Nancy Conrad is a tireless champion for patient safety and innovation through education. She is an advisor to CareUniversity and Med Tac in the area of outreach to children and youth and our liaison with NASA. She created the Conrad Foundation in 2008 to energize and engage students in science and technology through unique entrepreneurial opportunities. In 2025 she cofounded our Leadership Accelerator for youth and young adults to accelerate making the world a better place by advancing their leadership.
By enabling young minds to connect education, innovation, and entrepreneurship, the Foundation helps provide a bold platform for enriching the innovative workforce of the future. Ms. Conrad’s interest in patient safety began as a result of the death of her husband, astronaut Charles “Pete” Conrad. On July 8, 1999, while motorcycling, Pete ran off the road and crashed. His injuries were first thought to be minor, but he died from internal bleeding about six hours later. Ms. Conrad’s compelling story serves to personalize the need for patients and their families to take responsibility for their care, as well as to highlight the need for systemic changes in the quality of care. Ms. Conrad was co-founder and co-chairman of fundraising of the Community Emergency Healthcare Initiative. This program was designed to measurably affect preventable injury and death occurring in emergency departments. She established the Pete Conrad National Patient Safety Award to recognize global contributors in patient safety.

Hide bio

Hide video clip

Thomas Zeltner, MD, is an international expert leader in public health and health system development.  In 2023, he was elected by the Swiss Red Cross Assembly o serve the Swiss Red Cross as President and Chairman of the Swiss Red Cross Council.  He is the current Chairman of the WHO Foundation in Geneva, Switzerland. He provides input on global health issues to Med Tac and CareUniversity. He was a 2010 Fellow of the Advanced Leadership Initiative of Harvard University. He is co-founder of the Global Patient Safety Forum, a convening organization of the world’s leading patient safety organizations, and has served as a Managing Editor of the Journal of Patient Safety.  Dr. Zeltner continues to provide great advice in the areas of public health and global health. His advisory support of international institutions of higher learning provide great insights as the Med Tac programs expand globally.

Dr. Zeltner advises international organizations and national governments in health policies and health policy reforms. He has served as Special Envoy in financing for WHO. In this capacity, he advised the Director General of WHO on the identification of an improved financing framework for the Organization. He served as Special Envoy of WHO, advising the Director General in critical areas of the current reform of this UN agency (how to cooperate with non-State actors such as NGOs and organizations in the private sector without compromising WHO’s integrity, and how to better align WHO’s priorities with the resources available to finance them). He is a member of the Global Agenda Council on Digital Health of the World Economic Forum (WEF).

Dr. Zeltner is president of Blood Transfusion CRS Switzerland, the organization in charge of securing Switzerland’s provision with blood and blood products. He is a board member of the Swiss Academies of Arts and Sciences and President of Science-et-Cité. Since 1992, he has been Professor of Public Health at the University of Bern, Switzerland.

From 1991 to 2009, Dr. Zeltner was the Director-General of the Federal Office of Public Health of Switzerland, the National Health and Public Health Authority and Secretary of State for Health. In this function he was a key actor in Swiss health policy and represented Switzerland in many international health organizations.

He graduated with an MD and a master’s degree in law from the University of Bern. He holds a specialist degree in human pathology and forensic medicine.

Hide bio

Hide video clip

Ann is a dynamic and visionary Corporate Executive with over 25 years experience in a variety of service-based industries and is President of People Ink, her consulting company that helps organizations create unique workplace cultures based on values and performance.  She held the position of Vice President of the People Department for Southwest Airlines and Executive Vice President of Team Services for Promus Hotel Corporation and, the Executive Vice President of People for JetBlue Airways of which she was a co-founder. Ann is a contributor to the Med Tac Global Emerging Threats Community of Practice.
Ann has a respected reputation in the industry for her creative approach to creating customer-centric cultures.  During her tenure with Doubletree Hotels, later Promus Hotel Corporation, she built a service culture focused on delivering outstanding service to Guests.  During the time Ann headed the People Department at Southwest Airlines, she solidified Southwest’s reputation of retaining and hiring the best people in the airline business despite Southwest’s rapid growth during that time. As one of five founding executives, Ann took responsibility for the creation of JetBlue Airways Corporation’s People Team in New York.  In her role as head of human resources, Ann has been a key member of the executive team, and is extremely successful in her role as internal counsel to executives in every discipline in the organization.

Hide bio

Gregory H. Botz, MD, FCCM, is a Professor of Anesthesiology and Critical Care at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. He is also an Adjunct Clinical Professor of Anesthesiology at Stanford University School of Medicine. He inspired initial focus of the team on active shooter events, and it was his continuous inspiration that led to the development of Med Tac. It was also his inspiration and idea to develop the CARE Huddle Checklist. He is the lead clinical content expert for the Med Tac program. He is a recipient of The Pete Conrad Patient Safety Award, recognizing these individual contributions to the Med Tac Program and his leadership service to the team.

