Health Institute. He is a laparoscopic and bariatric surgeon at the Harvard School of Public Health. His research focuses on understanding variations in health care spending and outcomes in order to evaluate the impact of health policy efforts. Using national Medicare claims data, his work has included understanding the relationship between hospital quality and readmissions; patient experience as a measure of quality; and racial and socioeconomic disparities in readmission rates. His recent focus is on achieving value in the Medicare system with projects focused on bundled payments and variations in utilization of post-acute care. During 2014-2015 he was a HAP Fellow and served as a Senior Advisor to the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation in the US Department of Health and Human Services. He received his undergraduate degree from Harvard College, his M.D. from Stanford University School of Medicine, and his M.P.H. from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.