Aron Ralston
Inspiration for the Film 127 Hours |
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In 2003 Aron Ralston's story made headlines worldwide. After being pinned by a half-ton boulder for nearly a week in a remote three-foot-wide slot canyon in southern Utah, Ralston narrowly escaped death by severing his right forearm with a dull pocketknife. After applying a tourniquet, he hiked and rappelled for five hours through Blue John Canyon before searchers in a helicopter miraculously rescued him
Ralston documented the life-altering experience and his remarkable will to survive in his New York Times best-selling book, Between a Rock and a Hard Place. His story has been adapted into a movie by Oscar-winning director Danny Boyle. The film, 127 Hours, is being touted as an Oscar contender. Thanks to the movie's success, the book is back on the Best Seller's list in 2010.
Ralston graduated as Carnegie Mellon University's top student in mechanical engineering in 1997, with Phi Beta Kappa honors for a second degree in French. He left his job as a mechanical engineer with Intel in 2002 to follow his passion for outdoor adventures in Colorado.
Aided by radical prosthetic devices that he helped design–Ralston has expanded his adventures to the world's great peaks, deserts, and rivers. He is the only person to have solo-climbed all 59 of Colorado's 14,000-foot-high mountains in winter; the only person with a disability to have skied from the summit of Denali, North America's tallest mountain; and in April 2009, he became the first amputee to row a raft through the Grand Canyon.
Today, Ralston lives with his wife Jessica and their son in Boulder, Colorado. He also advocates for Utah and Colorado wilderness.
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Mark R. Chassin, MD, FACP, MPP, MPH
President, The Joint Commission |
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Mark R. Chassin, M.D., M.P.P., M.P.H., is president of The Joint Commission. In this role, he oversees the activities of the nation's predominant standards-setting and accrediting body in health care. Joint Commission accreditation and certification is recognized worldwide as a symbol of quality that reflects an organization's commitment to quality improvement and to meeting state-of-the-art performance standards.
Previously, Dr. Chassin was the Edmond A. Guggenheim Professor of Health Policy and founding Chairman of the Department of Health Policy at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, and Executive Vice President for Excellence in Patient Care at The Mount Sinai Medical Center. Before coming to Mount Sinai, Dr. Chassin served as Commissioner of the New York State Department of Health. He is a board-certified internist and practiced emergency medicine for 12 years. His background also includes service in the federal government and many years of health services and health policy research.
While at Mount Sinai Medical Center, Dr. Chassin built a nationally recognized quality improvement program. The focus of the program was on achieving substantial gains in all aspects of quality of care, encompassing safety, clinical outcomes, the experiences of patients and families, and the working environment of caregivers.
Dr. Chassin has been recognized for his contributions to the fields of quality measurement and improvement with several honors. He is a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences and was selected in the first group of honorees as a lifetime member of the National Associates of the National Academies, a new program which recognizes career contributions. In addition, Dr. Chassin was a member of the IOM committee that authored "To Err is Human" and "Crossing the Quality Chasm." He is a recipient of the Founders' Award of the American College of Medical Quality and the Ellwood Individual Award of the Foundation for Accountability. He is currently a candidate for the Modern Healthcare 100 Most Influential People in Healthcare.
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Dr. Dale Bratzler, DO, MPH
Professor of Public Health and Associate Dean in the College of Public Health at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center |
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Dale Bratzler, DO, MPH, is a Professor of Public Health and Associate Dean in the College of Public Health at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center. In addition, he serves as a medical director for the Oklahoma Foundation for Medical Quality providing support for national hospital quality improvement and public reporting initiatives. He recently completed his second stint as President of the American Health Quality Association, is a recent member of the National Advisory Council for the Agency for Healthcare Research and is currently a member of the Healthcare Infection Control Practices Advisory Committee (HICPAC) for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Dr. Bratzler has published extensively and frequently and presents locally and nationally on topics related to healthcare quality, particularly associated with improving care for pneumonia, increasing vaccination rates, and reducing surgical complications. He received his Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine degree at the Kansas City University of Medicine and Biosciences, and his Master of Public Health degree from the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, College of Public Health.
