Task force members named for health IT safety center road map

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, NC – RTI International has announced the members of a task force helping to create a road map for the development of a national health IT safety center. 

The task force will assist RTI in providing the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) with a road map for the development of a health IT safety center. The road map will outline a five-year plan for the center's implementation and define the focus, functions, governance and value of a potential new national health IT safety center. 

The health IT safety center, which will operate within the scope of ONC's and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality's (AHRQ's) current authorities, has been envisioned as a public-private entity that provides engagement, evidence and education around health IT safety.

The members of the task force are public-private stakeholders, including safety researchers, patient advocates, providers, health IT vendors, patient safety organizations, medical liability and health insurers, government officials and others. 

The task force will provide recommendations and feedback to RTI on the development of educational events and opportunities for engagement in health IT safety-related activities. The members will also be expected to review and comment on reports related to health IT safety, interventions and national health IT safety goals. 

Participation in the task force involves attending four meetings between December 2014 and March 2015. The task force's work will build on previous health IT safety initiatives including those from the Institute of Medicine Committee on Patient Safety and Health Information Technology, the ONC Health IT Patient Safety Action and Surveillance Plan, and the Food and Drug Administration Safety Innovation Act (FDASIA) Workgroup. 

The task force will be free to identify and explore the activities, governance, funding and other aspects of a potential national health IT safety center within the scope of ONC and AHRQ's authority. RTI has produced a scoping document, available on www.healthitsafety.org, which describes the objectives, scope, task force members, management and timeline of the health IT safety center road map project.

Task force members include:

• Terry Fairbanks, MD, MS
  Director, National Center for Human Factors in Healthcare and MedStar SiTEL, MedStar Health 
• Peggy Binzer
  Executive Director, Alliance for Quality Improvement and Patient Safety
• Richard Landen, MBA, MPH
  QuadraMed, Director of Regulatory Affairs
  Representing the HIMSS Electronic Health Record (EHR) Association
• Ronni Solomon, JD
  Executive Vice President and General Counsel, ECRI Institute
• Dean F. Sittig, PhD
  School of Biomedical Informatics, University of Texas Health Science Center, Houston, TX
• Tejal Gandhi, MD, MPH
  National Patient Safety Foundation
• Rebecca P. Snead, BSPharm 
  National Alliance of State Pharmacy Associations, Alliance for Patient Medication Safety
• Steven Stack, MD 
  President-elect, American Medical Association
• Diane Jones, JD
  American Hospital Association
• David Classen, MD
  CMIO, Pascal Metrics; Associate Professor of Medicine, University of Utah
• Gerard M. Castro, PhD, MPH
  Project Director, Patient Safety Initiatives; Office of Patient Safety, The Joint Commission
• Luke Sato, MD
  Senior Vice President and Chief Medical Officer, CRICO/Risk Management Foundation
• Gilad (Gil) Kuperman, MD, PhD
  Director, Interoperability Informatics, NY-Presbyterian Hospital
• Susan McBride, PhD, RN-BC, CPHIMS
  Professor, Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, School of Nursing
• Shafiq Rab, MD
  Hackensack University Medical Center
  Representing College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME)
• Eugene Heslin, MD
  Bridge Street Medical Group 
• Stephanie Zaremba, JD
  athenahealth
• Missy Danforth
  Senior Director, Hospital Ratings, The Leapfrog Group
• Michael Cohen, MD
  Professor, Department of Pathology, University of Utah
• Emily Barey RN, MSN (Alt: Jim Russell)
  Director of Nursing Informatics, EPIC
• David B. Troxel, MD
  Medical Director and Secretary, Board of Governors, The Doctors Company
• Martha Donovan Hayward
  Institute for Healthcare Improvement, Public and Patient Engagement
• Marilyn Neder Flack
  Executive Director, Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation (AAMI) Foundation
  Senior Vice President, Patient Safety Initiatives
• Bakul Patel, MSEE, MBA
  Associate Director for Digital Health (Acting), Center for Devices and Radiological Health, Food and Drug Administration
• Andrew Gettinger, MD
  Office of Clinical Quality and Safety, Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology
• Amy Helwig, MD, MS 
  Deputy Director, Center for Quality Improvement and Patient Safety, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality
• Ben Bartolome (Alt: Yahya Shaikh, MD, MPH)
  Special Counsel, Office of General Counsel, Federal Communications Commission
• Minet Javellana
  Center for Clinical Standards & Quality, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services