Ralph Horwitz, MD, MACP, Appointed Director of Temple University School of Medicine's New Institute for Transformative Medicine

Temple University Health System has announced the establishment of Temple University School of Medicine's (TUSM) new Institute for Transformative Medicine, and the concurrent appointment of Ralph Horwitz, MD, MACP, as its Director, and Professor of Medicine at TUSM, effective August 1. Dr. Horwitz will also have a secondary appointment in the College of Science and Technology in Temple University's Department of Computer & Information Sciences.

Most recently, Dr. Horwitz was a Visiting Scholar at the Institute of Medicine, and Senior VP for Clinical Evaluation Sciences at GlaxoSmithKline (GSK). Prior to joining GSK he served as Chair of Medicine at Stanford following a term as Dean of the Case Western Reserve School of Medicine and Vice President of Medical Affairs at Case Western Reserve University. He also previously served as Chair of Medicine at Yale.

"Temple’s new Institute for Transformative Medicine and the recruitment of Dr. Horwitz as its Director complement and reinforce Temple University School of Medicine's research infrastructure by integrating several core areas of evidence-based medical research into one Center – including comparative effectiveness research, pragmatic clinical trials, and health systems research,” said Larry R. Kaiser, MD, FACS, President & CEO of Temple University Health System, Dean of Temple University School of Medicine, and Senior Executive Vice President for Health Affairs at Temple University.

"I am pleased to be joining Temple and look forward to leading the newly created Institute for Transformative Medicine," said Dr. Horwitz. "Our goal for the Institute is to develop a world class program of research and implementation that continuously improves the effectiveness and efficiency of care by generating knowledge and insight at the population level, while improving precision in the application of results from rich, patient-generated data at the individual level," he adds.

"To achieve such a program requires greater understanding of several interdependent dynamics: the interactions between individual-level biology and the way that life experience shapes and is shaped by biology; the sustaining forces that create and maintain good health; the nature and complementary roles of different types of data on human biology and human experience; and the strategic priorities to foster attainment of the Triple Aim of better healthcare, better health, and lower cost," explained Horwitz.

As Director of the Institute Dr. Horwitz, working with the Temple Center for Population Health, will help to advance the field of population health research at TUSM, particularly as it relates to underserved communities and populations, and expand translational research into factors and interventions that influence the health of individuals and populations. The Institute also creates opportunities for medical student involvement and forges inter-professional collaboration between Temple Health's informatics experts and Temple University's College of Science and Technology experts in data analytics and computational biology.

"Dr. Horwitz is an outstanding choice to spearhead these new efforts and collaborations," added Dr. Kaiser. "He is a leading authority on research methods and a pioneer in the development of clinical epidemiology and outcomes research. His work is notable for its rigor and innovative application of methods to understand clinical phenomena, including the etiology, diagnosis, prognosis and treatment of disease. In recent years, he has developed a focus on the "Biology-Biography" interaction (where biography refers to a patient's life experience) and expects to extend that work to the emerging field of precision medicine."

After receiving his medical degree from the Hershey College of Medicine of Penn State University, Dr. Horwitz trained in internal medicine at Royal Victoria Hospital of McGill University, Montreal, and Massachusetts General Hospital, then became a fellow in the Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program at Yale School of Medicine. He remained on the Yale faculty for 25 years as Co-Director of the Clinical Scholars Program and later as Chair of the Department of Internal Medicine, and Harold H. Hines, Jr. Professor of Medicine and Epidemiology.

Dr. Horwitz is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine (formerly the Institute of Medicine); the American Society for Clinical Investigation; the American Epidemiological Society; and the Association of American Physicians, of which he was President in 2010. He was a member of the Advisory Committee to the NIH Director, and was a director of the American Board of Internal Medicine serving as Chairman in 2003. For over 20 years he has been a member of the National Advisory Committee of the Harold Amos Faculty Development Program funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. He is board-certified in Internal Medicine and is a Master of the American College of Physicians.

Dr. Horwitz is also an outstanding teacher and mentor who has advised numerous medical, graduate, and undergraduate students.