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Trent T. Haywood, MD, JD
Senior Vice President of Clinical Performance and Chief Medical Officer, VHA Inc. |
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Trent Haywood is Senior Vice President of Clinical Performance and Chief Medical Officer for VHA Inc. He works with more than 150 other physicians and nurses employed in the organization. His focus is on developing VHA's best practices platform to drive quality across the VHA network, stimulating clinical innovation, supporting pay-for-performance, and preparing for consumer driven health care.
Prior to joining VHA, he served as Deputy Chief Medical Officer for the Office of Clinical Standards and Quality within the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. As Deputy Chief Medical Officer, Haywood was part of the senior management team directing quality management and quality improvement initiatives connected to Medicare.
Haywood holds a bachelor's degree from the University of Notre Dame and a medical degree from the University of Illinois in Chicago; he completed his internal medicine residency at Loyola University. Haywood also holds a law degree from Northwestern School of Law.
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Deborah Adler
Principal, Deborah Adler, LLC. |
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Motivated by a desire to make people's lives easier and safer, Deborah Adler designed a comprehensive system for packaging prescription medicine as her master's thesis. The result—a completely reinvented pharmacy experience. She brought this innovation to Target, and together they developed the ClearRx system.
Adler continues to deliver new directions in products, packaging, labeling, identity and information systems through her multi-disciplinary design studio Deborah Adler LLC. There she pioneers design solutions for clients such as Target, Johnson and Johnson, and Medline in addition to exploring and developing her own projects. Always at the heart of her work is the belief that design can change people's behavior.
Prior to forming her firm in 2007, Adler was a senior designer for Milton Glaser for five years where she provided guidance to clients seeking new avenues in visual communications, signage programs and brand identity. Many prominent media outlets including New York Magazine, Glamour Magazine, NBC Nightly News, and CBS Sunday Morning have featured Adler. Her work is in the permanent collection at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and has been shown at the Cooper Hewitt as part of the National Design Triennial and as a solo exhibition From Master's Thesis to Medicine Cabinet.
Adler received her Master of Fine Arts in Design from The School of Visual Arts in 2002.
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Chris McCarthy
Director, ILN | Innovation Specialist, IC |
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Chris McCarthy is the Director of the Innovation Learning Network and an Innovation Specialist with Kaiser Permanente's Innovation Consultancy. In this dual role, he innovates at the frontlines of healthcare and he connects innovators across the world to accelerate the spread of design thinking and great ideas; this dual work was recently feature in the Harvard Business Review (Sept 2010). Some of his innovations include better tools for new moms, safer medication administration for patients, and more robust shift changes for nurses. His current work is exploring the ups and downs of workplace safety.
Chris has a master's in business administration from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute / Copenhagen Business School, and a master's in public health in Health Policy from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. In his spare time, he obsesses about fitness, movies and home remodels.
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Sorrel King
Founder - Josie King Foundation, Author |
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Sorrel King founded the Josie King Foundation in 2001 with her husband Tony after their daughter Josie died as a result of medical errors. The Josie King Foundation supports innovative patient safety programs that influence the way safety is incorporated into medical care. The Josie King Pediatric Patient Safety Program at the Johns Hopkins Hospital's Children's Center, the Condition H – Josie King Patient Safety Call Line at UPMC – Shadyside Hospital both received initial funding from the Josie King Foundation and currently serve as models for patient safety programs across the country.
Sorrel is a leading advocate for improving patient safety. Her book Josie's Story was published in September 2009 by Grove/Atlantic, Inc. Josie's Story was named one of the best health books in 2009 by the Wall Street Journal, and won the "First Book" award at the 2010 "Books for a Better Life" Awards. Sorrel was chosen as one of "50 Women Changing the World" by Woman's Day magazine in February 2010.
