Dr. Pawlson is Senior Medical Analyst with Stevens Lee, and leads the development of risk mitigation and safety  improvement programs and tools. He will also staff and join the Board of Directors of a physician led group that is affiliated with Stevens Lee, SE Quality Consultants an entity which engages in practice transformation and quality improvement activities. Prior to coming to Stevens Lee, Dr. Pawlson served as Executive Director for Quality Innovation at Blue Cross Blue Shield Association’s Washington DC Office of Policy and Representation. In this role Dr. Pawlson worked with Blue Cross Blue Shield plans to identify, disseminate and promote key safety and quality initiatives developed by the Plans aimed at healthcare system transformation through systems, reimbursement and process change. He also participated in development of policies related to health care quality and related areas. Dr. Pawlson also served as Executive Vice President of  the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) from 2000 to 2011, where he was responsible for oversight of all activities related to research and analysis, development of performance measurement measures related to most major diseases, and more recently measures related to overuse, resource use and cost. Pawlson also served as NCQA's primary liaison to physician specialty societies and medical boards including the American College of Physicians, the American Academy of Family Physicians and the American Board of Internal Medicine.Before his role at NCQA, Dr. Pawlson was in academic medicine, serving as Senior Associate Vice President for Health Affairs and Medical Director for Quality and Utilization Management for the faculty practice at The George Washington University Medical Center. While at GW, he also has served as chairman of the university's Department of Health Care Sciences (a department that encompassed primary care and public health) and as director of the Institute for Health Policy, Outcomes and Human Values. During sabbatical years, he served as a Robert Wood Johnson Health Policy Fellow working with Sen. George Mitchell (D-Me) on the Senate Finance Committee, and as a Fellow with Dr. Paul Griner in the Center for the Study of Change in Academic Medicine at the American Association of Medical Colleges.Within organized medicine Dr. Pawlson has served as President and Chairman of the Board of the American Geriatrics Society, and on the Boards of the Society of General Internal Medicine, the American College of Medical Quality, the American Board of Medical Quality, the Bon Secour Health System, the U.S Soldiers and Airman’s Home and as Chair of the Advisory Group for AHRQ’s Innovations Exchange. He has also served on review and advisory panels for AHRQ, NIH, various agencies within CMS, the Commonwealth, RWJ, Andrus and other  foundations and  His areas of active health services related research included quality, cost, medical education and health systems and is the author of over 100 peer reviewed articles, and numerous other publications.