Diane Rittenhouse is a family physician and expert at the intersection of social policy and clinical quality. She is nationally recognized for her research on innovative ways to organize and deliver primary care and her ability to translate this research into policy. Her work focuses on Mathematica’s state and federal health assessment portfolio related to physician education and practice.

Rittenhouse has substantial mixed-methods evaluation experience, having led many studies that have contributed to healthcare reform discussions. She was principal investigator for the evaluation of federal efforts to restore, expand, and improve primary care services in greater New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina and co-investigator on multiple large national studies of physician practices. Most recently, she was the principal investigator on a project to identify policy options for strengthening graduate medical education in California. Rittenhouse has extensive experience in the patient-centered medical home model, accountable communities for health, health information technology, and process evaluations, among others.

Before joining Mathematica in 2020, Rittenhouse served as professor of family medicine and health policy at the University of California, San Francisco, where she mentored medical students, residents, postdoctoral fellows, and junior faculty in health policy, healthcare management, and health services research. She also developed a health systems and policy curriculum for the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine. Rittenhouse has published in renowned journals, including the Journal of the American Medical Association and the New England Journal of Medicine, and has been cited in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and USA Today. She was also invited to speak to members of Congress at a bipartisan congressional health policy retreat in 2010.

Rittenhouse received her MD from the University of California, Davis, and her MPH with an emphasis in health policy and management from the University of California, Berkeley. Before her medical training, she worked for the California Statewide Office of Health Planning and Development and for the deputy assistant secretary for health in Washington, D.C.