Episode 2: The Parkinson's Foundation’s Role in Improving Standards of Care

Peter Schmidt, PhD is Senior Vice President, Chief Research & Clinical Officer at the Parkinson’s Foundation and oversees research, education, and outreach initiatives. Dr. Schmidt leads the Parkinson’s Outcomes Project, the largest clinical study ever conducted in Parkinson’s disease, and is active in research on diverse clinical areas in Parkinson's.

Schmidt serves as an advisor to several government, industry, and foundation initiatives. His focus has been setting clinical standards, and he is involved in several national-scale quality initiatives, including the US National Quality Forum and the Fresco Network in Italy. Schmidt is bringing to Parkinson's ideas from across health care and is on advisory committees for projects in wearable sensors, Huntington’s disease, Glut1 deficiency syndrome, cystic fibrosis, inpatient rehabilitation, and telemedicine. His work has been covered widely in the press and he has contributed to AHRQ and Commonwealth Fund publications; he has been an invited speaker for the NIH, and internationally at patient and professional conferences.

Schmidt joined the Parkinson’s Foundation from Cronus Partners, an investment bank, where he focused on health care innovation. Previously, Schmidt created chronic disease management systems and served as Chief Operating Officer of a joint venture of Oxford, Stanford, and Yale delivering on-line education.

Schmidt earned his bachelor's degree at Harvard University and was awarded an MS and PhD from Cornell University, Sibley School of Mechanical Engineering, where he studied gait and balance and total joint replacement. He completed a fellowship at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York.