Becker's Hospital Review is pleased to release the 2018 edition of the "50 experts leading the field of patient safety."
The professionals included on this list are prominent advocates for patient safety. Individuals featured here are clinicians, advocacy group leaders, professors, researchers, administrators and healthcare providers. Many honorees have received industry awards, published articles and led initiatives to facilitate the reduction of patient harm in the healthcare setting.
The Becker's Hospital Review editorial team selected patient safety leaders for inclusion on the list based on nominations, current leadership positions and an examination of patient awards, publications and various achievements in the field of patient safety. Nominations were considered during the selection process.
Note: Leaders are presented in alphabetical order and could not pay for inclusion.
For questions or comments, contact Laura Dyrda at ldyrda@beckershealthcare.com.
Jason Adelman, MD. Chief Patient Safety Officer, Associate Chief Quality Officer and Director of Patient Safety Research at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center (New York City). In his role as director of Columbia University's Patient Safety Research Program, Dr. Adelman has led multiple research projects centered on health IT safety, medication safety and general patient safety. Dr. Adelman has been awarded the Institute for Safe Medication Practice’s Cheers Award for prevention of medication errors and the Lorraine Tregde Patient Safety Leadership Award for improving patient safety. Dr. Adelman began his career as a hospitalist at Montefiore Medical Center in New York City and has received the Patient Safety Leadership Fellowship and was named a senior fellow of the Health Research and Educational Trust.
David W. Baker, MD. Executive Vice President, Division of Healthcare Quality Evaluation at The Joint Commission (Oakbrook Terrace, Ill.). Dr. Baker is responsible for The Joint Commission's activities associated with the development, testing and implementation of evidence-based standards, survey methods, national patient safety goals and performance measures across all the organization's accreditation and certification programs. Before joining The Joint Commission, Dr. Baker served as chief of the division of general internal medicine and geriatrics at the Feinberg School of Medicine at Evanston, Ill.-based Northwestern University. He established the hospital medicine program at Northwestern Memorial Hospital and created and directed Northwestern's first practice-based research network. Dr. Baker received his medical degree from the University of California Los Angeles School of Medicine and his master's degree of public health from the UCLA School of Public Health.
David J. Ballard, MD, PhD. Chief Quality Officer of Baylor Scott & White Health (Dallas) and President of the STEEEP Global Institute (Dallas). Before Baylor Health Care merged with Scott & White in 2013, Dr. Ballard was appointed Baylor Health Care System's first chief quality officer in 1999. Previously, Dr. Ballard served on the faculties at Rochester, Minn.-based Mayo Clinic School of Medicine, the University of Virginia School of Medicine in Charlottesville, and Emory University School of Medicine and the Rollins School of Public Health of Emory University in Atlanta. Dr. Ballard won the John M. Eisenberg Article-of-the-Year Award in 2012 from the journal Health Services Research and is the author of Achieving STEEEP Health Care and The Guide to Achieving STEEEP Health Care. Dr. Ballard received his medical degree, PhD and master's of public health from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.
Carol Barsky, MD. Senior Vice President and Chief Quality Officer of Hackensack (N.J.) Meridian Health. Dr. Barsky began her career as a clinician educator before transitioning to clinical operations, going on to serve as medical director and vice chair of New York City-based Mount Sinai Medical Center, where she led the hospital's emergency response to the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Before joining Hackensack Meridian Health, Dr. Barsky served as an independent consultant for quality and process improvement at Yale New Haven (Conn.) Hospital. She received her medical degree from the Rochester, Minn.-based Mayo Clinic School of Medicine.
David Westfall Bates, MD. CIO of Brigham and Women's Hospital (Boston) and Medical Director of Clinical and Quality Analysis for Partners Healthcare (Boston). In addition to his role at the Journal of Patient Safety, Dr. Bates serves as chief innovation officer at Boston-based Brigham and Women's Hospital and medical director of clinical and quality analysis for Partners Healthcare, also in Boston. Dr. Bates is on the faculties of Harvard Medical School and the Harvard School of Public Health, where he co-directs the program in clinical effectiveness. He received his medical degree from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.
