Donald M. Berwick
Donald M. Berwick, MD, MPP, FRCP, president and CEO, Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), is one of the nation's leading authorities on health care quality and improvement issues. He is also clinical professor of pediatrics and health care policy at the Harvard Medical School. Dr. Berwick has served as vice chair of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, the first "Independent Member" of the Board of Trustees of the American Hospital Association, and as chair on the National Advisory Council of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. An elected member of the Institute of Medicine (IOM), Dr. Berwick now serves on the IOM’s governing Council. He served on President Clinton's Advisory Commission on Consumer Protection and Quality in the Healthcare Industry. Co-chaired by the secretaries of health and human services and labor, the Commission was charged with developing a broader understanding of issues facing the rapidly evolving health care delivery system and building consensus on ways to assure and improve the quality of health care.
Carolyn M. Clancy
Carolyn M. Clancy, MD, was appointed director of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) on February 5, 2003. Prior to her appointment, Dr. Clancy had served as AHRQ's acting director since March 2002 and previously was director of the Agency's Center for Outcomes and Effectiveness Research (COER).
Dr. Clancy, who is 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. She was also an assistant professor in the Department of Internal Medicine at the Medical College of Virginia in Richmond before joining AHRQ in 1990.
Dr. Clancy holds an academic appointment at George Washington University School of Medicine (clinical associate professor, Department of Medicine) and serves as senior associate editor, Health Services Research. Dr. Clancy has served on multiple editorial boards (currently Annals of Family Medicine, American Journal of Medical Quality, and Medical Care Research and Review). Dr. Clancy has published widely in peer reviewed journals and has edited or contributed to seven books. She is a member of the Institute of Medicine and was elected a Master of the American College of Physicians in 2004.
Her major research interests include various dimensions of health care quality and patient care, including women's health, primary care, access to care services, and the impact of financial incentives on physicians' decisions.
Mark McClellan
Mark McClellan, MD PhD, brings a wealth of practical and in-depth experience to his role as CMS administrator, overseeing Medicare and Medicaid - the programs which provide essential health care services to more than 90 million Americans. A physician and award-winning health care economist, Dr. McClellan was sworn in as administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) following Senate confirmation by unanimous voice vote.
As administrator, Dr. McClellan has led CMS toward a new focus on quality, bringing modern preventive health care to those in Medicare and Medicaid. Under Dr. McClellan’s leadership, CMS is implementing Medicare’s new prescription drug coverage, which delivers a key aspect of modern medicine to America’s seniors and people with a disability. Before coming to CMS, Dr. McClellan served as commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration from Nov. 2002 to March 2004. During 2001 and 2002, Dr. McClellan served in the White House as a member of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers, where he advised on domestic economic issues and was a senior policy director for health care and related economic issues. From 1998-99, he was deputy assistant secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy, where he supervised economic analysis and policy development on a wide range of domestic policy issues.
Previously, Dr. McClellan was associate professor of Economics at Stanford University and associate professor of Medicine at Stanford Medical School. At the medical school, he was director of the Program on Health Outcomes Research. He was also a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research and a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. Dr. McClellan’s award-winning research studies focus on the quality of health care, treatment decisions and health outcomes, the effects of medical treatments, and technological change, among other subjects. He earned his M.D. degree from the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology and his Ph.D. in Economics from MIT.
Jeffrey J. Guterman
Jeffrey J. Guterman, MD, is the medical director for Clinical Resource Management (CRM) in the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services and professor of Medicine and Emergency Medicine in the UCLA School of Medicine.
He also serves as co-chair for Information Technology for the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services. Dr. Guterman's former role as chief of Ambulatory and Community Medicine at Olive View - UCLA Medical Center ensures that his research focus on the application of information technology to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of medical care results in practical and implementable solutions. As chief of Ambulatory Care, he had responsibility for developing and operating the Los Angeles County primary and managed care delivery systems for the San Fernando Valley. He pioneered the development of the first nationally distributed program for the computerized collection of patient information for Poison Control Centers. His current research is on the integration of computer technology into the management of the continuum of care for patients who present to the Emergency Department. Through cooperative efforts with pharmaceutical industry leaders and health care providers, Dr. Guterman has developed medical decision support products encompassing comprehensive preventive health care, Disease Management Programs and integrated, Internet-based referral systems. The goals of these efforts are to provide better health care at lower cost with improved patient satisfaction. He received his M.D. (1983) and Internal Medicine training at Brown University.
