Mount Sinai Professor of Geriatrics and Palliative Care Medicine and Center for Advance Palliative Care Director Diane E. Meier, MD Receives National Academy of Medicine Lienhard Award for Leading Palliative Care Adoption in the United States

Diane E. Meier, MD, director of the Center to Advance Palliative Care (CAPC) and professor of geriatrics and palliative care medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, has been named the 32nd recipient of the Gustav O. Lienhard Award for Advancement in Healthcare, announced today by the National Academy of Medicine. The award recognizes her for outstanding achievements in driving awareness and adoption of palliative care services in the United States. Dr. Meier received the award at today’s National Academy of Medicine’s annual meeting in Washington DC.

Dr. Meier was selected for this year’s Lienhard Award for her leadership in building awareness of and access to palliative care in the United States. As a practicing geriatrician, Meier found that attention to human suffering during serious illness was needed as added support, alongside the many advances of modern medicine.

Dr. Meier helped define the components of palliative care and clarify its impact on the well-being of patients and their families. The Award Committee noted Dr. Meier’s efforts in spurring impressive growth in the nation’s palliative care capacity. There are now over 1,800 U.S. programs dedicated to this type of care, and more than 80 percent of hospitalized Americans now have access to palliative care teams.

“Receiving this award is an honor for me personally, but most importantly it signals the impact of thousands of my fellow clinicians working to provide an added layer of support toward the best possible quality of life for people living with serious illness," said Dr. Meier. “The field owes its existence to the sustained investment of private sector philanthropy, leading among them the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, sponsor of this award. On behalf of the field and the patients and families we serve, our thanks go to the National Academy of Medicine for the honor of The Lienhard Award which will help us accelerate access to this evidence-based model of care."

In addition to Dr. Meier’s role as CAPC director, Meier established the Hertzberg Palliative Care Institute, both at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City. She has published widely on palliative care in major medical journals, has developed guidelines and national quality standards for the field, and has educated the general public through the media about the need for palliative care.

She received her BA from Oberlin College and her MD from Northwestern University Medical School. She completed her residency and fellowship training at Oregon Health Sciences University in Portland. She has been on the faculty of the Department of Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine and Department of Medicine at Mount Sinai since 1983. She lives in New York City.

Given annually, the Lienhard Award recognizes outstanding national achievement in improving personal health care in the United States. Nominees are eligible for consideration without regard to education or profession, and award recipients are selected by a committee of experts convened by the Academy. This year’s selection committee was chaired by Regina Benjamin, MD, NOLA.com/Times Picayune Endowed Chair in Public Health Sciences at Xavier University of Louisiana.

The Lienhard Award is funded by an endowment from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Gustav O. Lienhard was chair of the foundation’s board of trustees from the organization’s establishment in 1971 to his retirement in 1986 -- a period in which the foundation moved to the forefront of American philanthropy in health care. Lienhard, who died in 1987, built his career with Johnson & Johnson, beginning as an accountant and retiring 39 years later as its president. Additional information about the Lienhard Award can be found at http://nam.edu/about-the-nam/gustav-o-lienhard-award.

About CAPC

The Center to Advance Palliative Care (CAPC) is a national, member-based organization dedicated to increasing the availability of quality palliative care services for people facing serious illness. CAPC provides hospitals, hospices, payers and other health care organizations with the tools, training, technical assistance and metrics needed to support the successful implementation and integration of palliative care. To learn more about CAPC, visit http://www.capc.org.

About the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

The Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai is an international leader in medical and scientific training, biomedical research, and patient care. It is the medical school for the Mount Sinai Health System, an integrated health care system which includes seven hospitals and an expanding ambulatory network serving approximately 4 million patients per year.

The School has more than 1,800 students in MD, PhD, and Master’s programs and post-doctoral fellowships; more than 5,600 faculty members; over 2,000 residents and fellows; and 23 clinical and research institutes and 34 academic departments. It is ranked among the highest in the nation in National Institutes of Health funding per principal investigator. The School was the first medical school in the country to create a progressive admissions approach for students who seek early assurance of admission through the FlexMed program.

The Graduate School of Biomedical Science trains PhD and MD/PhD students, and offers master’s-level programs in areas such as genetic counseling, clinical research, biomedical sciences, and public health, and an online master’s degree in health care delivery leadership. The seamless connections between our medical school, graduate school, and hospital campuses provide an extraordinary environment for translating scientific discoveries into clinical treatments.

For more information, visit http://icahn.mssm.edu or find the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and LinkedIn.