Leah Binder. President and CEO of Leapfrog Group (Washington, D.C.). Under Ms. Binder's leadership, the Leapfrog Group launched Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grades, which use national performance measures to assign letter grades to over 2,000 hospitals across the country. She has instituted major changes to the annual Leapfrog Hospital Survey. Ms. Binder serves on the boards of the Institute of Medicine Collaboration on Patient Engagement; the Health Care Financial Management Association Leadership Advisory Committee; PCORI Health Systems Advisory Panel, AARP's Champions for Nursing Strategic Advisory Council; and the National Priorities Partnership Board. Before joining Leapfrog, Ms. Binder served as vice president at Farmington, Maine-based Franklin Community Health Network. She earned one master's degree from University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg School for Communication and another from the university's Fels Institute of Government.
Pascale Carayon, PhD. Procter & Gamble Bascom Professor in Total Quality, Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering at University of Wisconsin-Madison. In addition to her faculty positions at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Dr. Carayon is a member of the university's Center for Demography of Health and Aging, Consortium for Global E-Commerce and the Academic Council of the Center for Patient Partnerships of the law school. Dr. Carayon received her PhD from UW-Madison and has served as a professor at Ecole des Mines de Nancy in France. She has received the College of Engineering Ragnar E. Onstad Service to Society Award and the International Ergonomics Association’s Triennial Distinguished Service Award.
Mark R. Chassin, MD. President and CEO of The Joint Commission (Oakbrook Terrace, Ill.). In addition to overseeing The Joint Commission's standards-setting and accrediting responsibilities, Dr. Chassin is president of The Joint Commission Center for Transforming Healthcare, which works with providers across the country to address safety and quality issues such as surgical site infections, wrong site surgeries and hand-off communications. The center shares its solutions with over 20,000 healthcare organizations it accredits. Before joining The Joint Commission, Dr. Chassin founded the Department of Health Policy at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City and was commissioner of the New York State Department of Health. Dr. Chassin received his medical degree from Harvard Medical School, his master's degree in public policy from Harvard's Kennedy School of Government and his master's degree in public health from University of California-Los Angeles.
Michael R. Cohen, RPh. President of the Institute for Safe Medication Practices (Horsham, Pa.). Dr. Cohen is a former member of the FDA Drug Safety and Risk Management Advisory Committee, the Nonprescription Drugs Advisory Committee and currently is a consultant to the FDA, in addition to his role at the institute. Dr. Cohen's institute newsletters reach over 1 million American healthcare professionals and officials in over 30 foreign countries. He has received the John M. Eisenberg Patient Safety and Quality Award from the National Quality Forum and The Joint Commission; the Harvey A. K. Whitney Award from the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists; and was named a MacArthur Fellow by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Dr. Cohen is chairperson of the International Medication Safety Network.
Jan Compton, BSN, RN. Vice President of Patient Safety and Chief Patient Safety Officer of Baylor Scott & White Health (Dallas). Ms. Compton has over 30 years of nursing and leadership experience at Baylor Health Care System and Baylor Scott & White and served as director of patient safety before assuming her current position. She oversees the development and implementation of evidence-based safety practices aimed at reducing inpatient mortality rates and moving toward the organizational goals of no preventable deaths, no preventable injuries and no preventable risks. Ms. Compton is a member of the North Texas Association for Healthcare Quality, previously served as Patient Safety and Quality Committee chair for the Dallas-Fort Worth Hospital Council and is a member of the North Texas Healthcare Information and Quality Collaborative.
Sara Cosgrove, MD. Director of Johns Hopkins Hospital Department of Antimicrobial Stewardship (Baltimore). Dr. Cosgrove serves several roles within the Johns Hopkins system, including professor of medicine and epidemiology in the division of infectious disease at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, as well as director of Johns Hopkins Hospital department of antimicrobial stewardship. Her most recent research pertained to strategies for implementation of antimicrobial stewardship activities within healthcare. Previously, she led the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America and earned the Oswald Avery Award from the Infectious Diseases Society of America for her research.
