Danielle Ofri, MD, PhD, is one of the foremost voices in the medical world today, shining an unflinching light on the realities of healthcare and speaking passionately about the doctor-patient relationship.

She writes about medicine and the doctor-patient connection. Her writing appears in the New York Times, The New Yorker, and the Atlantic, as well as the Lancet and the New England Journal of Medicine.

Danielle Ofri is a founder and Editor-in-Chief of Bellevue Literary Review, the first literary journal to arise from a medical setting, now an award-winning, independent nonprofit literary arts organization. She is a primary care internist at Bellevue Hospital and a clinical professor of medicine at NYU.

Her lectures to medical and general audiences are renowned for her use of dramatic stories (and avoidance of PowerPoint). Her essays have been selected for Best American Essays (twice) and Best American Science Writing, by Stephen Jay Gould, Oliver Sacks, and Susan Orlean .

Ofri is the recipient of a 2023 Guggenheim Fellowship, the 2023 Davies Scholar Award from the American College of Physicians, the 2022 National Humanism in Medicine Medal from the Gold Foundation, the 2020 Global Listening Legend Award, and has been awarded an honorary doctorate of humane letters. She has received the McGovern Award from the American Medical Writers Association for “preeminent contributions to medical communication.”

Danielle Ofri has given TED talks on Deconstructing Perfection and Fear: A Necessary Emotion, and has also performed stories for the Moth. She is featured in the documentaries “Why Doctors Write” and “White Coat Rebels.”

An ever-struggling student of the cello, she is slogging slowly through all 36 movements of the Bach cello suites.

The detrimental impact of workplace incivility is well documented, and if allowed to take root, the consequences can be serious. So, imagine an enjoyable workplace—an environment where you and your colleagues can truly thrive in your career and profession. This engaging and thought-provoking session provides a deepened and empirical understanding of workplace incivility, its impact on individuals, teams, organizations, and patient care—and emphasizes ways to build and sustain healthy work environments. Join a renowned nurse researcher, award-winning professor, and accomplished author for a stimulating session to explore best practices to foster healthy, vibrant work environments.

Learning objectives:

1. Explore the State of the Science related to civility, incivility, and other forms of workplace aggression.
2. Describe the impact of incivility on individuals, teams, organizations, and patient care.
3. Examine individual & organizational competencies to foster healthy, productive work environments.

The term “patient safety” implies keeping patients safe from medical harm. How then might we evaluate harm that derives not from human or system error but from the medical approach itself? This presentation will explore the medical management of intersex traits (atypical sex development). Physicians have been trying to “fix” intersex since the early 19th century, and they have focused on children since the 1950s. Their efforts have been largely motivated by social anxieties about homosexuality and a sense that it would be better for children to grow up with “normal-looking” genitals, a hunch that has turned out to be wrong. Many intersex adults who have endured such “normalizing” surgeries have spoken about the physical and psychological harms that resulted from these cosmetic procedures. Though it might seem risky to let children grow up without them, activists have argued that pediatric genital surgeries violate human rights. “Patient safety” in this context would mean letting children grow up with genital, hormonal, or gonadal difference until they are old enough to make decisions about their bodies for themselves.

Learning objectives

1. The audience will learn about the historical motivations of intersex management.
2. The audience will contemplate the meaning of medical harm in the context of pediatric genital surgeries.
3. The audience will expand their understanding of patient safety when considering children’s rights.

As a society, we have failed to provide safe, reliable, person-directed care for older adults and people living with disabilities who reside in long term care facilities. We have also failed to provide safe working environments for the hundreds of thousands of people working in these facilities. It seems that even the high-profile cases don’t generate change.

Yet all the key stakeholders – state regulatory agencies, for profit and non-profit industry associations, and the providers themselves say that they are committed to improving quality and safety. So why aren’t we seeing real change? What will it take to transform this sector?

This event will outline the key drivers of low quality and safety in long term care facilities. We will look at examples of organizations that have taken an innovative staff-centered approach to quality improvement. And we will discuss what’s next. Can we salvage the systems that we have now? Or do we need new models of care? Who needs to be at the table when new ways of care are developed? How will they be regulated? Hint: there’s a role for Oregon and Washington’s patient safety commissions.

Learning objectives:

1. Understand why long term care facilities are not safe for residents or staff
2. Learn how some communities have made change
3. Become aware of the urgent need for change

Bree Collaborative and Foundation for Health Care Quality Award winners discuss how they create processes and practices that enhance equity that result in measurable changes in the access to and quality of care for patients.

Learning Objectives:

1. Understand  how collaborative care contributes to patient safety and outcomes.
2. Understand how organizations embed equity principles into best practices.
3. Understand specifics around quality improvement activities that are focused on equity.