Sorrel King
Sorrel King is the founder of The Josie King Foundation. She created the organization that is devoted to addressing safety and quality in health care, after the death of her daughter, Josie King, at Johns Hopkins Medical Center, as a result of medical error.
The Foundation has been responsible for working with Johns Hopkins to create the Josie King Pediatric Patient Safety Program in the Children’s Center. The Foundation has also been involved with other projects, including participation in a disclosure video in conjunction with work done at Hopkins by Dr. Albert Wu, and participation in the implementation of Condition H at UPMC – Shadyside Hospital. As a result of a speech made by Ms. King at the IHI National Forum in 2002, a video was made and distributed to hundreds of health care organizations throughout the world, and has been translated into Hebrew and Spanish. Ms. King has been a keynote or plenary session speaker at many conferences and forums including: the IHI National Forum (2002, 2004) and the EU Patient Safety Summit in 2005, in addition to countless Grand Rounds, and hospital system-based presentations.
Ms. King has appeared on the NBC Nightly News with Tom Brokaw, and Good Morning America, with Charlie Gibson, and was featured in a Forbes magazine article titled “Fixing Hospitals in 2005.” On July 21, 2004, Congressman Patrick J. Kennedy (D-RI) introduced the "Josie King Act" as a tribute to Ms. King’s work and Josie’s life.
Gerald McClinton
Gerald’s mother, Mary McClinton died in 2004 due to a preventable medical error at Virginia Mason Medical Center in Seattle, Washington. Virginia Mason admitted its error, apologized to the family and has, among other things, initiated an award in Mrs. McClinton’s honor recognizing employees for improving health care quality.
Today, Gerald McClinton is an active patient safety advocate who speaks at community and national forums and has been interviewed by CNN.
“Due to this tragedy, I want to help change our health care system. My mother taught me about a life of service and community involvement, and I am committed to this task today. My goal is to help establish patient safety education with hospitals, patients and their families. I want to promote safety policies, regulations and standards. If we can prevent even one family from going through the type of experience that we had, it’s extremely important to us.”
Gerald McClinton has been a foster parent for five boys, served as counselor at a city mental health program and is president of a successful real estate business.
Marlene R. Miller
Marlene R. Miller, MD, MSC, FAAP, is the director of Quality and Safety Initiatives at the Johns Hopkins Children’s Center. In this role she oversees, coordinates and expands ongoing quality and safety initiatives both within the Children’s Center and in conjunction with all other departments throughout Johns Hopkins University. Prior to this position, Dr. Miller was the acting director of the Center for Quality Improvement and Patient Safety at the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality in the Department of Health and Human Services. She trained in Pediatrics and Pediatric Cardiology at Johns Hopkins University and obtained a Masters of Science from the Graduate Training Program in Clinical Investigation at the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health.
Her health services research focuses on quality measurement and improvement and patient safety, serving as a lead in developing the Patient Safety Indicators as a component of the AHRQ Quality Indicators. She serves on numerous external expert panels focused on quality measurement and quality improvement, in conjunction with the American Medical Association, Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, and others, with the goal of establishing consistency in quality measurement strategies across the continuum of care and of ensuring measurement activities for children’s health care.
Julie Ginn Moretz
Julie Ginn Moretz is the director of Family Services Development at MCG Health, Inc. and the associate director of the Center for Patient and Family Centered Care at the Medical College of Georgia in Augusta. Her initial involvement with the hospital was as a parent-advocate where she served as chairman of the Family Advisory Council for five years and then as a consultant. She participated in the design of the national award-winning $53 million Children’s Medical Center and served on numerous hospital committees as the voice for patients and families. Since 1998 as director, Ms. Moretz oversees five departments that support the services of patients and families. She is also the liaison for the institution’s patient and family Advisory Councils that offer input into the design of hospital programs and policies.