Jack Cox, MD. Senior Vice President and Chief Quality Officer of Providence St. Joseph Health (Renton, Wash.) and Senior Vice President and CMO of St. Joseph Health (Irvine, Calif.). Dr. Cox was named senior vice president and CMO of St. Joseph Health in 2015, after serving as senior vice president and chief quality officer at St. Joseph Health affiliate Hoag Hospital in Newport Beach, Calif. The health systems have joined to create an integrated healthcare system, St. Joseph Hoag Health, in Southern California. At Hoag, he was responsible for six clinical institutes and oversaw the development of physician engagement models for sustained success. A board-certified family physician, Dr. Cox has a long career in healthcare, including time as regional medical director for Salt Lake City-based Intermountain Healthcare and CMO of Premier, a national alliance of nonprofit hospitals and health systems.
Christy Dempsey, RN, MSN, CNOR, CENP, FAAN. CNO of Press Ganey (Boston). Ms. Dempsey has about 30 years of healthcare experience in nursing, perioperative and emergency services management as well as physician-hospital collaboration. She joined Press Ganey in 2009 and spent time as leader of clinical and operational consulting services for Press Ganey before being promoted to her current role as CNO. She’s a nursing department faculty member at Missouri State University-Springfield and author of the book, The Antidote to Suffering: How Compassionate Connected Care Can Improve Safety, Quality and Experience.
Renee Demski. Vice President of Quality for Johns Hopkins Hospital, Johns Hopkins Health System and Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality (Baltimore). In nearly three decades of work at Johns Hopkins, Ms. Demski has played a key role in developing an operating management system for quality and safety for the health system, and she now focuses on continual organizational improvement. Ms. Demski is heavily involved in Johns Hopkins Medicine's National Leader Strategy, which is designed to improve patient safety and quality. Under her direction, the program has helped Johns Hopkins-affiliated hospitals win such awards as the Joint Commission Top Performer and Delmarva Excellence recognition.
Cathy E. Duquette, PhD, RN, MSN, BSN. Executive Vice President of Nursing Affairs of Lifespan (Providence, R.I.). In 2006, Dr. Duquette joined Lifespan, an integrated, academic health system with four licensed hospitals and various outpatient service locations. Before her current role with Lifespan, she was senior vice president and chief quality officer of Rhode Island Hospital and Hasbro Children's Hospital in Providence as well as vice president of nursing and patient care services and CNO of Newport [R.I.] Hospital. Dr. Duquette is a fellow of the National Association for Healthcare Quality and has extensive experience evaluating and monitoring healthcare providers. She previously served as an appraiser for the Magnet Recognition Program and as senior vice president of the Hospital Association of Rhode Island.
Derek Feeley. President and CEO of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (Boston). Mr. Feeley has helmed the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, an independent nonprofit organization, since 2015. Before becoming president and CEO, Mr. Feeley was IHI's executive vice president, overseeing the organization's efforts in such areas as person- and family-centered care, patient safety and quality, cost and value. He also previously served as director general for health and social care in the Scottish government and chief executive of the National Health Service in Scotland. In 2013, Mr. Feeley was made a companion of the Order of the Bath by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.
Karen Frush, MD. Chief Patient Safety Officer of Duke University Health System (Durham, N.C.) and Vice President of Quality at LifePoint Health (Brentwood, Tenn.). A trained pediatrician, Dr. Frush became chief patient safety officer of the Duke University Health System in 2004 after serving as medical director of pediatric emergency services and CMO of children's services. In addition to her current role, she is professor of pediatrics at Duke University School of Medicine and clinical professor of nursing at Duke University's nursing school. Throughout her career, Dr. Frush has served on numerous boards and was the first pediatrician named to the North Carolina State Emergency Medical Services Advisory Board.
Atul Gawande, MD. Author and Endocrinologist at Brigham and Women's Hospital (Boston). Dr. Gawande is one of the most well-recognized physicians in the country for his efforts to communicate patient safety to fellow clinicians as well as patients. On the clinical side, he specializes in gastrointestinal, general and endocrine surgery. He is executive director of Ariadne Labs, a nonprofit healthcare solutions provider at Brigham and Women's Hospital and the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health. A New York Times best-selling author, Dr. Gawande penned The Checklist Manifesto and Being Mortal and articles for the New Yorker about improving the healthcare system. His honors include a National Magazine Award for an article on end-of-life care; AcademyHealth's HSR Impact Award for surgical safety checklist research; a MacArthur Fellowship; and the Lewis Thomas Prize for Writing about Science.