1.     This presentation aims to introduce briefly the various types of artificial intelligence (AI) software designs before launching into an overview of the cutting-edge AI-related health care applications illustrated with specific examples. The presentation then discusses ethical and legal challenges around AI implementation.

Learning objectives

1. Define artificial intelligence
2. Recognize opportunities around how AI can improve health care service delivery
3. Recognize potential ethical and legal threats around AI implementation

Overview of Leapfrog’s national hospital ratings and how they can be used by patients, purchasers, and others to make hospital care safer and higher quality

Learning objectives:

1. Participants will learn about each of Leapfrog’s national ratings programs for hospitals
2. Participants will learn about which measures are included in each of Leapfrog’s programs
3. Participants will learn how patients, purchasers, hospitals, and other can use the published ratings

Dr. Simmons will share the experiences of building a culture of shared decision making at Massachusetts General Hospital, with a particular focus on programs in decision aid deployment, involvement of frontline workers in identifying areas for more shared decision making support, and supporting patients to increase their engagement with robust pre-visit preparation.

Learning objectives

1. Identify clinical areas for shared decision making at your institution
2. Describe strategies for shared decision making implementation
3. Examine possible barriers to SDM implementation at your institution and formulate strategies to overcome these barriers

Learning objectives

1. Summarize public health burden & financial impact of diagnostic errors and misdiagnosis-related harms.
2. Discuss potential pitfalls of applying artificial intelligence (AI) for clinical diagnosis without adequate guardrails.
3. Describe prerequisites and systems of care essential to deploying AI to achieve diagnostic excellence.

The Patient Voices Network (PVN) is a community of patients, families, and caregivers who team up with health care professionals to improve health care in British Columbia. Since 2009, PVN has connected thousands of people to work together for better health care. PVN helps build strong partnerships, encourages mutual learning, and involves patients in decision-making to address health care challenges. PVN makes a difference by:
– Building Relationships
– Learning from Each Other
– Understanding Challenges and Opportunities
– Informing Decisions
Join us to hear how PVN’s collaborative approach has transformed health care in BC and learn about the exciting future of health care co-production in the province.

Learning objectives:

1. Describe at least three specific ways in which the Patient Voices Network (PVN) has connected patients, families, caregivers, and health care professionals to improve health care in British Columbia.
2. Identify and explain at least two effective strategies and provide two examples of successful knowledge sharing and partnership-building between patients and health care teams, as demonstrated by the PVN, after the workshop.
3. Develop a personal action plan that includes at least three specific steps to apply PVN’s collaborative principles to improve health care decision-making and practice in their own communities.

Description coming soon

Barbara Kohnen Adriance, MPP is the Founder and CEO of The Malden Collective, a company that provides coaching and training services for teams working in long term care facilities. She is best known for creating the LiveWell Method, a quality assurance and performance improvement method that has reached more than 158 communities nationwide. Barbara has been in the health care sector 15 years, serving previously as head of training and human centered design at CareOregon, a Medicaid managed care organization. Her company has been recognized by the Oregon Department of Human Services as a contributor to improved quality of care and quality of life through its Quality Care Fund grant program. Barbara’s first career was in international policy advocacy in Washington DC, and she has deep regional experience in Central America and Mexico. Now she lives in Portland Oregon with her husband Jim and enjoys family, backpacking, and gardening with native plants.

After her husband’s unexpected hospital death just eight days after successful surgery in 2008, Carolyn Canfield rose above tragedy to learn about safety and changing culture for better experiences for patients and for health care workers. Her contributions exemplify the value of partnerships that integrate patient expertise with care providers’ vigilance, proficiency and accountability.

Carolyn has become a passionate advocate for strengthening the patient-practitioner relationship. Since joining the Patient Voices Network in 2011, her placements have opened doors for learning and introduced her to hundreds of fellow volunteers and providers in lasting supportive networks.

Pioneering to advance the patient voice, Carolyn became UBC’s first citizen-patient faculty appointment as honorary lecturer in the Department of Family Practice, the first lay case presenter for Island Health’s Anesthesia Grand Rounds and a frequent keynote presenter for BC patient safety initiatives. Her experiences at the podium and head table include addressing Providence Health Care’s Expanded Leadership Forum, leading a seminar for the Western Regional Training Centre for Health Services Research and opening the biennial assembly of the Perioperative Nurses Association of BC. Her message invariably urges engaging with patients to improve care.

Carolyn has accompanied patients to medical appointments to strengthen their confidence in asking questions, connected keen practitioners and patient leaders across continents to share their passion for identical improvement goals, and encouraged organizations at every scale to partner with patients in their work. Health care professionals and patients alike appreciate how energetic, understanding and respectful she is to work with.