As a public speaker, she brings Josie's powerful story and the successes of Foundation-sponsored safety initiatives to wide audiences to ensure that what happened to Josie will never happen to another patient. The DVD copy of her speech is used by thousands of hospitals and health care systems around the world to inspire doctors, nurses, and administrators to create a culture of patient safety at their institutions.
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Victoria Nahum
Co-Founder and Executive Director, Safe Care Campaign |
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In 2006, Victoria Nahum became the face the American health care system has come to associate with the problem of health care acquired infections after three members of her family became infected in three different hospitals in three different states in 10 months' time, culminating with the death of her stepson, Josh. He was 27.
Just weeks after Josh's death, she and her husband Armando created
Safe Care Campaign to bring a sharper focus on infection prevention within the American health care environment.
Safe Care Campaign partners with health care systems, hospital administrations and frontline caregivers to remind, provoke, motivate and inspire all who work within the continuum of care of their most noble challenge and moral duty to prevent these infections that annually infect more than 1.7 million and kill more than 99,000 patients in the U.S.
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Carolyn M. Clancy, M.D.
Director, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ)
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Carolyn M. Clancy, M.D., was appointed Director of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) on February 5, 2003, and reappointed on October 9, 2009. Prior to her appointment, Dr. Clancy was Director of AHRQ's Center for Outcomes and Effectiveness Research.
Dr. Clancy, a general internist and health services researcher, is a graduate of Boston College and the University of Massachusetts Medical School. Following clinical training in internal medicine, Dr. Clancy was a Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania. Before joining AHRQ in 1990, she was also an assistant professor in the Department of Internal Medicine at the Medical College of Virginia. She is currently a candidate for the Modern Healthcare 100 Most Influential People in Healthcare.
Dr. Clancy holds an academic appointment at the George Washington University School of Medicine (Clinical Associate Professor, Department of Medicine) and serves as Senior Associate Editor for the journal Health Services Research. She serves on multiple editorial boards, including Annals of Internal Medicine, Annals of Family Medicine, American Journal of Medical Quality, and Medical Care Research and Review.
Dr. Clancy lives in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, DC, with her husband, Bill. She enjoys jogging, movies, and spending time with her extended family, especially her four nieces, who live in Virginia.
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James Avery, M.D., CMD, FACP, FCCP, FAAHPM
Senior Vice President, Chief Medical Officer, Golden Living
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James Avery, M.D. is Senior Vice President and Chief Medical Officer for Golden Living. He is responsible for leading and directing the company-wide medical strategy, as well as implementing this strategy to provide the highest quality of care and service to Golden Living patients and residents.
Previously, Dr. Avery served as the Senior Medical Director for Visiting Nurse Service Hospice Care of New York, the largest hospice in New York City. He was also an Assistant Clinical Professor in Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine.
Before that, he was the Senior Medical Director at Suncoast Hospice, which was the largest hospice in the United States at the time. He was in private practice in Clearwater, Florida for fourteen years in internal medicine and pulmonary medicine.
Dr. Avery is board-certified in Hospice and Palliative Medicine, Internal Medicine, and Pulmonary. He is a Certified Medical Director (CMD) from AMDA. He is a Fellow in the American College of Physicians, a Fellow in the American College of Chest Physicians, and a Fellow in the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine. He is currently a candidate for the Modern Healthcare 100 Most Influential People in Healthcare.
Dr. Avery graduated Phi Beta Kappa with high honors from the State University of New York at Stony Brook, and earned his medical degree at the University of South Florida. In 2007, Dr. Avery was awarded the prestigious Roger C. Bone Award for National Leadership in End-of-Life Care. In 2008, Dr. Avery was given the Lillian B. Wald Award for his hospice and palliative care work in New York City. In 2010, Dr. Avery was named "One of the 50 Most Powerful Physician Executives" by Modern Physician and Modern Healthcare magazines.