He received his medical degree from The George Washington University School of Medicine in Washington, DC. He completed an internship in internal medicine at Huntington Memorial Hospital, and then completed an anesthesiology residency followed by critical care medicine and medical simulation fellowships at Stanford University in California. He previously served on the faculty at Duke University School of Medicine.  Dr. Botz is a 2004 graduate of the Intermountain Healthcare Advanced Training Program in Health Care Delivery Improvement. He has served as the University of Texas Chancellor’s Health Fellow in Quality of Care and Patient Safety.  Dr. Botz was previously medical director of the ICU, Transfer Center, Acute Care Training Center, Simulation Center, Code Blue Team Operations and the Medical Emergency Rapid Intervention Team at MD Anderson Cancer Center.

As a clinician-educator, Dr. Botz serves as a national consultant for the Society of Critical Care Medicine Fundamentals training programs. He was a senior editor for the American Board of Anesthesiology Joint Council on Anesthesiology Examinations, program director for the UTHSC-Houston Anesthesiology Critical Care Medicine Fellowship, Regional Faculty for the American Heart Association Emergency Cardiovascular Care training programs and a member of The University of Texas System Health Care Components ICU Quality Improvement Collaborative. He has participated in SCCM education programs in collaboration with the Japanese Society of Intensive Care Medicine, the Saudi Critical Care Society, the Indian Society of Critical Care Medicine, and the Association of Intensive Medicine in Brazil (AMIB).

He is a founder and health security lead for the Global Emerging Threats Community of Practice launched with major Medical Centers. Dr. Botz is the clinical lead for the Coronavirus Care Community of Practice launched by the Med Tac Global Bystander Rescue program for critical infrastructure workers and families, as well as the general public, to deal with the Coronavirus Pandemic. Dr. Botz is a frequent speaker for TMIT Global and brings a wealth of real-time knowledge to our programs as a critical care doctor, safety expert, medical security expert, and experience in best practices simulation.  Dr. Gregory Botz serves Med Tac as an uncompensated consultant and this relationship has been disclosed to MD Anderson’s Conflict of Interest Office.

Hide bio

Hide video clip

Dr. Denham is the co-founder of the Med Tac Certificate Program which his development team funded and produced. Together with Dr. Gregory Botz and Chief William Adcox of MD Anderson Cancer Center, the team are developing and testing the Med Tac innovations.  His focus in communities is on Bystander Care through Med Tac and his team is leading projects in healthcare institutions, institutions of higher learning, and schools – K-12.

During his career spanning 39 years, he and his organizations have served hundreds of innovation teams. While in practice as a radiation oncologist, he taught biomedical engineering and product development. He has taught innovation adoption, technology transfer, and commercialization in both academia and industry. He has been an adjunct Professor of Health Engineering at the Mayo Clinic Medical School and had teaching appointments as an Instructor at the Harvard School of Public Health and as a Lecturer with the faculty of Harvard Medical School. He was a Harvard Advanced Leadership Initiative Fellow in 2009 and a Senior Fellow in 2010 and 2011. His work there led to the production of a series of global documentaries on the Discovery Channel. He has served as Editor-in-Chief of the global Journal of Patient Safety, and has more than 100 works including peer-reviewed papers and multimedia productions. He has been ranked in the top 50 Most Influential Physician Executives by Modern Healthcare in multiple years and he has served as a regular columnist for the Wall Street Journal program The Experts: Journal Reports. He is an advisor to and collaborator with a number of Stanford University programs.  Dr. Denham is a PADI Certified Rescue Diver, BSA Certified Lifeguard, scout leader, and Stop the Bleed instructor with the American College of Surgeons program. He is a American Heart Association CPR/AED Instructor and has undertaken extensive wilderness first aid training with the American Red Cross. He has extensive aviation safety experience having been a private jet pilot, owned an aircraft manufacturing company with a global fleet, and operated air ambulance and charter services. Denham is a co-founder of the Global Emerging Threats Community of Practice launched with major Medical Centers and institutions of higher learning. He is one of the leaders of the Coronavirus Care Community of Practice for critical infrastructure worker families, medical centers, and families in the general public launched by the Med Tac Global Bystander Rescue program to deal with the Coronavirus crisis.

He founded HCC Global, a for-profit innovation incubator, and TMIT Global, a 501c3 Medical Research Organization, in the early ‘80s; the companies work collaboratively on common innovation programs. Dr. Denham funded and designed CareUniversity, our learning management system focused on continuing education of consumers and caregivers.  It is the delivery system for Med Tac.  Dr Denham’s current research and development work is in the area of Threat Safety Science focused on reducing preventable harm to families, caregivers, and institutions.  A special area of focus is caregiver harm and patient safety including insider threats such as fraud, insider threats, and outsider threats including workplace violence. His focus in communities is on Bystander Care through Med Tac and his team is leading projects in healthcare institutions, institutions of higher learning, and schools – K-12. The Med Tac Team are winners of the Pete Conrad Global Patient Safety Awards for co-founding Med Tac and their roles in pioneering the program for schools, colleges, churches, and scout groups.

Hide bio

Hide video clip

Chief William H. Adcox is a national leader in threat solutions development and threat safety science. It was his advisory input to the team that allowed them to expand their focus to the top seven causes of death of otherwise healthy people which is now the target of the Med Tac program. Without his mentorship, there would be no Med Tac program as it exists today. His continuous support of the Med Tac team is substantial, and he is a key contributor on national education programs and R&D with healthcare safety leaders.

