Thomas L. Higgins MD, FACP, MCCM

Dr. Higgins is Chief Medical Officer at The Center for Case Management in Natick, MA. Although primarily a physician executive since 2010, he continues to practice critical care at Baystate Medical Center in Springfield, Massachusetts, with an academic appointment as Professor of Medicine and Anesthesiology at University of Massachusetts Medical School-Baystate.  He serves on several professional editorial boards and on the board of The American Association for Physician Leadership.

Tom trained at Boston University School of Medicine, Cleveland Clinic (internal medicine) and Mass. General Hospital (anesthesiology/critical care). After completing a primary care commitment to the U.S. Public Health Service, he ran the Cardiothoracic Intensive Care Unit at Cleveland Clinic, and helped inaugurate “fast-track” cardiac recovery. Until 2010, he was Chief of Critical Care at Baystate, supervising the Beacon Award-winning Medical and Surgical ICU's.   Since then, he has taken on increasing medical management responsibilities, while remaining involved in bedside care and training medical students, residents and critical care fellows.  He has served as Chief Medical Officer at Baystate Noble and Baystate Franklin Medical Centers in Massachusetts, as interim hospital/regional President at Baystate Franklin, and as interim Chief Medical Officer at CHI-St. Alexius Hospital in Bismarck, ND.  Currently, as Chief Medical Officer at The Center for Case Management (www.cfcm.com), he consults nationally on patient flow, utilization review and case management issues. Dr. Higgins has published 3 textbooks and over 130 peer-reviewed papers with particular interests in outcome assessment (Mortality Probability and Cardiac Surgical models now incorporated into Cerner software), sepsis pharmacotherapy, mechanical ventilation, ARDS, shock states, emerging pathogens such as COVID-19,  and patient care monitoring (PA catheters, Flo-Trac). He has a particular interest in physician engagement, quality maintenance, and compensation and on-call issues during mergers of physician practice groups and health care systems.