Allen Nissenson named DaVita’s chief medical officer

EL SEGUNDO, Calif.—DaVita said July 25 that Allen Nissenson, MD, FACP, has been appointed to be the dialysis provider’s new chief medical officer.

The appointment will be official on Aug. 1.

After 31 years, Nissenson is retiring from his position at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, where he was a professor of medicine, associate dean and director of the dialysis program.

“This is a great opportunity for me to expand my efforts to improve the lives of patients with kidney disease, working with 31,000 DaVita teammates who care for approximately 108,000 patients on dialysis, by building on the many innovative DaVita programs for ESRD and CKD patients," Nissenson said in a statement.

DaVita’s previous CMO, Charles McAllister, MD, stepped down from the position in July 2007. Since then, a group called the Office of the CMO replaced the position. McAllister served as CMO emeritus until he retired April 1.

"We are very excited to have Allen expand his role with DaVita,” Kent Thiry, DaVita CEO, said in a statement. “Allen has been working with us the past few years on a consulting basis and has been instrumental in our VillageHealth initiative. He is an outstanding choice for the CMO role as his career and research interests have focused on the quality of care for chronic kidney disease patients including issues of healthcare delivery and economics."

Nissenson is a former president of the Renal Physicians Association and serves on the RPA Board of Directors as a special advisor to the current president. In addition, he is the immediate past president of the National Anemia Action Council (NAAC) and the Southern California End-Stage Renal Disease (ESRD) Network. He has consulted for the Rand Corporation, Pacificare, the National Institutes of Health, the National Kidney Foundation, among other organizations.

He has also published more than 440 articles in nephrology, dialysis and healthcare delivery and policy. Nissenson is currently the editor in chief of Hemodialysis International, the official journal of the International Society for Hemodialysis, as well as Medscape Nephrology.