The Med Tac Law Enforcement program has been pioneered by Chief Adcox at the MD Anderson Cancer Center. The Pete Conrad Global Patient Safety Award recognizes these individual contributions to the Med Tac Program and his leadership service to the team.  With 37 years in municipal and campus policing, he serves as the Chief of Police and CSO at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center and The University of Texas Health Science Center. He has hundreds of team members keeping more than 20,000 caregivers, educators, and students safe. Chief Adcox holds an MBA degree from UTEP and is a graduate of the PERF’s Senior Management Institute for Police and the Wharton School ASIS Program for Security Executives. He is the recipient of the IACLEA’s 2013 Award for Administrative Excellence and was named by Security Magazine as one of the “Most Influential People in Security 2013.” The agency received the IHSS Foundation’s prestigious 2015 Lindberg Bell Distinguished Program Award. Nationally, Chief Adcox received the Campus Safety 2015 Director of the Year Award in Healthcare; and locally he received the Texas Police Chiefs Association’s 2015 Leadership Award. He is a founder and health security lead for the Global Emerging Threats Community of Practice launched with major Medical Centers. Chief Adcox is the law enforcement and security lead for the Coronavirus Care Community of Practice for critical infrastructure worker families and families in the general public launched by the Med Tac Global Bystander Rescue program to deal with the Coronavirus crisis.  Chief Adcox serves regularly as a speaker and reactor during global webinar programs run by TMIT Global.

Hide bio

Former Assistant Chief of Police Vicki King, is a leading expert in the science of threat management and mitigation. Her special contribution to Med Tac has been in a number of areas including focus on de-escalation of threats before something harmful happens. She is a rising star in threat safety science. During her 30-year career, she served 27 years with the Houston Police Department, rising to the rank of Assistant Chief and earning a master’s degree in Criminal Justice.  In 2023 she is providing expertise in the best practices that can reduce harm from emerging threats such as workplace violence. She is regularly one of our speakers in great demand.

As Chief of Detectives, Tactical Support Commander, and Director of Forensic Services, she oversaw some of HPD’s highest-profile cases, including serial homicides, corruption, domestic violence, sexual assaults, and gangland slayings. After retiring from HPD, Vicki King served as an emissary to the Saudi Royal family; as an adjunct professor for the University of Houston system; and as Chief of Police for the City of La Marque. During her tenure at MD Anderson and UT-Health headed their Threat Assessment Unit. In her role, she worked with multidisciplinary teams to identify and mitigate risks. Vicki King was a lead security advisor for medical centers in the Coronavirus Care Community of Practice launched by the Med Tac Global Bystander Rescue program to deal with the Coronavirus crisis.  She is an expert in workplace violence and will co-lead collaborative efforts with Chief Adcox in the TMIT Global Emerging Threats Community of Practice throughout 2023 now that she has retired to pursue academic interests.

Hide bio

Clayton Christensen is the Kim B. Clark Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. He was the Kim B. Clark Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. He was regarded as one of the world’s top experts on innovation and growth. He held a B.A. with highest honors in economics from Brigham Young University (1975), and an M.Phil. in applied econometrics from Oxford University (1977), where he studied as a Rhodes Scholar. He received an MBA with High Distinction from the Harvard Business School in 1979, graduating as a George F. Baker Scholar. In 1982 Professor Christensen was named a White House Fellow, and served through 1983 as assistant to U.S. Transportation Secretaries Drew Lewis and Elizabeth Dole. He was awarded his DBA from the Harvard Business School in 1992. Professor Christensen became a faculty member there in 1992, and was awarded a full professorship with tenure in 1998. He held five honorary doctorates and an honorary chaired professorship at the Tsinghua University in Taiwan.

Christensen served as a director of many companies, and has advised the executives of scores of the world’s major corporations. Christensen was also an experienced entrepreneur, having started four successful companies. Prior to joining the HBS faculty, in 1984 he and three MIT professors founded CPS Technologies, which has become a leading developer and manufacturer of products from high-technology materials. Professor Christensen was the best-selling author of eight books and more than a hundred articles. The Innovator’s Dilemma received the Global Business Book Award as the best business book of the year (1997); and in 2011 The Economist named it as one of the six most important books about business ever written. Professor Christensen was featured in our Discovery Channel documentary Surfing the Healthcare Tsunami: Bring Your Best Board along with a number of others participating in the Innovators Network as he had been a tireless champion for values grounded leadership. Professor Christensen’s theories provide a number of foundational elements the Med Tac Bystander Care Certification Program and the Emerging Threats Community of Practice led by GPSF members.