Mark Graber, MD. Senior Fellow in the Healthcare Quality and Outcomes Program for RTI International (Chicago). Dr. Graber is a senior fellow in the healthcare quality and outcomes program for RTI International, an independent, nonprofit research institute. A patient safety leader, his research has focused on biomedical and health services, as well as diagnostic errors in medicine. Previously, Dr. Garber taught at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, and originated the internationally celebrated Patient Safety Awareness Week, in 2003.
Linda Groah, MSN, RN, CNOR. Executive Director and CEO of the Association of periOperative Registered Nurses (Denver). Ms. Groah has extensive perioperative nursing executive experience. She helms the Association of periOerative Registered Nurses, a Denver-based nonprofit organization. Before her current role, Ms. Groah served as COO of Kaiser Foundation Hospital in San Francisco; nurse executive for Kaiser Foundation Hospital-San Francisco and Kaiser Foundation Hospital-South San Francisco; director of nursing operating room-post-anesthesia care unit-Surgery Center at the University of California San Francisco Hospitals and Clinics; and OR director at the Macon-based Medical Center of Central Georgia. Her honors include AORN's Award for Excellence in Perioperative Nursing in 1989, as well as Nursing Spectrum magazine's California and US Nursing Excellence Award for Leadership in 2005. She was inducted as a fellow of the American Academy of Nursing 18 years ago and was named one of San Francisco's 100 most influential women in business in 2006.
Hitinder Gurm, MD. Associate Chief Clinical Officer and Associate Professor of Internal Medicine and Cardiology at the University of Michigan Frankel Cardiovascular Center (Ann Arbor). In addition to serving as associate chief clinical officer and associate internal medicine and cardiology professor at the University of Michigan Frankel Cardiovascular Center, Dr. Gurm is section chief of cardiology at the VA Ann Arbor Health Care System as well as associate chief of the cardiovascular division at Ann Arbor-based University of Michigan Health System. He also serves as director of the Blue Cross Blue Shield Cardiovascular Consortium Percutaneous Coronary Intervention Registry, a multicenter registry gathering data for research. One study using the registry's data found Michigan's Medicaid expansion did not have a negative effect on coronary artery disease treatment outcomes. Dr. Gurm served as a co-author of the research letter that was published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. In 2016, Michigan Health & Hospital Association honored Dr. Gurm with the Patient Safety & Quality Leadership Award.
Richa Gupta. Vice President of Performance Improvement and Operational Effectiveness and Chief Quality Officer for Rush University Medical Center (Chicago). As vice president of performance improvement and operational effectiveness and chief quality officer for Rush University Medical Center, Dr. Gupta leads lean management system as well as quality/performance improvement strategy implementation across the medical center. Her research work has been published in Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety and Academic Medicine. Her research centered on healthcare consumer rankings as well as the impact of EHRs on quality and patient satisfaction. She was selected to the 2016-17 inaugural class of the Carol Emmott Fellowship, which is focused on mitigating gender disparities in healthcare leadership. Each fellow develops and implements an impact project with a mentor; Dr. Gupta's project focused on creating a continuous improvement framework across the Rush system.
Ann Hendrich, PhD, RN. Senior Vice President and Chief Quality/Safety and Nursing Officer of Ascension Health (St. Louis). As senior vice president and chief quality/safety and nursing officer, Dr. Hendrich oversees nursing operations at the largest nonprofit healthcare system in the U.S., comprising 2,600-plus sites of care and 153 hospitals. She is the creator of the Acuity-Adaptable hospital room model that aims to incorporate comfort, technology and efficiency in hospital room design. She serves on the Nursing Advisory Council for The Joint Commission and is actively involved in quality improvement research. Dr. Hendrich has also served as principal investigator for an Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality grant focused on improving obstetrical patient safety. Dr. Hendrich was also involved in a study published in the Journal of Obstetric, Gynecologic & Neonatal Nursing that examined the risk factors for shoulder dystocia among pregnant women.