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Richard L. Clarke, DHA, FHFMA
President and CEO, Healthcare Financial Management Association
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Dr. Clarke is President and CEO of the Healthcare Financial Management Association (HFMA), Westchester, Illinois, a professional membership association with more than 35,000 members in 70 chapters who share an interest in the financial management of the delivery of healthcare services. He has held this position since June 1986.
Dr. Clarke is a past Chair of the Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Management Education, having served in various capacities for that organization since 1997. He is also a former chair of AHA Financial Solutions, Inc. (a wholly owned subsidiary of the American Hospital Association). Additionally, he has served on the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago's Advisory Council. Currently he serves on several committees and the Board of Directors of CHRISTUS Health, a multi state Catholic Healthcare System headquartered in Dallas, Texas, as well as the Finance and Strategy Committee for Catholic Healthcare Partners in Cincinnati, OH. Dr. Clarke holds an instructor faculty position in the Department of Health Systems Management at Rush University in Chicago and the MBA in Health program for the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Florida. He is currently a candidate for the Modern Healthcare 100 Most Influential People in Healthcare.
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Beth L. Edwards, RN, BA
Clinical Quality Specialist, Jennie Edmundson Memorial Hospital |
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Beth Edwards is a Clinical Quality Specialist for Jennie Edmundson Memorial Hospital in Council Bluffs, Iowa. In her position, she is responsible for Joint Commission readiness, performance improvement and variance event report monitoring. Ms. Edwards has six years of experience advancing Quality and Performance Improvement projects and 10 years experience in clinical research. She received her BA in Business Management and earned her RN from Mary Lanning School of Nursing, Hastings, Nebraska.
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Jacqueline J. Medland R.N., Ph.D.
Chief Nurse Executive, Provena St. Joseph Medical Center, Joliet, IL |
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Dr. Medland currently serves as the Chief Nurse Executive at Provena St. Joseph Medical Center in Joliet, IL. It is here that she led an innovative approach to reducing falls in her organization, achieving "best practice" falls rates in an acute rehab setting and reducing falls by 45% on a busy inpatient medical-telemetry unit. Dr. Medland's leadership career has spanned almost 2 decades, in both the service and academic sectors, including Senior Consultant for The University of Chicago Medical Center in Chicago, Director of Oncology Services at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago, Illinois and Assistant Clinical Professor at the University of Illinois, College of Nursing. She is a member of the American Association of Critical Care Nurses, American Association of Nurses Executives, American Hospital Association, Illinois Organization of Nursing Leaders and the Academy of Management. She received her Bachelor of Science in Nursing from St. Xavier University in Chicago, Illinois, Master of Science from University of Illinois, College of Nursing in Chicago, Illinois, and her Ph.D. in Organization Development from Benedictine University in Lisle, Illinois.
Ms. Medland resides in Darien, Illinois with her husband and two children.
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Lee Sacks, M.D.
Executive Vice President and Chief Medical Officer, Advocate Health Care |
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Dr. Lee Sacks has served as Chief Executive Officer of Advocate
Physician Partners since its creation in 1995. Advocate Physician
Partners is a care management and managed care contracting organization
that includes 3,800 physicians and serves 230,000 capitated and 700,000
PPO enrollees via clinically integrated contracts across Chicagoland.
In 1997, he assumed the additional responsibilities of Executive Vice
President and Chief Medical Officer of Advocate Health Care. In these
roles, he is responsible for clinical excellence, risk management /
insurance, supply chain, clinical laboratories, research, medical
education, managed care contracting and PHO operations.
Prior to the formation of Advocate, Dr. Sacks served as Vice President
of Lutheran General Health Plan and Vice President, Primary Care
Development for Lutheran General HealthSystem. In these dual roles, he
was responsible for strengthening Lutheran General HealthSystem's
primary care infrastructure and the medical management of the Lutheran
General Health Plan.