Hide bio

Hide video clip

Ann Christensen directs the overall strategic and operational development of the Institute and oversees its rapidly growing research programs. She also works closely with the Board of Directors to enhance the Institute’s impact and strengthen its strategic partnerships and resources. Prior to joining the Institute, she worked at Huntsman Gay Global Capital, a private equity firm focused on middle-market companies. She previously also worked at Deloitte Consulting in New York City, where she was instrumental in establishing the Growth & Innovation practice by drawing on the theories of disruptive innovation to help clients create new growth businesses. Ann led projects for clients in a number of industries, including: pharmaceutical, biotech, telecommunications, travel, professional services, and insurance. She has also spent time as a strategic analyst for Elan Pharmaceuticals, an Irish biotechnology company. Ann earned a BA from Duke University, where she studied the political economies of developing nations, and an MBA from the Harvard Business School. See more at: http://www.christenseninstitute.org/our-team/ann-christensen/#sthash.DT0qxM28.dpuf

Hide bio

Casey Clements, MD, PhD, is the Clinical Chairman of Emergency Medicine and Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.  Carrying both a medical doctorate and a PhD in microbiology and immunology, he has worked for several years in acute and critical care research.   Dr. Clements has been a terrific contributor to our work through his expertise in sepsis, healthcare performance improvement, patient and caregiver safety.

Now, serving as Practice Chair for emergency medicine, he works on interdepartmental and interdisciplinary practice improvements focusing on implementation of evidence-based medicine. He also serves as the director for behavioral health in the ED and works throughout the Mayo Clinic on violence mitigation and patient and staff safety. He has been a substantial contributor to webinars educating the patient safety community of practice hosted by TMIT Global at www.SafetyLeaders.org.  He has spoken on sepsis and workplace violence multiple times for the TMIT Global community. He is the team lead for the Med Tac Program in the Rochester Minnesota community in 2023.  Dr. Clements is helping us establish bystander rescue stations in Rochester to serve schools in the community.

Hide bio

Jeanne M. Huddleston, MD, FACP, FHM, is a past President of the Society of Hospital Medicine, the founder of Hospital Medicine and past Program Director of the Hospital Medicine Fellowship at Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN. She is the former Chairperson of Mayo Clinic’s Mortality Review Subcommittee, a multi-disciplinary group of providers that review every death in search of where the health care delivery system may have failed the providers and/or the patient.

She received her MD degree in 1993 from the College of Human Medicine, Michigan State University. She completed her residency in internal medicine and advanced general medicine fellowship at Mayo Clinic. Dr. Huddleston is a Harvard Macy Scholar (both in the Physician Educator and the Leadership Programs) and alumnus of the Health Forum/AHA Patient Safety Leadership Fellowship. Dr. Huddleston has received Masters’ Degrees in both Clinical Research and Industrial Engineering. This education equipped her scholarly translation of systems engineering to health care delivery in an effort to improve the value of the healthcare experience for patients, their families and the providers through her work in mortality reviews and patient threat safety.  Dr. Huddleston will provide ongoing subject matter expertise to Med Tac and the CareUniversity programs in the domain of triage of emergencies using the lessons learned from the Mayo Clinic Mortality Review programs.

Hide bio

Outcome Engenuity, LLC was founded in 1997 by CEO David Marx, a pioneer of the Just Culture movement. The firm originally addressed safety issues and human factors in aviation and offered expertise in post-event investigation and analysis. With the unique combination of systems engineering, human factors, and the law, Marx adopted and expanded the concepts of ‘Just Culture’ to help improve the management of human error.

Spurred by the Institute of Medicine’s 1999 seminal study, To Err Is Human: Building a Safer Health System, and recognizing the need for a Just Culture approach, Outcome Engenuity began focusing on healthcare. The study showed that 98,000 people died annually from medical errors – a number which has only increased in the intervening years. In 2003, Marx wrote “Patient Safety and the ‘Just Culture’: A Primer for Health Care Executives” for the National Institutes of Health.

For more than two decades Outcome Engenuity has advanced the concept of Just Culture and its role in the design of effective socio-technical systems. We integrate systems engineering, human factors science, and even the law into unique strategies that help organizations transform to a Just Culture, effectively investigate events, and manage risk.

David Marx has spoken to the multiple times to the TMIT Community of Practice audience on Just Culture .  See his presentations at the following links:

• Just Culture – High Impact Case Studies
• Just Culture – Voices from the Frontline
• Just Culture in 2017 and Beyond

Hide bio

J. Michael Henderson, MD, is Chief Medical Officer at the University of Mississippi Medical Center and the former Chief Quality Officer at the Cleveland Clinic. His interest in quality was initially triggered in the surgical arena, implementing standardized approaches to preoperative processes, and becoming a champion for the National Surgical Quality Improvement Program of the American College of Surgeons. In 2005, he embarked on an expansion of Quality and Patient Safety for the Cleveland Clinic. His leadership support in establishing the Quality and Patient Safety Institute has provided a central coordinating quality focus across the more than 20,000 employees. This Institute collaborates with the clinical and support departments to align quality outcomes and patient safety into daily practice for the entire healthcare team. The focus of this work is to make daily practice patient-centric, clinically relevant, operationally effective, regulatory compliant, and academically appealing. Dr. Henderson is a subject matter expert on the advisory board of the Emerging Threats Community of Practice launched in 2019. He has been a collaborator on the GPSF team in its patient safety awareness work with the World Health Organization and has been a leading speaker in the TMIT Patient Safety Community of Practice.

