The Joint Commission selected Edward Pollak, MD, to serve as medical director and patient safety officer of its Division of Healthcare Improvement, and Andrew C. Bland, MD, to serve as medical director of its Division of Healthcare Quality Evaluation.
Dr. Pollak most recently served as vice chief of anesthesiology and perioperative medicine at Beaumont Hospital, Royal Oak (Mich.) and associate professor at Oakland University William Beaumont School of Medicine, also in Royal Oak. He has completed patient safety officer training at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement and root cause analysis training at ECRI Institute.
In his new role, Dr. Pollak oversees the Office of Quality and Patient Safety and the Patient Safety Advisory Group and promotes performance improvement initiatives.
Dr. Bland previously served as system chief quality officer at Springfield, Ill.-based Hospital Sisters Health System. Board certified in nephrology, internal medicine and pediatrics, he also holds an MBA from the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
In his new role, Dr. Bland will be responsible for strategic planning to engage national stakeholders, identifying key quality and safety improvement targets and selecting strategies to implement them.
Both Drs. Pollack and Bland assumed their new roles Jan. 2.