Dr. Sacks is a member of the American College of Physician Executives
and a Fellow of the American Academy of Family Physicians.
He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in chemical engineering from the
University of Pennsylvania and a Doctor of Medicine degree from the
University of Illinois, College of Medicine. He completed his family
practice residency at Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge, Illinois,
where he served as Chief Resident.
He currently serves on the Metro Chicago board of the American Heart
Association, is a governor of the Institute of Medicine Chicago and is
Board Chairman of the Institute for Clinical Quality and Value.
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Jeff Goldsmith, Ph.D.
President, Health Futures, Inc. |
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Jeff Goldsmith is President of Health Futures, Inc. He is also Associate Professor of Public Health Sciences at the University of Virginia. For eleven years ending in 1990, Jeff Goldsmith was a lecturer in the Graduate School of Business at the University of Chicago, on health services management and policy. He has also lectured on these topics at the Wharton School of Finance, Johns Hopkins, Washington University and the University of California at Berkeley. Jeff Goldsmith's interests include: biotechnology, health policy, international health systems, and the future of health services.
From 1982 to 1994, Jeff served as National Advisor for Healthcare for the firm Ernst and Young, and provided strategy consultation to a wide variety of healthcare systems, health plans, supply and technology firms. Prior to 1982, he was Director of Planning and Government Affairs at the University of Chicago Medical Center and Special Assistant to the Dean of the Pritzker School of Medicine. From 1973 to 1975, Jeff Goldsmith worked in the Office of the Governor, State of Illinois as a fiscal and policy analyst, and Special Assistant to the State Budget Director.
Jeff earned his doctorate in Sociology from the University of Chicago in 1973, studying complex organizations, sociology of the professions, and politics of developing nations. He graduated from Reed College in 1970, majoring in psychology and classics, earning a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship for graduate study in 1971.
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Darrell L. Dean, DO, M.P.H., CHCQM, FAIHQ
Medical Director for Clinical and Operational Performance Improvement – Floyd Medical Center, Rome, GA |
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Darrell Dean, DO, MPH, CHCQM, FAIHQ, is the Medical Director for Clinical and Operational Performance Improvement at Floyd Medical Center in Rome, GA. He is also the CME Surveyor for ACCME accreditation of hospitals for the Medical Association of Georgia.
Prior to his current position, Darrell was Internal Consultant for coding and documentation for Centrex Primary Care Network (name changed to Floyd Primary Care, beginning April 2004). He was also Associate Medical Director of network Staff Physician, North Georgia Medical Associates and served as locum tenens for all 17 practice sites.
He was also worked at the Georgia Department of Human Resources, Division of Public Health as the District Medical Director, Coosa Valley Health District (ten counties in Northwest Georgia).
Darrell received his Master of Public Health degree (M.P.H.), Health Policy and Administration Track From Emory University, Rollins School of Public Health.
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Deborah Lygren, RN, BS, RHIT
Nurse Consultant |
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Deborah Lygren RN BS RHIT joined Peak Resources Inc. In the summer of 2003. She has specialized in Geriatrics and Infection control, she has developed side rail reduction programs as well as quality assurance programs for long term care to name a few. She spent several years as a Director of Nursing in New York before becoming a Long Term Care Consultant in New York City. Deborah Graduated from the Edna McConnell Clark School of Nursing , Columbia Presbyterian Hospital New York in 1990 and received a Bachelor's degree in Community Health from the State University of New York, Empire State College in 1995.Deborah also was member of the New York State Education Department, State Board of Nursing in 2002. She is published in the "Nursing Spectrum, Management Perspectives" a nursing publication.