Regina Hoffman. Executive Director of Pennsylvania Patient Safety Authority (Harrisburg). As executive director of the Pennsylvania Patient Safety Authority, Ms. Hoffman is responsible for patient safety governance at the state's 1,300 healthcare institutions. She also oversees Pennsylvania's patient safety reporting system, PA-PSRS, and the authority's quarterly peer-reviewed journal. She is a voluntary faculty member for the CPPS preparation course for National Patient Safety Foundation/Institute for Healthcare Improvement. She was previously administrative director of quality for Pottsville, Pa.-based Schuylkill Health.
Mark Jarrett, MD. Senior Vice President, Associate CMO and Chief Quality Officer of Northwell Health (New Hyde Park, N.Y.). In addition to his administrative roles at Northwell Health, Dr. Jarrett is a professor of medicine at the Donald and Barbara Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell in Hempstead, N.Y. In his current roles, he is responsible for care quality, patient safety and medical services across the system, which includes 19 hospitals and four affiliate medical centers. He previously served as CMO and designated institutional official at Staten Island University Hospital in New York City. He is a past president of the Richmond County Medical Society.
Brian Kaminski, DO. Vice President of Quality and Patient Safety and Patient Safety Officer at ProMedica (Toledo, Ohio) and Medical Director of the Emergency Department at ProMedica Toledo Hospital. Dr. Kaminski became vice president of quality and patient safety and patient safety officer at ProMedica in 2013. During his tenure, he has implemented safety coaches at all ProMedica acute care locations and helped implement the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality's CANDOR process, a road map for timely response to unexpected patient harm events. He also established Toledo Talks sessions, through which employees can share results of serious safety event investigations. In 2015, Dr. Kaminski became a certified professional in patient safety through the National Patient Safety Foundation.
Thomas Kelley, MD. Vice President of Quality and Clinical Transformation at Orlando (Fla.) Health. Dr. Kelley has served as Orlando Health's vice president of quality and clinical transformation since May 2017, prior to which he was chief quality officer of the organization. He has played a key role in developing collaborative groups focused on reducing harm and readmissions rates, as well as establishing the RightCare initiative, which aims to promote the implementation of standardized pathways. In 2016, the health system won the Florida Hospital Association's Leadership in Quality & Patient Safety award.
Joe Kiani. Founder of the Patient Safety Movement Foundation and Founder, Chairman and CEO of Masimo (Irvine, Calif.). Mr. Kiani created the Patient Safety Movement Foundation in 2013, which focuses on reducing preventable patient deaths. The foundation organizes the annual Patient Safety Science & Technology Summit. The summit brings together clinicians, healthcare CEOs, patient advocates and government leaders to discuss and develop solutions for patient safety issues. Additionally, Mr. Kiani is the founder, chairman and CEO of medical technology company Masimo Corp., which focuses on developing patient monitoring devices. Mr. Kiani created the Masimo Foundation for Ethics, Innovation and Competition in Healthcare to encourage activities and research opportunities that improve patient safety. In 2012, Ernst & Young honored Mr. Kiani with the National Entrepreneur of the Year Life Sciences Award.
Clifford Y. Ko, MD. Director of the American College of Surgeons Division of Research and Optimal Patient Care. As director of the American College of Surgeons' Division of Research and Optimal Patient Care, Dr. Ko oversees all quality improvement programs, including the American College of Surgeons National Surgical Quality Improvement Program. A colorectal cancer specialist, he is the Robert and Kelly Day Professor of Surgical Outcomes at UCLA. He led the development of the Center for Surgical Outcomes and Quality at UCLA, which focuses on improving the delivery of surgery through the entire episode of care.
Stephen Lawless, MD. Senior Vice President and Chief Clinical Officer at Nemours Children's Health System (Jacksonville, Fla.). In addition to managing quality and safety across Nemours, which cares for 250,000 patients each year, Dr. Lawless is a professor of pediatrics at Philadelphia-based Thomas Jefferson University. The board-certified pediatric physician frequently speaks to audiences across the country on improving quality and safety in medical care, with a particular focus on how EMRs affect care quality. Dr. Lawless is also a fellow of the American College of Critical Care Medicine.