• The Quality Journey: The CEO and CMO View

Hide bio

Hide video clip

Christopher R. Peabody, MD, MPH is a practicing Emergency Physician in California and Clinical Instructor at the University of California, San Francisco. He is the lead clinical contributor to Emergency Medicine topics so vital to Med Tac and CareUniversity. The first 10 minutes after an injury or emergency incident are vital as are the interactions with Emergency Medical Services (EMS) and then Emergency Physicians who receive the patients. In 2023 Dr. Peabody will help lead the dissemination of the Med Tac programs across academic medical centers and institutions of higher learning. His experience in healthcare innovation is a very valuable contribution.

He is a substantial contributor to the vital survival chain during emergencies and the leadership, best practices, and technologies that can optimize these processes. He is also the Director of the UCSF Acute Care Innovation Center, an initiative of the UCSF Department of Emergency Medicine, which develops novel ways to deliver Emergency and Acute Care reliably and safely by developing new technology and validating best practices. He has a strong commitment to public service and healthcare delivery to vulnerable populations. Dr. Peabody completed his residency at one of the busiest safety-net hospitals in the country, Los Angeles County Hospital, and was the Chief Resident in Emergency Medicine at the University of Southern California.  He attended medical school at the University of California San Francisco, and completed an MPH at Harvard University on a Zuckerman Fellowship. Dr. Peabody’s current interests lie in quality improvement and patient safety, especially related to underserved populations. He has extensive experience in emergency care and disaster response internationally, having served in Haiti and China. He is a member of the content leadership development team for CareUniversity and applies his expertise in emergency care, public health, and international healthcare performance improvement to meeting the needs of both consumers and caregivers.

Hide bio

Dr. Gladstone McDowell is a nationally renowned pain management physician who is board certified in urology, anesthesia, and pain management. His fellowship studies at MD Anderson Cancer Center in urologic oncology give him a special understanding of complex pain issues. One of the Med Tac High Impact Care Hazards is Opioid Overdoses, and Dr. McDowell provides special expertise on the Med Tac Team in this area.  Dr. McDowell is a gifted educator of both higher specialized caregivers, youth, and the general public. In 2023 he will help us tackle the national opioid crisis in our youth and national workforce.

He has substantial experience teaching high school students about drug addiction and avoidance of risks. He has contributed to the development of The 5 Rights of Pain Care  program in development with CareUniversity.  He is a Director of TMIT and serves on the Global Innovations Team of the Global Patient Safety Forum. He is the Medical Director of Integrated Pain Solutions. He is a trained specialist in urology, urologic oncology, anesthesiology, pain management, and patient safety. He has served as an instructor at The University of Ohio for both the Department of Urology and the Department of Surgery. He has also served as the Director of Sabine Urology Outpatient Clinic and the Chief of Urology at Breckenridge Hospital in Austin, TX. Dr. McDowell has been involved in breakthrough research at the Gynecology Clinic of the Southwest Foundation for Research and Development, and at the Department of Cell Biology at The University of Texas’ M.D. Anderson Cancer Center.A frequent speaker with TMIT Global, he is addressing the opioid crisis that in 2023 will kill more than 290 youth and young adults. He is an advisor to the film One Pill Did Kill, a free documentary that will be produced by TMIT in 2023.

Hide bio

Hide video clip

Stephen J. Swensen, MD, MMM, FACR,

is the former Medical Director for Leadership and Organization Development. He has served as the Director for Quality and Associate Dean for Value. He is Professor in the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine. Under his leadership the Quality Academy and the Value Creation System were established. In these programs, several thousand staff are trained each year. There are more than 13,000 certified Bronze, Silver, and Gold Quality Fellows.

Dr. Swensen chaired the Department of Radiology from 1998-2006. His leadership team used Lean-Sigma and Baldrige methods to improve the value of care for patients provided by 1,200 staff, who performed more than one million exams annually. During his tenure the department was recognized as the #1 radiology practice in the country (Medical Imaging) and the most patient-centered (Diagnostic Imaging).

He holds a Master of Medical Management degree from Carnegie Mellon University’s Heinz School of Public Policy and Management. He received his MD from the University of Wisconsin. His residency training was at Mayo Clinic and his Thoracic Radiology Fellowship at Harvard Medical School, Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

Dr. Swensen is a member of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement faculty. He served as the healthcare member of The Conference Board’s U.S. Quality Council. He is past President of two international societies, the Fleischner Society and the Society of Thoracic Radiology. He chaired the American College of Radiology’s Quality Metrics Committee and led the RSNA’s Continuous Quality Improvement Initiative. He is a member of the AAMC Integrating Quality Steering Committee. He founded the Big Sky Quality Roundtable and the Keystone Quality Officer Group, and co-founded the Sun Valley Assembly.

He has been Principal Investigator of three NIH grants related to lung cancer screening with CT and diffuse infiltrative lung disease. He has authored two books and more than 130 peer-reviewed articles.

Dr. Swensen is a leading expert on caregiver burnout and has been a frequent speaker to the Patient Safety Community of Practice membership. He is the lead subject matter expert on burn out as an Emerging Threat to Medical Centers and our lead expert on the Community of Practice.