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Sara Atwell, RN, MHA
Chief Quality and Patient Safety Officer at Oakwood Healthcare System |
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Sara Atwell, RN, MHA is the Chief Quality and Patient Safety Officer at Oakwood Healthcare System. She is responsible for leading the Quality Improvement, Patient Safety and Infection Control efforts across Oakwood Healthcare System acute care hospitals, physician practice division and post-acute services. Oakwood Healthcare System's Clinical Quality Improvement and Patient Safety initiatives are integrated across all divisions.
Ms. Atwell has extensive background in Quality, Patient Safety and Care Management. She is a Six Sigma Green Belt, proficient in Toyota Lean and Workout techniques and trained in Crew Resource Management. She has achieved advance training and certification in Quality and Patient Safety from the Institute for HealthCare Delivery and Research, Intermountain Healthcare. Ms Atwell was the recipient of the 2011 Michigan Healthcare Quality and Patient Safety Leadership Award.
Mrs. Atwell received her nursing degree BSN (1983) from the University of Michigan School of Nursing. Her clinical area of expertise is in Critical Care Nursing. She obtained a Master degree in Health Administration in 1994. Mrs. Atwell came to Oakwood Healthcare System in 2001 after 12 years of Health Care Consulting, principally in Medical Management, Clinical Quality Improvement, Clinical Best Practice Implementation, Change Management and Strategic Operations Planning.
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Thomas M. Lubotsky FACHE
Vice President Supply Chain and Clinical Resource Management, Advocate Health Care |
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Mr. Lubotsky is a broad based healthcare executive with 30 years in leadership roles among integrated delivery systems, including clinical services and ambulatory development, physician practices, and healthcare alliances.
His current position serves as the Vice President Supply Chain and Clinical Resource Management at Advocate Health Care. In this role, Mr. Lubotsky is responsible for the overall leadership of Advocate Health Care's supply chain operations including sourcing and value analysis, procurement, logistics and operations, and performance and technology development. This position sets the strategic vision, core strategies, organizational framework, and operating plan for supply chain including managing key relationships among suppliers, distributors, clinicians, group purchasing, and associates. A critical focus extends to developing the supply chain intelligence capability to drive evidenced based use of supplies, equipment and technology.
Mr. Lubotsky's experience also includes seven years in account management and operating roles at Premier, Inc., a leading healthcare group purchasing alliance whose core business purpose centers on accelerating clinical improvement and supply chain performance. Mr. Lubotsky was responsible for the overall leadership/general management of strategy and goal deployment, performance management, supply chain improvement planning, field operations, customer relationship management and business partner relationship support.
Mr. Lubotsky is a Fellow in the American College of Healthcare Executives (ACHE), a professional member of the Association for Healthcare Resource & Materials Management (AHRMM) and an active member of the Strategic Marketplace Initiative (SMI), a professional forum of leading healthcare systems and suppliers working collaborative toward addressing supply chain related issues and challenges.
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Martie Moore, R.N., MAOM, CPHQ
Chief Nursing Officer at Providence, St. Vincent Medical Center, Portland, OR. |
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Martie Moore currently serves as the Chief Nursing Officer at Providence, St. Vincent Medical Center in Portland, OR. Providence, St. Vincent Medical Center is a Magnet designation hospital within the Providence Health and Services System. Ms. Moore upon joining Providence, St. Vincent Medical Center in 2007, led the organization to take a systematic approach to falls reduction. Fall reductions of over 50% were achieved and have been sustained since 2008.
Ms. Moore has over 20 years of executive leadership experience and has served both as a System CNO and Corporate Compliance Officer in her past roles. She received her Bachelor of Science in Nursing from St. Martin's College in Lacey, Washington and her Masters in Organizational Management from the University of Phoenix, Phoenix, AZ. She has published and presented nationally on changing cultures to assure patient safety. She holds a national certification for health care quality. She serves as a member of Sigma Theta Tau International Honor Society of Nursing, American Organization of Nurse Executives, and National Association for Healthcare Quality. She currently serves as the Vice President for the Board of Northwest Organization of Nurse Executives and Assistant Professor at George Fox University.
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