Helen Macfie, PharmD. Chief Transformation Officer of MemorialCare (Fountain Valley, Calif.). With over 20 years of experience in organizational improvement at MemorialCare and beyond, Dr. Macfie is responsible for quality and patient safety improvement initiatives across the five-hospital health system, which has over 200 care sites. She also teaches for the Institute for Healthcare Improvement's Safety Executive and Leading Population Health courses and serves on The Joint Commission Pioneers in Quality Advisory Panel.
Gerald Maccioli, MD. Chief Quality Officer for Envision Healthcare (Nashville, Tenn.) and Medical Director of Envision Healthcare Center for Quality and Patient Safety. As the chief quality officer for Envision Healthcare, Dr. Maccioli has bolstered the physician-led organization's quality improvement reporting initiatives by creating a dedicated quality organization of more than 200 individuals. He is responsible for an operating expenses budget of approximately $15 million and capital expenditure budget of about $9 million. Dr. Maccioli has served as the chair of the American Medical Association Committee of Innovators and director of quality for American Anesthesiology of North Carolina.
Julie Marhalik-Helms, BSN, RN. Vice President of Quality Improvement of North American Partners in Anesthesia (Melville, N.Y.). For the majority of her career, Ms. Marhalik-Helms has cultivated initiatives to improve care quality and patient safety. As NAPA's vice president of quality improvement, she oversees the anesthesia and managed care provider's patient safety and quality program at more than 200 clinical sites. Additionally, Ms. Marhalik-Helms works to enhance the patient experience through NAPA's Service Experience program and was nominated as the vice chair for the Anesthesia Business Group Qualified Clinical Data Registry.
Ken Maxik. Director of Patient Safety and Compliance of CompleteRx (Houston). With more than 20 years of experience in pharmacy operations and management, Mr. Maxik has served as the director of patient safety and compliance at CompleteRx, a hospital pharmacy management and patient care company, for more than a decade. Mr. Maxik is responsible for the patient safety division at CompleteRx and creates a proprietary 250-point patient safety checklist for clients each year to improve patient outcomes at the facility level. Additionally, Mr. Maxik served as president of the Kentucky Association for Healthcare Quality for the 2014-15 term.
David Mayer, MD. Vice President of Quality and Safety at MedStar Health (Columbia, Md.). Before beginning his role as vice president of quality and safety at MedStar Health, Dr. Mayer held various leadership roles at Chicago-based University of Illinois Medical Center, including CMO for Quality and Safety Graduate Medical Education and director of the UIC Masters of Science Patient Safety Leadership Program. At MedStar Health, Dr. Mayer oversees the infrastructure for clinical quality and its operational efficiency for each of MedStar's entities. Additionally, he designs and directs activity for patient safety and risk reduction programs across the system.
Lisa McGiffert. Director of Consumers Union's Safe Patient Project. Ms. McGiffert has led Consumers Union advocacy efforts in healthcare access, hospital regulation and care quality measurements since joining the nonprofit in 1991. In her leadership role, Ms. McGiffert collaborates with patients who have experienced medical harm to establish a national consumer activist network aiming to make healthcare safer. Ms. McGiffert is also a leading voice for patient safety issues at conferences across the country and serves on the National Quality Forum Patient Safety Committee.
James Merlino, MD. President and CMO of Strategic Consulting for Press Ganey (South Bend, Ind.). Prior to joining Press Ganey in 2015, Dr. Merlino served as the chief experience officer of Cleveland Clinic, as well as a practicing staff colorectal surgeon. Previously, during his time practicing at Cleveland-based MetroHealth, Dr. Merlino implemented care paths for managing complex colorectal surgery patients and advocated for implementing the American College of Surgeons National Surgical Quality Improvement Program. Dr. Merlino is also the founder and current president of the Association for Patient Experience.
Rustin Morse, MD. Senior Vice President of Quality and Safety and Chief Quality Officer at Children's Health (Dallas). In his role at Children's Health, a three-hospital pediatric health system, Dr. Morse works to improve patient care quality and safety for both patients and staff. Dr. Morse continues to practice pediatric emergency medicine and participates in research that evaluates how to measure and improve quality. In 2016, Children's Health reduced serious safety events by 50 percent under Dr. Morse's leadership.
