Dr. Kavita Patel is currently a Nonresident Fellow at the Brookings Institution.  She is also the Vice President of Payer and Provider Integration at the Johns Hopkins Health System where she is also a practicing primary care physician.  Dr. Patel was previously a Director of Policy for The White House under President Obama and a senior advisor to the late Senator Edward Kennedy.  Her prior research in healthcare quality and community approaches to mental illness have earned national recognition and she has published numerous papers and book chapters on healthcare reform and health policy.  She has testified before Congress several times and she is a frequent guest expert on NPR, CBS, NBC and MSNBC as well as serving on the editorial board of the journal Health Affairs.