Dr. Brice is Professor and Chair of the Department of Emergency Medicine at the University of North Carolina. She also serves as the Program Director for the Emergency Medical Services (EMS) Fellowship and was past-president of the National Association of EMS Physicians. We spoke with her about her experience working in emergency medical systems and safety concerns particular to this field.

Dr. Meltzer is the Fanny L. Pritzker Professor of Medicine, Chief of the Section of Hospital Medicine, and Director of the Center for Health and the Social Sciences at the University of Chicago. His research aims to improve the quality and lower the cost of hospital care. We spoke with him about the Comprehensive Care Physician Model, which he pioneered and was recently featured in an article in The New York Times Magazine.

Dr. Aiken is Claire M. Fagin Leadership Professor of Nursing, Professor of Sociology, and Director of the Center for Health Outcomes and Policy Research at University of Pennsylvania. She is generally considered the nation's foremost expert on health policy as it relates to the nursing workforce. We spoke with her about how nurse staffing and the work environment can affect patient safety and outcomes.

Dr. Singh has conducted extensive multidisciplinary research supported by the VA, AHRQ, and NIH and is now a nationally recognized expert in electronic health record–related patient safety issues and diagnostic errors. We spoke with him about becoming a patient safety researcher.

Prof. Needleman has performed some of the key studies on how the nursing workforce influences health outcomes, including seminal articles published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2002 and 2011.

The founding Dean of Hofstra North Shore-LIJ School of Medicine, Dr. Smith has held numerous senior leadership positions within the field of medical education and residency training.

Thomas J. Nasca, MD, is the executive director and chief executive officer of the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME). Prior to joining the ACGME in 2007, Dr. Nasca, a nephrologist, was dean of Jefferson Medical College and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs of Thomas Jefferson University. We asked him to speak with us about the role of the ACGME in patient safety.

Workarounds

The Business Case for Improving Safety

Eric A. Coleman, MD, MPH, is Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of Colorado. Trained in both geriatrics and health services research, Dr. Coleman has emerged as one of the world's leading authorities on issues surrounding transitions of care, particularly between acute and postacute settings. His care model, the Care Transitions Intervention, is being adopted by leading health care organizations around the country. The Intervention has been associated with significant decreases in rehospitalization rates.

Michael Cohen, RPh, MS, ScD, is president of the Institute for Safe Medication Practices (ISMP) and co-editor of ISMP Medication Safety Alert!, a biweekly newsletter. A pharmacist by training, his ground-breaking work and commitment to patient safety and preventing medication errors has spanned three decades. He received one of the prestigious MacArthur Fellowships (informally known as the "genius awards") in 2005.

Dr. Carolyn Clancy has been the Director of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) since 2003. Prior to becoming AHRQ Director, she led the Agency's Center for Outcomes and Effectiveness Research. A general internist and health services researcher, she has published widely in the peer reviewed literature on a variety of topics, ranging from quality improvement to primary care. She is a member of the Institute of Medicine and a Master of the American College of Physicians.

Barbara A. Blakeney, MS, RN, is President of the 150,000-member American Nurses Association (ANA). A nurse practitioner and expert in public health practice, policy, and primary care, Ms. Blakeney is on leave from the Boston Public Health Commission, where she has been director of health care services for the homeless. She is the recipient of numerous awards and has been named to Modern Healthcare Magazine's list of the 100 most influential people in health care for the past 3 years.