Elizabeth A. Mort, MD. Senior Vice President for Quality and Safety and Chief Quality Officer of Massachusetts General Hospital/Massachusetts General Physicians Organization (Boston). In addition to overseeing quality and safety for one of the country's top-ranked hospitals, Dr. Mort is a primary care physician with interests in women's health, prevention and disease management. She is board-certified in internal medicine and is nationally recognized for her efforts in measuring and improving quality. Dr. Mort is also an assistant professor at Boston-based Harvard Medical School's Department of Medicine and Department of Health Care Policy.
Brigitta Mueller, MD. Vice President of Medical Affairs and Chief Patient Safety Officer of Johns Hopkins All Children's Hospital (St. Petersburg, Fla.). Dr. Mueller joined All Children's Hospital in 2013, where she provides oversight and works with other hospital leaders, physicians and staff on developing numerous quality and patient safety initiatives. Additionally, Dr. Mueller is a professor of pediatrics in hematology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore. She is also the interim director of the Johns Hopkins All Children's Cancer & Blood Disorders Institute and has published over 84 peer-reviewed scientific articles and 30 book chapters.
David Nash, MD. Dean of the Jefferson College of Population Health (Philadelphia). Dr. Nash became the founding dean of the Jefferson College of Population Health in 2008 and has spent more than 25 years as a Thomas Jefferson University faculty member. He has governance responsibilities in public and private sector organizations and serves on the National Quality Forum's task force on improving population health. He is a founding member of the American Association of Medical Colleges IQ Steering Committee and has authored and edited several publications related to population health and patient safety, including Demand Better!: Revive Our Broken Healthcare System and Population Health: Creating a Culture of Wellness.
Margaret E. O'Kane. Founder and President of the National Committee for Quality Assurance (Washington, D.C.). In 1990, Ms. O'Kane founded the National Committee for Quality Assurance. As its current president, she helps drive quality improvement through awarding accolades like the NCQA Patient-Centered Medical Home Recognition, which is given to programs using patient-centered processes to coordinate care. In 2000 — 10 years after Ms. O'Kane founded NCQA — the CDC bestowed her with its highest honor, the Champion of Prevention Award. She is also the recipient of the 2009 Picker Institute Individual Award for Excellence in the Advancement of Patient-Centered Care, and the National Center for Healthcare Leadership's 2012 Gail L. Warden Leadership Excellence Award.
Barbara Pelletreau. Senior Vice President of Patient Safety at Dignity Health (San Francisco). Ms. Pelletreau joined Dignity Health's ranks more than 16 years ago and now serves as senior vice president of patient safety. Under her leadership, the 39-hospital system became one of 16 healthcare organizations to partake in CMS' Hospital Improvement Innovation Network in 2016. Over the past year, Dignity Health reduced hypoglycemic events by 27 percent, sepsis mortality by 16 percent, clostridium difficile events by 11 percent, and surgical site infections by 25 percent. Ms. Pelletreau also helped the system's hospitals adopt Just Culture, which recognizes how system failures affect patient safety, and early communication with patients and families after an adverse event.
Peter Pronovost, MD, PhD. Senior Vice President for Clinical Safety at UnitedHealthcare (Minnetonka, Minn.). Dr. Pronovost, the developer of a checklist protocol aimed at reducing infections associated with central line catheters, became senior vice president for clinical safety at UnitedHealthcare in February 2018. Prior to joining the nation's largest health insurer, he served as senior vice president for patient safety and quality at Baltimore-based Johns Hopkins Medicine and director of Hopkins' Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality. In 2008, Dr. Pronovost's work at the Armstrong Institute earned him a MacArthur Fellowship and landed him on Time magazine's list of the 100 most influential people in the world.
Mitesh Rao, MD. Chief Patient Safety Officer and Director of the Center for Advancing Patient Safety at Stanford (Calif.) Health Care. Dr. Rao splits his time at Stanford Health Care between two roles: system patient safety officer and director of the system's Center for Advancing Patient Safety. He is also a board-certified emergency medicine physician and an assistant professor of emergency medicine at the Stanford School of Medicine. Dr. Rao was a fellow in the acclaimed Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program and previously directed Chicago-based Northwestern Medicine's patient safety education program. At Northwestern, he spearheaded the integration of telemedicine into the health system to improve patient care.