Hide bio

Hide video clip

Dr. Pulido is a Venezuelan physician with specialties in cardiology and internal medicine. He is currently the Executive Director of the PanAmerican Federation of Associations of Medical Schools, Caracas, and also a 2009 Fellow of the Harvard Advanced Leadership Initiative. He has participated in the dynamic evolution of a leading technical university in Caracas. In Public Policy, as Minister of Health and Social Welfare, he initiated the restructuring of the Ministry and the decentralization of operations towards the Venezuelan States. In International Medical Education, as the Executive Director of the PanAmerican Federation of Associations of Medical School, PAFAMS, he has focused on the modernization and involvement of medical schools in healthcare reforms using the new information technology, management, and curricular updating as basic instruments.

Hide bio

Samir Toubassy, MBA, is currently CEO of Global Education Partners; an Advanced Leadership Senior Fellow at Harvard; and a former President of The Olayan Development Corporation and former Group Vice President. The Olayan Group is one of the largest privately-held global business conglomerates through its Riyadh, Athens, London, and New York offices. After working with The Olayan Group for 30 years, Mr. Toubassy continues to serve as a Senior Advisor and member of the Executive Committee. He served for several years as a member of Coca-Cola Beverages; Coca-Cola Hellenic; and Frigoglass group of companies; and as a Senior Advisor to Crédit Suisse and a member of the Advisory Board for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. Mr. Toubassy is a Trustee and Vice Chairman of the Nomination and Governance Committee of the Thunderbird School of Global Management. He is a member of the Advisory Board for the Churchill Archives Centre, Churchill College, Cambridge University; and a member of the Dean’s Council, John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. He also serves on the board of the American Near East Refugee Aid (ANERA), a voluntary organization working for the Middle East. For the past 12 years, Mr. Toubassy has been actively involved in the World Economic Forum. Prior to joining The Olayan Group, Mr. Toubassy worked with the Ford Foundation in public administration reform in the Middle East. He also worked for the American University of Beirut and the University of California system-wide administrations. Mr. Toubassy holds a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from the American University of Beirut, and an MBA from Golden Gate University in San Francisco.

Hide bio

David C. Classen, MD, MS, is Chief Medical Information Officer (CMIO) at Pascal Metrics in Washington, DC. Previously, he was Chief Medical Officer (CMO) and a Vice Senior Partner at CSC, and leads led CSC’s safety and quality of healthcare initiatives. Dr. Classen is also an Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of Utah and an Active Consultant in Infectious Diseases at The University of Utah School of Medicine in Salt Lake City, Utah. He received his medical degree from the University of Virginia School of Medicine and a Master’s of Science degree in medical informatics from the University of Utah School of Medicine. He served as Chief Medical Resident at the University of Connecticut. He is board-certified in Internal Medicine and Infectious Diseases. He was the chair of Intermountain Health Cares Clinical Quality Committee for Drug Use and Evaluation, and was the initial developer of patient safety research and patient safety programs at Intermountain Healthcare. In addition, he developed, implemented, and evaluated a CPOE program at LDS Hospital that significantly improved the safety of medication use.

Hide bio

Hide video clip

Edward Kelley, PhD, currently serves as Coordinator and Head of Strategic Programmes for WHO Patient Safety. His responsibilities include the development of new programs and partnerships; oversight of WHO Patient Safety presence in London and Baltimore; and leadership on several key programmes within WHO Patient Safety. Prior to joining WHO, Dr. Kelley directed the only ongoing national examination of healthcare quality and disparities in the United States as the Director of the U.S. National Healthcare Reports for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). These reports track levels and changes in quality of care for the American healthcare system at the national and state level, as well as disparities in quality and access across priority populations.

Dr. Kelley also directed the 28-country Health Care Quality Improvement (HCQI) Project of the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development. Previously, Dr. Kelley served as a Quality Assurance Advisor for URC’s Quality and Performance Institute while also serving as Scientist in the Operations Research Division for the USAID-sponsored Quality Assurance Project (QAP) and Partnerships for Health Reform Project Plus (PHRPlus). In these capacities he worked for 10 years in West and North Africa and Latin America, directing research on the Integrated Management of Childhood Illness in Niger.

Dr. Kelley and his team were featured in both TMIT Discovery Channel documentaries.

Hide bio

Hide video clip

Hilary J. Schmidt, PhD, is an advanced education expert with extensive experience applying principles and research from the behavioral sciences to the design of highly effective health sciences education. She has taught the Med Tac team critical best practices that have been incorporated in to the program and other programs of CareUniversity.

She has a PhD in psychology from the University of Pennsylvania and has dedicated her professional life to translating research on how people learn into best practices for teaching, learning and assessment. She has worked in both academia (17 years) and in the Pharmaceutical industry (9 years) has expertise in cognitive psychology, education research, instructional design and outcomes assessment.

In academia, Dr. Schmidt founded and lead three centers for teaching and learning at NY area medical Schools including Columbia University Medical Center, SUNY-Downstate, and UMDNJ-Newark. She has authored books on study and testing skills, for medical students, and has published extensively in the field of medical education. In industry, at Sanofi pharmaceuticals she provided strategic leadership to the groups responsible for Independent Medical Education Grants, Investigator Initiated Research Trials, Transparency, and Medical Affairs Compliance Training.