Carolyn’s ability to motivate people from all facets of health care has led to worldwide invitations to share her insights on improvement from a patient perspective. She has led workshops and coached teams across Canada and in the United States, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Wales, England, France, Spain, Japan, Australia and New Zealand.

Dr. Cynthia Clark is Founder of Civility MattersTM, Professor Emeritus at Boise State University, and an award-winning professor, scholar, and author. As a clinician, she specialized in adolescent mental health, substance abuse intervention and recovery, and suicide and violence prevention. Dr. Clark’s ground-breaking work on fostering civility and healthy work environments has brought national and international attention to the controversial issues of incivility in academic and work environments around the globe. Her theory-driven interventions, empirical measurements, theoretical models, and reflective assessments provide best practices to ­­prevent, measure, and address uncivil behavior and to create healthy workplaces.

Dr. Clark is a fellow in the American Academy of Nursing, the NLN Academy of Nursing Education, and served as co-chair for the American Nurses Association Professional Panel on Incivility, Bullying, and Workplace Violence. She is a prolific researcher, presenter, author, and professional blogger. Her presentations number in the hundreds and her publications have appeared in a broad range of peer-reviewed and open-access venues. She is the recipient of numerous teaching, research, and service awards; including 3-time recipient of the Most Inspirational Professor Award, NLN Excellence in Educational Research Award, Journal of Nursing Education Christine A. Tanner Scholarly Writing Award, Nurse Educator Kathleen T. Heinrich Writing Award, Elizabeth Russell Belford Award for Excellence in Education, awarded by Sigma Theta Tau International, and the John P. McGovern Lectureship award conferred by the American Association of Colleges on Nursing. Dr. Clark has been honored as a Distinguished Scholar at 12 universities. The first edition of her book, Creating and Sustaining Civility in Nursing Education,” received 1st place honors as the 2013 AJN Book of the Year. The 2nd edition is now available. Dr. Clark’s newest book, Core Competencies of Civility for Nursing & Healthcare is a must-read for all nurses and health care professionals.

Danielle Ofri, MD, PhD
Dr. Ofri is one of the foremost voices in the medical world today, shining an unflinching light on the realities of healthcare and speaking passionately about the doctor-patient relationship.

She writes about medicine and the doctor-patient connection. Her writing appears in the New York Times, The New Yorker, and the Atlantic, as well as the Lancet and the New England Journal of Medicine.

Danielle Ofri is a founder and Editor-in-Chief of Bellevue Literary Review, the first literary journal to arise from a medical setting, now an award-winning, independent nonprofit literary arts organization. She is a primary care internist at Bellevue Hospital and a clinical professor of medicine at NYU.

Her lectures to medical and general audiences are renowned for her use of dramatic stories (and avoidance of PowerPoint). Her essays have been selected for Best American Essays (twice) and Best American Science Writing, by Stephen Jay Gould, Oliver Sacks, and Susan Orlean .

Ofri is the recipient of a 2023 Guggenheim Fellowship, the 2023 Davies Scholar Award from the American College of Physicians, the 2022 National Humanism in Medicine Medal from the Gold Foundation, the 2020 Global Listening Legend Award, and has been awarded an honorary doctorate of humane letters. She has received the McGovern Award from the American Medical Writers Association for “preeminent contributions to medical communication.”

Danielle Ofri has given TED talks on Deconstructing Perfection and Fear: A Necessary Emotion, and has also performed stories for the Moth. She is featured in the documentaries “Why Doctors Write” and “White Coat Rebels.”

An ever-struggling student of the cello, she is slogging slowly through all 36 movements of the Bach cello suites.

David Newman-Toker, M.D. Ph.D. is Professor of Neurology, Ophthalmology, and Otolaryngology, and is the inaugural recipient of the David Robinson Professor in Vestibular Neurology. He holds joint appointments in Emergency Medicine and Health Sciences Informatics at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, as well as in Epidemiology and Health Policy & Management at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Dr. Newman-Toker completed his undergraduate education at Yale University (B.S., 1991) and his medical training at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine (M.D., 1995). After completing his Neurology residency at the Massachusetts General Hospital (1999), he went on to complete fellowships in Neuro-Ophthalmology at Harvard University/Massachusetts Eye & Ear Infirmary (2000) and in Neuro-Otology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine (2002). He completed his doctoral training in clinical research methods at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health through the Graduate Training Program in Clinical Investigation (Ph.D., 2007).

Dr. Newman-Toker’s academic mission is to eliminate harms from diagnostic errors and maximize the accuracy and efficiency of diagnostic testing in clinical practice. He is as a Core Faculty member of the Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety & Quality, where he serves as Director of the Armstrong Institute Center for Diagnostic Excellence, focused on enhancing diagnostic safety, quality, and value.

