Health Care for All

Americares Senior Vice President and Chief Program Officer M. Rashad Massoud, MD, MPH, FACP, oversees the organization’s health programs for people affected by poverty or disaster, including its work with the uninsured in the United States, its Emergency Response team and its global distribution of more than $900 million in medicine and supplies to more than 90 countries annually. He also leads Americares global response to the COVID-19 pandemic, including the distribution of personal protective equipment, delivery of essential primary health care services, and training and mental health support for frontline health workers.

Dr. Massoud brings to Americares over 20 years of experience directing initiatives that have strengthened health systems in vulnerable communities around the world. Prior to joining Americares, Dr. Massoud served as chief medical and quality officer and senior vice president of the Quality and Performance Institute at University Research Co., where he led URC’s quality improvement efforts in over 40 countries. He also served as the director of the USAID Applying Science to Strengthen and Improve Systems Project.

Prior to that, Dr. Massoud served as senior vice president at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement in Cambridge, Mass., where he worked on innovation, transformation and large-scale programming. He also served as a medical officer with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, and has consulted for and collaborated with KPMG, UNICEF, the World Bank, the World Health Organization and several other nonprofits.

A leader in the global health field, Dr. Massoud is the immediate past president and executive committee member of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health Alumni Association and served as an advisory board member for the World Health Organization global report on quality and safety. He is also an inaugural member of the International Academy of Quality and Safety.

Dr. Massoud earned his medical degree from the First Moscow State Medical University in Moscow, Russia, and completed a master’s in public health from Harvard University’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

Tamar Tchelidze, MD, MPH has over 20 years of experience in Global health managing change and transformation with demonstrated agility in academic, private, and government environments. She is a staunch advocate of international cooperation and partnership to further medical knowledge, combat communicable and non-communicable diseases, increase healthcare access and delivery, and foster strong stakeholder relationships. Before joining Roche Diagnostics Corporation, Tamar served as a Senior Policy Fellow at the Forum for Collaborative Research at UC Berkeley, where she was a primary liaison for Preexposure Prophylaxes (PrEP) Project, designed to review, discuss, and recommend strategies that would allow less resource-intensive clinical trial options to approve new PrEP interventions while maintaining scientific rigor.

Throughout her career, Dr. Tchelidze established an esteemed reputation for her ability to galvanize international and domestic partners to plan and implement public health initiatives recognized as efficient and effective healthcare models making original contributions of major significance. Some examples include initiating Hepatitis C Elimination Program, establishing the MEDEA International Platform for Health System Strengthening, and leading the historical process of the Universal Healthcare Coverage Political Declaration at the United Nations.

Dr Shams Syed is the Unit Head, Quality of Care at WHO Headquarters. He currently oversees the WHO national quality policy and strategy initiative; WHO’s technical work on quality in fragile, conflict-affected and vulnerable settings; the WHO Global Learning Laboratory for Quality; a wide portfolio of WHO technical work on quality of care; as well as WHO work on twinning partnerships for improvement and has led WHO work in this arena since 2009. He has also recently shaped the WHO COVID-19 Health Services Learning Hub. His WHO career has provided an opportunity to work directly with over 30 countries across the world. He maintains teaching roles in his spare time, including at Johns Hopkins University.

Dr Syed received his medical degree from St. George’s, University of London, and practiced as a primary care physician in the UK. He received postgraduate public health training at the University of Cambridge. Subsequently, he trained in Preventive Medicine at Johns Hopkins University, is US Board Certified in Public Health & Preventive Medicine and a Fellow of the American College of Preventive Medicine.

Dr Michael Marx (MD, PhD) is Professor for International Public Health at the Heidelberg Institute of Global Health of the University of Heidelberg. He is a medical doctor, specialized in internal medicine, tropical medicine and public health. He is Director of evaplan ltd. at the University of Heidelberg, an international consulting platform of the University. He has more than 30 years of working experience in health systems development and research, in management of health programs, carrying out evaluations, implementation research and training in more than 20 African countries and in various Asian countries such as China, Indonesia, India, and Vietnam. During the last 15 years he was involved in large health systems research projects- funded by EU, WHO, BMBF- in India, Vietnam, Indonesia, the Philippines and various African countries. Michael is co-editor of a special volume of GHA, has authored 10 book chapters, more than 100 scientific articles and reviews. His particular interest lies in health system research focusing on quality improvement, disease control and public health in unstable situations. Since 2010 he engaged in e health projects and developing digital solutions. In June 2020 he organized an international web conference on digitalization and health jointly with the International Society for Quality of Care (ISQua).

Full-time faculty in the Department of International Health and a member of the Center for Refugee and Disaster Studies and the Center for Global Health. Led health systems and community based research and project evaluations as Principal/Co-Principal Investigator and provided technical support to several organizations including the World Bank, WHO, DFID, PAHO, Bloomberg Initiative, USAID supported agencies; Quality Assurance Project II, BASICS II, Management Sciences for Health, John Snow Inc, Maternal and Child Survival Project Jhpiego, FHI360, and numerous PVOs including World Vision, World Relief, Plan International, Aga Khan Foundation and Future Generations. Conducted training and capacity building workshops for health policy makers and clinicians on quality management, balanced scorecards and other research and evaluation initiatives in East and Southern Africa, Latin America, and Asia, including leadership and management training for regional hospital directors in Afghanistan. Research focus has been primarily in health systems research and community-oriented healthcare especially those in fragile states. Currently leading a national effort for Malaria Behavior Survey in Ghana for CCP-JHU as a part of the USAID PMI initiative, and leading projects in Tanzania and Uganda, for improving Hypertension Control with the Resolve Bloomberg Initiative, and evaluations for WFP in Egypt with i-aps. Also engaged in academic course instruction for Management and Primary Health Care Courses at the School of Public Health, student advising and mentoring for Doctoral and master’s students, and Co-direct the Master of Public Health Leadership Management concentration.