She is a member of the Alliance for Continuing Education in the Health Professions (ACEHP) and served as the Chair of the Industry Alliance for Continuing Education in the Health Professions from 2011-13. She was a nominated member of the AMA Task Force on Industry Provider Collaboration in CME and served a s the Annual Meeting Chair for that organization in 2012. She is the recipient of the ACEHP’s Presidents Award 2013 for service provided to the organization. She is a frequent invited speaker at medical education conferences.

She recently co-founded (2014) the Calibre Institute for Quality Medical Education whose mission is to “Leverage Best-in-Class Education to Improve Patient-Care and Lower Healthcare Costs”.

Hide bio

Mace Wolf began his career as the creator of the first Windows based practice management systems for medicine in 1992. These solutions were being deployed at several university hospitals and large physician practices including those of Temple University and the University of Arizona by 1994. Mace’s EDI expertise had him creating the singular EDI client software and protocols for Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Northern California by 1995. He then obtained several database patents pertinent to large datasets and analytics.Today, Mace is focused on the convergence of risk management and healthcare delivery. Current customers include over 30 Medicare Advantage plans, most of which are focused on end-of-life care for dual eligibles in addition to several physician groups, ten PACE companies, a hospice, licensed homecare agencies, and a vision plan. At Cognify, Mace is responsible for everything from financial and claims adjudication systems to electronic health records, enrollment, medication management, logistics systems, and government mandated data collection, submission, compliance and analytics.Mace is also the developer of a unique fda approved dosage management system for an international pharmaceutical company and is also the inventor of several privacy management patents pending. He is a leader of integration and the system development serving CareUniversity and its initiatives that serve both consumers and caregivers.He spends his life at the leading edge of healthcare delivery, quality, risk management, and patient safety.

Hide bio

One of the key thought leaders to emerge in American healthcare in the past decade, John J. Nance brings a rich and varied professional background to the task of helping doctors, administrators, boards, and front-line staff alike survive and prosper during the most profoundly challenging upheaval in the history of modern medicine. Having helped pioneer the renaissance in patient safety as one of the founders of the National Patient Safety Foundation in 1997, his efforts (and healthcare publications) are dedicated to reforming American healthcare from a reactive cottage industry to an effective and safe system of prevention and wellness. A lawyer, Air Force and airline pilot, prolific internationally-published author, national broadcaster, and renowned professional speaker, John’s leadership is propelled by a deep commitment.

As a native Texan, John grew up in Dallas, where he earned his bachelor’s degree and a Juris Doctor degree from SMU, and is still a licensed Texas attorney. Named Distinguished Alumnus of SMU for 2002, and distinguished Alumnus for Public Service of the SMU Dedman School of Law in 2010, he is also a decorated Air Force pilot veteran of Vietnam and Operations Desert Storm/Desert Shield, and a Lieutenant Colonel in the USAF Reserve, well-known for his pioneering development of Air Force human factors flight safety education, and one of the civilian pioneers of Crew Resource Management (CRM). John has piloted a wide variety of jet aircraft, including most of Boeing’s line and the Air Force C-141, and has logged more than 13,900 hours of flight time since earning his first pilot license in 1965; he is still a current pilot. He was a flight officer for Braniff International Airlines and a Boeing 737 Captain for Alaska Airlines, and is an internationally recognized air safety advocate, best known to North American television audiences as Aviation Analyst for ABC World News and Aviation Editor for Good Morning America.

Before joining ABC, John logged countless appearances on national shows such as Larry King Live, PBS Hour with Jim Lehrer, Oprah, NPR, Nova, the Today Show, and many others. He is also the nationally-known author of 20 major books, including the acclaimed Why Hospitals Should Fly (2009), and, with co-author Kathleen Bartholomew, Charting the Course (2012). He has also written five non-fiction and 13 international fiction bestsellers. Pandora’s Clock and Medusa’s Child both aired as major, successful two-part mini-series on television. Why Hospitals Should Fly won the prestigious “Book of the Year” award for 2009 from the American College of Healthcare Executives.

John J. Nance has become one of America’s most dynamic and effective professional speakers, presenting riveting, pivotal programs on success and safety in human organizations to a wide variety of audiences, including business corporations and healthcare professionals. He and fellow author Kathleen Bartholomew (Charting the Course and Ending Nurse-to-Nurse Hostility: Why Nurses Eat their Young and Each Other) are highly sought-after for their watershed presentations to boards, senior leaders, physicians, nurses, and staff on quality and patient safety. He is a pioneering and well-known advocate of using the lessons from the recent revolution in aviation safety to equally revolutionize the patient safety performance of hospitals, doctors, nurses, and all of healthcare.

Mr. Nance is founder of the series Red Cover Reports for patient safety built on the concepts of the NTSB reports, pilots call “Blue Cover Reports”.  He is a subject matter expert for the Emerging Threats Community of Practice.

