Rawson named to board of examiners for national quality award

Dr. James Rawson, chairman of the Department of Radiology and Imaging at the Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University, has been named to the Board of Examiners for the 2017 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award by The United States Department of Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and Technology. The award is the nation’s highest honor for organizational innovation and performance excellence.

Appointed by the NIST Director, examiners are responsible for reviewing and evaluating applications for the award, as well as other assessment-related tasks. The examiner board is composed of more than 340 leading experts competitively selected from industry, professional, trade, education, health care and nonprofit organizations from across the United States.

Rawson, the P.L., J. Luther, Ada Warren Professor who also serves as interim chairman of the Department of Radiation Oncology, has served as president of the adult medical staff at AU Medical Center for three years.  He served a four-year term as a member of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Ambulatory Payment Classifications Advisory Panel, where he chaired the CMS Subcommittee on Packaging.  He is a member of the Board of Chancellors of the American College of Radiology, the Harvey L. Neiman Health Policy Institute, the Association of University Radiologists and the Society of Chairs of Academic Radiology Departments. He is on the faculty advisory board for the UK-based National Health Service School for Health and Care Radicals.

He serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of the American College of Radiology and Academic Radiology. His primary research interests are health policy, process improvement and innovative educational techniques.

Rawson is a graduate of Tufts Medical School. After an internship at Lemuel Shattuck Hospital, he completed his radiology residency at New York Medical College in 1994.  He completed his training at the Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology at Washington University with a fellowship in Body MRI. He joined the MCG faculty in 1995.

Named after Malcolm Baldrige, the 26th Secretary of Commerce, the Baldrige Award was established by Congress in 1987 and recognizes the achievements and results of U.S. organizations, and publicizes successful performance strategies. Since the first group was recognized in 1988, 114 awards have been presented to 106 organizations.