Inspired by her youngest son’s illness, Ms. Moretz serves as an advocate for numerous health-related topics. She founded the MCG Children's Heart Program Volunteer Council at the Medical College of Georgia 13 years ago to support families of children with heart disease. This group has raised more than one-half million dollars to fund projects for children with special hearts. This group has received state recognition from the Georgia Hospital Association as well as national recognition from the American Hospital Association. Ms. Moretz received the 2005 Women of Excellence Award in Health Care and has been honored as a National Eckerd’s Top 100 Woman.
Because of her advocacy work with children and health care, Ms. Moretz was invited by Vice President Al Gore to participate in several national conferences on family-centered health care issues several years ago. In 1998, she shared the stage with President and Mrs. Clinton and Vice President and Mrs. Gore to discuss the effects of a child’s hospitalization on the family.
Carolyn E. Pare
Carolyn Pare is the CEO of the Buyer’s Health Care Action Group (BHCAG), a coalition of more than 30 public and private employers dedicated to health care market reform. In the 15 years since it’s formation, this Minnesota-based coalition has introduced a number of nationally recognized innovations in health care contracting, delivery, quality and consumerism. BHCAG members are committed to supporting a health care system that delivers the care consumers need at the right time, in the right place and at the right price.
As a clear demonstration of BHCAG’s commitment to quality improvement, patient safety and consumer empowerment through information, BHCAG led the way as one of the first Leapfrog Group Regional Rollouts. In January 2003, BHCAG, in partnership with the Minnesota Hospital Association, announced that 100 percent of the hospitals in the state, both urban and rural, agreed to post patient safety information to the Leapfrog Group Web site. BHCAG provided financial support for the implementation of the Minnesota Adverse Events Reporting project, originally enacted as an unfunded legislative mandate in July 2004. In 2005, BHCAG became one of the founding members and co-chair of Governor Pawlenty’s Smart Buy Alliance, a collaboration of public and private purchasers dedicated to common and rational purchasing practices. The Alliance has agreed to use common purchasing standards to drive value into the health care market.
Ms. Pare was previously a director of Human Resources, responsible for Benefits, Risk Management and Human Resource Information Systems at Target Corporation. She currently serves as Secretary/Treasurer of the National Business Coalition on Health, sits on the Steering Committee of the Minnesota Alliance for Patient Safety and the Minnesota Mental Health Action Group and is a member of the National Quality Forum Purchasers Council
Anne Peters
Dr. Anne L. Peters is a nationally and internationally respected diabetologist, one of bestdoctors.com's "Best Doctors in America" and one of the top 20 physicians treating diabetes in the country. She is professor of medicine and director of the USC Clinical Diabetes Programs, and the physician currently in charge of developing the nation’s largest outreach program for community-based diabetes prevention and treatment.
Dr. Peters treats a spectrum of patients, from Hollywood producers, writers, and stars who frequent her clinic in Beverly Hills to the poor who populate her free clinic in East L.A. Dr. Peters' research has been published in leading medical journals including JAMA, Annals of Internal Medicine, the American Journal of Medicine, and Diabetes Care, and she has been quoted in, among others, the Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times.
The former chairperson of the American Diabetes Association Council on Health Care Delivery and Public Health, Dr. Peters speaks nationally and has appeared on Larry King Live, Dateline, CNN, E.R., and the Discovery Channel, among others.
Peter Pronovost
Peter Pronovost, MD, is the medical director of the Center for Innovation in Quality Patient Care and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Anesthesiology/Critical Care Medicine at Johns Hopkins University's School of Medicine. Dr. Pronovost’s special interest is applying clinical research methods that improve quality of health care and safety, especially in intensive care units (ICUs). His expertise in this area has landed him on many committees across the nation.
Within the Johns Hopkins community he co-chairs the Patient Safety Committee and directs Performance Improvement for Intensive Care Units at the hospital; serves on the Johns Hopkins Health System's Performance Improvement Council and Leadership Development Program; and core faculty for the Program for Medical Technology and Practice Assessment. On a national level, Dr. Pronovost is leading an effort to develop the idealized ICU design with the Institute for Healthcare Improvement and developing standards for ICU quality measures with the VHA. Dr. Pronovost is currently working with the Michigan Hospital Association to improve intensive care unit care throughout the state. He is an active member of the National Coalition on Health Care and the medical advisor for the Leapfrog Group for patient safety.
