Sean Tunis, MD, MSc is the Founder, President, and Chief Executive Officer of the Center for Medical Technology Policy in Baltimore, Maryland. CMTP’s main objective is to improve the quality and relevance of clinical research by providing a neutral forum for collaboration among experts, stakeholders and decision makers. Dr. Tunis was a member of the Institute of Medicine Committee on Initial National Priorities for Comparative Effectiveness Research. He advises a wide range of domestic and international public and private health care organizations on issues of comparative effectiveness, evidence based medicine, clinical research, reimbursement and health technology policy.
Through September of 2005, Dr. Tunis was the Director of the Office of Clinical Standards and Quality and Chief Medical Officer at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). In this role, he had lead responsibility for clinical policy and quality for the Medicare and Medicaid programs, which provide health coverage to over 100 million US citizens. Dr. Tunis supervised the development of national coverage policies, quality standards for Medicare and Medicaid providers; quality measurement and public reporting initiatives, and the Quality Improvement Organization program. As Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Tunis served as the senior advisor to the CMS Administrator on clinical and scientific policy. He also co-chaired the CMS Council on Technology and Innovation
Dr. Tunis joined CMS in 2000 as the Director of the Coverage and Analysis Group. Before joining CMS, Dr. Tunis was a senior research scientist with the Technology Assessment Group, where his focus was on the design and implementation of prospective comparative effectiveness trials and clinical registries. Dr. Tunis also served as the Director of the Health Program at the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment and as a health policy advisor to the U.S. Senate Committee on Labor and Human Resources, where he participated in policy development regarding pharmaceutical and device regulation.
He received a B.S. degree in Biology and History of Science from the Cornell University School of Agriculture, and a medical degree and masters in Health Services Research from the Stanford University School of Medicine. Dr. Tunis did his residency training at UCLA and the University of Maryland in Emergency Medicine and Internal Medicine. He is board certified in Internal Medicine and holds adjunct faculty appointments at Johns Hopkins, Stanford and the University of California San Francisco Schools of Medicine.