Prof Christopher B Forrest is Professor of Pediatrics at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) and the University of Pennsylvania, USA. He is also the director of the Applied Clinical Research Center at CHOP. His research interests include global health, health information technology, comparative effectiveness research, delivery innovation and patient-centred medical homes. Prof Forrest serves as the principal investigator of PEDSnet, a national consortium of children’s hospitals (>7 million children) in the USA, which conducts patient-centred outcomes research among children and youth. He is Chair of the Research Committee for PCORnet, a national clinical research network supported by the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute in the USA. He also chairs the Steering Committee for PEPR, a National Institutes of Health programme which evaluates patient-reported outcome measures for children with chronic conditions. He obtained his MD from the Boston University School of Medicine and his PhD in health policy and management from the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University in the USA.