Dr. Mark D. Smith is president and CEO of the California HealthCare Foundation, or CHCF, an independent philanthropy committed to improving the way health care is delivered and financed in California and to helping consumers make informed health care and coverage decisions. Since CHCF's formation in 1996, Smith has led the California HealthCare Foundation in developing research and initiatives aimed at improving California's health care financing and delivery systems. CHCF projects have helped advance public reporting of quality data on hospitals, health plans, and nursing homes; promoted research and development of Internet technology solutions for improving health care delivery; and explored health care privacy, among other issues. Smith is a member of the Institute of Medicine and on the board of the Washington Business Group on Health. He has served on the performance measurement committee of the National Committee for Quality Assurance and the editorial board of the Annals of Internal Medicine. A board-certified internist, he is a member of the clinical faculty at the University of California, San Francisco and an attending physician at the AIDS clinic at San Francisco General Hospital. Prior to joining the California HealthCare Foundation, Smith was executive vice president of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation and served as associate director of the AIDS Service and assistant professor of medicine and health policy and management at Johns Hopkins University. Smith received his M.D. from the School of Medicine at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and a master's in health care administration from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.