Robert Redfield, MD. Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Washington, D.C.). For more than 30 years, Dr. Redfield has been an engaged leader of clinical research and care of chronic human viral infections and infectious diseases, especially HIV. In March 2018, Dr. Redfield became the 18th director of the CDC and administrator for the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. He brings a breadth of public service experience to the positions; he was the founding director of the Department of Retroviral Research within the U.S. Military's HIV Research Program and spent 20 years with the U.S. Army Medical Corps. Dr. Redfield also co-founded College Park-based University of Maryland's Institute of Human Virology, and was the chief of infectious diseases and vice chair of medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore.
Anne Schuchat, MD. Acting Principal Deputy Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Washington, D.C.). In 1988, Dr. Schuchat entered the public health field as an epidemic intelligence service officer at the CDC. She was the first medical director of the Active Bacterial Core surveillance of the Emerging Infections Program Network and led prevention efforts of newborn group B streptococcal disease infection in the 1990s. Since 2015, Dr. Schuchat has been the principal deputy director of the CDC, and also helmed the agency as acting director from January 2017 to July 2017 and January to March of 2018. Several high-profile experiences led Dr. Schuchat to her current leadership role, including acting as chief health officer for the CDC's 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic response and guiding the CDC team in its role during Beijing's 2003 SARS outbreak.
Robert M. Wachter, MD. Professor and Chair of the Department of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. Since coining the term "hospitalist" in 1996, Dr. Wachter is often regarded as the father of the hospitalist field. He is chair of the University of California, San Francisco's Department of Medicine, an esteemed program that often leads the nation in National Institutes of Health grants. In 2004, The Joint Commission awarded him the nation's top honor in patient safety: the John M. Eisenberg Award. In addition to his scholarship, Dr. Wachter is a prolific writer and edits the federal government's leading website on patient safety. His book, The Digital Doctor, made The New York Times' science best-seller list in 2015.
Sam Robert Watson. Senior Vice President for Patient Safety and Quality and Executive Director of the Michigan Health & Hospital Association Keystone Center (Okemos). As the senior vice president for patient safety and quality at the Michigan Health & Hospital Association Keystone Center, Mr. Watson has led the center in collecting, analyzing and aggregating adverse event data to pioneer a cultural shift toward clinical improvement among Michigan hospitals. Mr. Watson, an adjunct faculty member for Lansing (Mich.) Community College, previously served as the director of quality improvement and pastoral care at Ingham Regional Medical Center in Lansing, now called McLaren Greater Lansing. Mr. Watson has delivered 100 conference speeches at hospitals, universities and conventions during the course of his career, and his work has been featured in 35 national and international publications.
Stephen Weber, MD. Vice President of Clinical Effectiveness and CMO of University of Chicago Medicine. As vice president of clinical effectiveness and CMO of University of Chicago Medicine, Dr. Weber specializes in antimicrobial-resistant infections among vulnerable populations, especially geriatric patients. He is an active member of the university's infection prevention outreach team and offers monthly educational web meetings for nurses in Chicago-area schools in an effort to standardize student care. Dr. Weber is the author of several studies on topics such as the prevention and management of healthcare-associated infections, with an emphasis on infections caused by multidrug-resistant organisms.
Eric Wei, MD. Vice President and Chief Quality Officer of NYC Health + Hospitals (New York City). An emergency physician by training, Dr. Wei completed his emergency medicine residency and the healthcare administration scholars program at Ann Arbor-based University of Michigan in 2013. In the last year of his residency, Dr. Wei became a chief resident at the university, and later donned the titles of interim chief quality officer and associate medical director for quality, safety and risk at Los Angeles-based LAC+USC Medical Center. Today, Dr. Wei leads patient safety efforts at the nation's largest public health system, NYC Health + Hospitals, as vice president and chief quality officer. He is a fellow of the American College of Emergency Physicians and the American Academy of Emergency Medicine.