Hide bio

Hide video clip

Before turning to healthcare as a career in 1994, Kathleen Bartholomew held positions in marketing, business, communications, and teaching. It was these experiences that allowed her to look at the culture of healthcare from a unique perspective and speak poignantly to the issues affecting providers and the challenges facing organizations today.Kathleen Bartholomew, has been a national speaker for the past 12 years. As the manager of a large surgical unit in Seattle, Kathleen quickly recognized that creating a culture where staff felt a sense of belonging was critical to retention. During her tenure as manager, staff, physician, and patient satisfaction reached the top 10% as she implemented her down-to earth strategies. Despite the nursing shortage, Kathleen could always depend on a waiting list of nurses for both units.Kathleen’s bachelor’s degree is in Liberal Arts with a strong emphasis on Sociology. This background laid the foundation for her to correctly identify the norms and particular to healthcare specifically physician-nurse relationships and nurse-to-nurse hostility. For her master’s thesis she authored Speak Your Truth: Proven Strategies for Effective Nurse-Physician Communication, which is the only book to date which addresses physician-nurse issues. In December 2005, Kathleen resigned her position as manager in order to write a second book on horizontal violence in nursing. The expression “why nurses eat their young” has existed for many years in the nursing profession (and has troubled many in the profession). In her book, Ending Nurse to Nurse Hostility (2006), Kathleen offers the first comprehensive and compassionate look at the etiology, impact, and solutions to horizontal violence. Kathleen won the best media depiction of nursing for her op editorial in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, and in 2010 she was nominated by Health Leaders Media as one of the top 20 people changing healthcare in America.Kathleen’s passion for creating healthy work environments is infectious. She is an expert on hospital culture and speaks internationally to hospital boards, the military, leadership, and staff about safety, communication, cultural change, and power. With her husband, John J. Nance, she co-authored Charting the Course: Launching Patient-Centric Healthcare in 2012, which is the sequel to Why Hospitals Should Fly (2008). From the bedside to the boardroom, Kathleen applies research to practice with humor and an ethical call to excellence that ignites and inspires health caregivers and leaders to unprecedented levels of excellence.

Hide bio

Susan Sheridan, MBA, MIM, is the Deputy Director of Patient Engagement at the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute. She is responsible for creating networks and engaging patients across the nation to provide broad-based input on the development and execution of PCORI’s research. Sheridan became involved in patient safety after her family experienced two serious medical system failures. Her husband, Pat, died in 2002 after his diagnosis of spinal cancer failed to be communicated. Their son, Cal, suffered brain damage called kernicterus five days after his birth in 1995 when his neonatal jaundice was untreated.Sheridan is Co-Founder and a Past President of Parents of Infants and Children with Kernicterus, which works in partnership with private and public health agencies to eradicate kernicterus. In 2003, she co-founded Consumers Advancing Patient Safety (CAPS), a nonprofit organization that seeks a safe, compassionate and just health care system through proactive partnership between consumers and providers of care. Sheridan served at President of CAPS from 2003-2010. From 2004-2011, she led the World Health Organization’s Patients for Patient Safety initiative, which embraces the collective wisdom of the patient, patient empowerment and patient-centered care. Sheridan received her bachelor’s degree from Albion College, and a Masters of International Management and Masters of Business Administration from the Thunderbird School of Global Management.

Hide bio

Hide video clip

Mary E. Foley, PhD, RN, is a Clinical Professor at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) School of Nursing and is the Director in the Center for Nursing Research and Innovation at UCSF. She is the Assistant Director for the Master’s Entry Program in Nursing at UCSF, and teaches in the Masters in Health Administration and Interprofessional Leadership (MS-HAIL) course at UCSF. Mary worked with the Collaborative Alliance for Nursing Outcomes (CALNOC) since 2004 and in January 2017 she will serve as Chairperson of the CALNOC Board of Directors. Mary is past president of the American Nurses Association and the National Student Nurses Association. She was a nurse for 19 years at Saint Francis Memorial Hospital in San Francisco, where she worked a staff nurse, Director of Nursing, and Safety Officer.

A registered nurse for 43 years, Foley continues to teach, write and lecture, promoting safe care for workers and patients nationally and internationally. She served on the board of the National Patient Safety Foundation, an advisor to the Partnership for Patient Safety (p4ps) and is a member of the TMIT Patient and Family panel. Since 2012, she has worked with Karen Curtiss to improve family involvement in patient safety. She is a nursing consultant to “Safe and Sound in the Hospital” and PartnerHealth and she and Karen were faculty members in the Hospital Quality Institute HEN2.0 initiative in CA. She is proud of her membership and leadership on behalf of the Nursing Section of GLMA.

In November, 2011 she became Nursing Co-Lead for the IOM California Action Coalition and has developed a special interest in Academic Progression. She is Co-Chair of the HealthImpact and California Action Coalition Advisory Council. She was served on the board of CGFNS International and was Chairperson of the Safe in Common Campaign to address sharps injuries. Mary leads an ongoing Infection Control program for hospitals in coordination with Rwanda health leaders and taught with a delegation at two rural hospitals in Rwanda in August, 2015 and will be returning in 2017

Foley received her nursing diploma in 1973 from New England Deaconness Hospital School of Nursing, her BSN in 1976 from Boston University School of Nursing in Massachusetts, and her Master’s of Science in Nursing Administration and Occupational Health from UCSF in 1994. She received her PhD in Nursing from UCSF 2010, and was elected as a Fellow in the American Academy of Nursing in 2013.

Hide bio