Richard P. Shannon
Richard Shannon, MD, is the Claude R Joyner Professor of Medicine at Drexel University College of Medicine and chair of the Department of Medicine at Allegheny General Hospital. He is a member of the Executive Committee and the Board of Directors of the Pittsburgh Regional Health Initiative (PHRI), a group committed to improving quality of medical care and patient safety within western Pennsylvania. His pioneering work in patient safety has been featured in The Wall Street Journal and ABC’s 20/20, and he has served as a mentor for the IHI’s 100,000 Lives campaign. He also sits on the Governor’s Special Panel on Patient Safety and is a member of the Technical Advisory Group of the Pennsylvania Healthcare Cost Containment Council and of the Research Committee, Pennsylvania Delaware Affiliate and the American Heart Association. He has served as a consultant to the Delmarva Foundation, The Safest in America Consortium, Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Massachusetts and the New York City Business Group on Health.
Dr. Shannon has received numerous teaching awards at both Harvard Medical School and Drexel University College of Medicine. Currently, he is the principal investigator on three NIH RO-1 grants. He received his bachelor’s degree from Princeton University and his Doctor of Medicine from the University of Connecticut School of Medicine. He did his training in Internal Medicine at Beth Israel Hospital, his cardiovascular training at Massachusetts General Hospital, and was the Francis Weld Peabody fellow and associate professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School before moving to Pittsburgh.
Recently, Dr Shannon has accepted the position of professor of Medicine and vice chair for Clinical Affairs in the Department of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. There, he will work with clinical colleagues and fellows in the Leonard Davis Institute at the Wharton Business School to create a national demonstration on the business case for quality in health care.
Patricia Sodomka
Patricia Sodomka, FACHE, is the senior vice president, Patient and Family Centered Care, for MCG Health, Inc. and director of the Medical College of Georgia Center for Patient and Family Centered Care. MCG Health, Inc., the health system for the Medical College of Georgia Hospitals and Clinics, includes the Children's Medical Center, the adult hospital and Georgia Radiation Therapy Center, as well as affiliated clinical services offered throughout the state of Georgia. Board certified in health care management and an ACHE Fellow, Ms. Sodomka is a recognized leader in patient- and family-centered care practices, consulting with the American Hospital Association, the Department of Defense, state medical societies, the Institute for HealthCare Improvement, the Institute for Family-Centered Care, and military and civilian hospitals across the United States.
Ms. Sodomka earned her Bachelor of Science degree in Physical Therapy and her Master’s in Hospital and Health Services Administration at Ohio State University. She has more than 28 years experience in health care management.
Ms. Sodomka is a fellow of the American College of Healthcare Executives (ACHE). She has served on the Board of the Council of Teaching Hospitals of the American Association of Medical Colleges, the Executive Committee of the University Health System Consortium, the Appalachian Council of University Teaching Hospitals, the Regional Policy Board of the American Hospital Association and the Georgia Hospital Association Board of Trustees. She chairs the Georgia Hospital Association Partnership for Health and Accountability, a statewide coalition focused on improving quality and patient safety in Georgia’s hospitals. Ms. Sodomka was awarded the 1998 ACHE Regents Award for Georgia for her contributions to the health care management field. Under her leadership, the $53 million Medical College of Georgia Children’s Medical Center opened in the fall of 1998. This project received the top architectural design award by Modern Healthcare in 1997 and 2000. The Children’s Medical Center is the highest rated children’s hospital in the U.S. for patient satisfaction in the Press Ganey database.
John Hockenberry
John Hockenberry joined NBC in 1996 as a correspondent for Dateline NBC and continued to report for the Peacock Network through 2005. During his nine-year tenure, he matched the three Peabody Awards already received for his radio work with three Emmys (for a total of four) for stories on the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, the horrors and redemption of a life with schizophrenia, and a gripping profile of corrupt cult leader Fredrick Lenz. Hockenberry conducted the first and only candid on-camera interview with a family member of two of the 9/11 hijackers in February of 2002.
Hockenberry’s work has included an hour-long documentary on the tragedy of the medically uninsured and his investigative work has scrutinized pharmaceutical industry scandals and discrimination against people with disabilities in employment and housing.
