Discusses Rhode Island’s health care needs based on its changing demographics and the financial challenges associated with providing equitable health care
November 27, 2012

BIO

Michael Fine, MD has served as Director of the Rhode Island Department of Health since July 2011. In this role, Fine oversees the single state agency, with over 400 employees and an operating budget of $110 million, responsible for coordinating a broad range of public health programs and services.

Dr. Fine’s career as both a family physician and manager in the field of healthcare has been devoted to healthcare reform and the care of underserved populations. Before his confirmation as Director of Health, Dr. Fine was Medical Program Director at the Rhode Island Department of Corrections; founder and Managing Director of HealthAccessRI, the nation’s first statewide organization making prepaid, reduced fee-for-service primary care available to people without employer-provided health insurance; Physician Operating Officer of Hillside Avenue Family and Community Medicine, the largest family practice in Rhode Island; and Physician-in-Chief of the Rhode Island and Miriam Hospitals’ Departments of Family and Community Medicine.

Dr. Fine also founded the non-profit Scituate Health Alliance, making rural Scituate, Rhode Island the first community in the United States to provide primary medical and dental care to all its residents. He has served on a number of boards and legislative committees throughout the state and is a past President of the Rhode Island Academy of Family Physicians and past Open Society Institute/George Soros Fellow in Medicine as a Profession.

Fine is the coauthor, with James W. Peters, of The Nature of Health (Radcliffe, 2007), a study of healthcare services, human rights, society, technology, and industry. He also wrote The Zero Calorie Diet (Red House Press, 2010), a look at the culture of excess through the lens of fasting.