Elizabeth Reis, Ph.D.
Is a professor at the Macaulay Honors College at the City University of New York where she teaches courses on Medical Ethics; Reproductive Technologies; Gender, Sex, and Bioethics; and Disability Studies. She graduated from Smith College and received her Ph.D. in History at the University of California, Berkeley. Reis is the author of Bodies in Doubt: An American History of Intersex (2nd edition 2021); Damned Women: Sinners and Witches in Puritan New England; and the editor of American Sexual Histories. She has published essays in the Hastings Center Report, Bioethics Forum, Journal of American History, Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, the New York Times, and TIME Magazine. Reis is a member of the Ethics Committee at New York Presbyterian Weill Cornell Hospital and an editor of Nursing Clio, a collaborative online journal that focuses on the intersection of gender, history, and medicine. She is a former board member of interACT: Advocates for Intersex Youth and a current board member of Talia’s Voice: Projects for Patient Safety.

Living an intersex life, CBS Sunday Morning

Kelli Houston
Kelli Houston is the Chief Equity Officer for Community Health Plan of Washington (local not-for-profit, serving vulnerable members throughout the state of Washington), where she is responsible for leading DEI strategic planning and execution across the organization.  She is the chair of the statewide Equity Council and serves on several community-led committees overseeing key priorities in advancing organizations with an anti-racism approach. She comes to us with over 17 years of DEI Leadership experience across the health and human sector with emphasis on health and racial equity and ensuring that culturally diverse communities live healthier lives and receive the care they need and deserve.

Engagement Leader, Patient & Public Engagement. Jami joined Health Quality BC in February 2016, where she brings her passion for working with people to her role as an Engagement Leader. Prior to joining the Council, she led the communications and engagement strategy for the largest provider of seniors housing in British Columbia. Before that, she spent 10 years at Fraser Health leading a multidisciplinary team focused on creating healthier communities. Throughout her career, Jami has enthusiastically supported doing everything she can to draw on the richness of our collective experiences to build a health care system that works for everyone. Jami holds a Master of Arts in Professional Communication from Royal Roads University, a Bachelor of Arts in Communications from Western Washington University and is a certified trainer in Public Participation and LEAN Healthcare.

Leigh Simmons, MD, is an internal medicine physician at Massachusetts General Hospital and assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School.

She is the Medical Director of the MGH Health Decision Sciences Center where she studies the use of decision aids to help patients and clinicians in the shared decision making process. Dr. Simmons develops and conducts training of physicians and staff in communication skills focused on improving decision making with patients. Her clinical practice is with the Internal Medicine Associates at Massachusetts General Hospital. In addition to her clinical and research interests, Dr. Simmons is a medical student educator and directs the internal medicine clerkship for Harvard Medical School students at Massachusetts General Hospital.

Missy Danforth is the Senior Vice President of Health Care Ratings at The Leapfrog Group, a Washington, DC based, not-for-profit organization representing the nation’s largest employers and purchasers of health benefits working to make great leaps forward in the safety, quality, and value of healthcare.

At Leapfrog, Ms. Danforth serves as member of Leapfrog’s senior leadership team informing Leapfrog’s strategic direction, engaging experts and stakeholders, and analyzing program results to engage purchasers and consumers and to drive safety and quality improvements. Ms. Danforth administers Leapfrog’s various measurement and public reporting activities including the Leapfrog Hospital and Ambulatory Surgery Center Surveys, the Hospital Safety Grade, Leapfrog’s Value-Based Purchasing Program, the Leapfrog’s new recognition program, which recognizes hospitals providing exceptional care for patients with diabetes, in partnership with the American Diabetes Association.

Ms. Danforth services on the governance board of Battelle’s Partnership for Quality Measurement (PQM), is the former chair of the National Quality Forum’s Consensus Standards Approval Committee (CSAC) and serves on various other national committees and technical expert panels. She is currently leading a four-year project to develop national standards for diagnostic safety and quality in hospitals.

Dr. Sian Tsuei MHSc, MD, PhD, CCFP is a practicing Canadian family physician with Population Health Sciences PhD from Harvard University. He is a Clinical Assistant Professor (UBC), Adjunct Professor (SFU) and Visiting Scientist (Harvard University). He is currently a member on the Artificial Intelligence Advisory Group of the College of Family Physician of Canada. His research examines health systems change related to technologies. He is particularly interested in the how AI affects the behaviours of health care providers and patient, as well as how AI affects the provider-patient dynamics. His research is global in nature, and he has particular interest in the Asian and North American contexts.