Dr. Joseph Vassalotti is the Chief Medical Officer of the National Kidney Foundation (NKF) and Clinical Professor of Medicine in the Division of Nephrology, at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. He received his medical degree with Distinction in Research from the SUNY Stony Brook School of Medicine and completed an Internal Medicine Residency and Nephrology Fellowship at the Johns Hopkins Hospital. At NKF, his major focus is implementation of evidence-based clinical practice guidelines in chronic kidney disease (CKD), including the NKF’s Kidney Disease Outcomes Quality Initiative (KDOQI), particularly through guidance of the NKF’s primary care initiative, called CKD intercept. He has served as co-PI for the CDC Demonstration Project “CKD Health Evaluation and Risk Information Sharing (CHERISH)”, which aimed to identify individuals at high risk for CKD in the U.S. and as an investigator for the NIH-sponsored clustered practice randomized trial entitled, evidenced-based primary care for CKD. Leadership also includes multiple roles over the last decade with the CMS Fistula First national quality improvement initiative for hemodialysis, including as Lead Physician Consultant from 2013 through 2015. He has served on numerous committees that shape innovation and health policy in kidney disease for the CDC, the NIH and CMS. Currently, he serves as Principal Investigator for the Kidney Score Platform an NKF educational project funded by the Veterans Administration Center for Innovation to improve awareness and education among Veterans with and at risk for CKD in the primary care setting. He is the Chair of NKF’s Technical Expert Panel on the Kidney Health Evaluation for Adults with Diabetes. He also serves as PI for an AARP-funded OptumLabs investigation that evaluates disparities in the Kidney Health Evaluation Measure for CKD testing of Americans with diabetes as well as analyzes evidenced-based therapies driven by the measure. Dr. Vassalotti typically sees approximately 40 patients per week and has over 100 publications in peer-reviewed journals. He has been featured in Castle Connolly’s Top Doctors and Best Doctors in America.