While covering breaking news at home and overseas, Hockenberry was also part of live, interactive storytelling segments that allowed the television audience to participate for the first time in a story in real-time. Being a part of NBC’s laboratory for new types of intelligent content has been his signature, from pioneering new kinds of content in the groundbreaking MSNBC show, Edgewise, to the nightly on-location cable talk show, Hockenberry, which distinguished NBC News in its coverage of the crisis in the Balkans. There was also the innovative one-of-a-kind blogcast live from NBC offices that enhanced the network’s coverage of the 2000 election and anticipated many of the Internet-related developments in politics in 2004.
Hockenberry is also the author of Moving Violations: War Zones, Wheelchairs and Declarations of Independence (Hyperion), a memoir of life as a foreign correspondent and overcoming personal challenges. In 1996, Hockenberry performed "Spokeman," the one-man, off-Broadway show based on his book. A River Out of Eden (Doubleday) followed and was Hockenberry’s first novel.
Hockenberry has also reported for The New York Times, The Washington Post, Columbia Journalism Review, Metropolis Magazine, Wired and NPR.
Avery Comarow
Senior Writer Avery Comarow has been a writer and editor at U.S. News & World Report for more than 20 years. His primary beat is clinical medicine, and he is especially interested in efforts to measure and improve the quality of patient care. Comarow has directed the "America's Best Hospitals" annual rankings since they were first published in 1990. In 2005, he directed a similar set of rankings of managed-care health plans, called "America's Top HMOs," which will be published yearly. In 2003, working with the American Hospital Association, he helped create the first-ever online, consumer-oriented directory of all U.S. hospitals, which pulled together facts and data that prospective patients and their families might find helpful. Shortly after joining U.S. News, Comarow established and shaped a new consumer-oriented section of the magazine called "News You Can Use." Comarow is a former assistant managing editor at Science 86 and Washington correspondent for both Consumer Reports and Money magazine.
Susan Dentzer
Susan Dentzer is an on-air correspondent with The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer on the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). She leads a unit dedicated to providing in-depth coverage of health care, health policy and Social Security.
Dentzer and the health unit are the recipients of multiple awards. The unit's December 2005 and April 2005 pieces, "Wounded Soldier" and "Wounded Warrior," about a paralyzed and brain-damaged soldier who was severely wounded in Iraq, won the 2005 Award for Excellence in Health Care Journalism from the Association of Health Care Journalists. The same pieces also earned both a CINE Golden Eagle and New York Festival award.
Prior to joining The NewsHour in 1998, Dentzer was chief economics correspondent and economics columnist for U.S. News & World Report, where she served from 1987 to 1997. In a series of columns and stories for U.S. News, she reported extensively on the debate over reforming and partially "privatizing" Social Security and over such health policy issues as regulation of managed care. Before joining U.S. News, Dentzer was at Newsweek, where she was a senior writer covering business news until 1987. Dentzer's work in television has included appearances as a regular analyst or commentator on ABC's Nightline, CNN and The McLaughlin Group.
Frank Christopher
Executive Producer/Series Producer/Writer Frank Christopher is an award-winning producer, director, writer and editor who has been making documentaries since 1970. Christopher's programs have covered a wide range of subjects for PBS. He has also produced non-broadcast projects on such topics as the examination of family planning and primary health care programs in Africa and the benefits of Special Olympics to people living in the inner cities of the United States.
Matthew Eisen
Co-Executive Producer/Series Producer/Writer Matthew Eisen has produced and written a wide variety of programs, including a network television movie, primetime documentaries, educational series, public affairs reports, interactive satellite training seminars and live television and radio simulcasts. Eisen's programs on such health care topics as AIDS, drug abuse during pregnancy, prenatal care and child abuse have received extensive distribution and have been recognized with numerous awards.
Marc Shaffer
Series Producer/Writer Marc Shaffer has produced PBS films and network news programs for two decades. His work has explored such pressing social issues as health care, corporate accountability, government integrity, criminal justice reform and race relations. Shaffer's credits include Critical Condition, an Emmy-nominated documentary series on American health care. Shaffer is the recipient of many awards and honors, including a health care media fellowship from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.
