Steven Coffee, Martin Hatlie, Carole Hemmelgarn & Kelly Smith
Patients as partners in diagnostic safety
Date and time
Tuesday, February 21, 2023, 12-1 p.m. ET
Summary Description
Diagnostic errors are a leading patient safety concern. Estimates indicate that diagnostic errors impact nearly one in 20 outpatients, are responsible for 6-17% of hospital adverse events and that nearly every person will experience a diagnostic error within their lifetime. Factors leading to diagnostic errors are multifactorial. Patients, families and caregivers can be important partners to improve the quality, safety and experience of diagnosis. This moderated panel explores the state of the science of engaging patients in direct care, hospital and health system improvement and policy to improve diagnostic safety.
Speaker bios
Colonel Steven Coffee is a career military officer. He entered the Air Force in 2001 after graduating from Morehouse College in Atlanta, GA and commissioning through the Tennessee State University AFROTC program in Nashville, TN. He is a founding member of the Patients for Patient Safety US chapter of the World Health Organization. Colonel Coffee served as a charter member and first community Chair of the MedStar Georgetown Patient and Family Advisory Council for Quality and Safety, and sits on Patient and Family Advisory Councils for the MedStar Health System, the Society to Improve Diagnosis in Medicine, Sentrics E3, and Hope for Henry foundation. Additionally, he is a member of the Board of Directors for Hope for Henry foundation, and Liver Mommas and Families foundation.
Additionally, he serves on a technical expert panel with the Yale New Haven Health Services Corporation/Center for Outcomes Research and Evaluation and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and was a featured panelist during a CMS, Person and Family Engagement Affinity Group Pacing Event.
Martin Hatlie is President and CEO for Project Patient Care, a Chicago-based safety and QI coalition dedicated to using the voice of the patient to improve care. He is passionate about advancing the roles patients and families play as co-creators of solutions that ensure healthcare safety. Hatlie has been active for more than 25 years in health system transformation work on projects funded by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Agency for Healthcare Research & Quality and Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute, among others. Hatlie is a founding member of Patients for Patient Safety US, the World Health Organization’s consumer led network of patient safety advocates in the United States. He also serves as Co-Director of the MedStar Institute for Quality & Safety, which integrates open and honest communication strategies, patient and family engagement, research and high reliability organization methods into quality and safety improvement.
Carole Hemmelgarn is the Senior Director for the Executive Master’s program for Clinical Quality, Safety & Leadership at Georgetown University, and the Senior Director Education for the MedStar Institute for Quality & Safety. Carole received a master’s degree in Patient Safety Leadership from the University of Illinois at Chicago, and a second master’s degree in Health Care Ethics from Creighton University. She sits on the Leapfrog Patient & Family Caregiver Expert Panel, Board of Quality, Safety and Experience at Children’s Hospital Colorado, Clinical Excellence Council for Colorado Hospital Association, ABIM Foundation, Patient Advisory Committee and the Board of Directors for the Collaborative for Accountability and Improvement. She is also a founding member of Patients for Patient Safety US.
Kelly Smith is the inaugural Michael Garron Chair in Patient Oriented Research at the Michael Garron Hospital and Associate Professor and Co-program Lead for Outcomes & Evaluation in the Institute of Health Policy, Management, & Evaluation in the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto. Her research focuses on coproducing practical solutions to challenges of healthcare delivery with a focus on patient safety and quality improvement.
Dr. Smith is a leading investigator in patient-oriented research, forging partnerships with patients to codesign research and innovations to improve the quality and safety of healthcare delivery. Dr. Smith’s research on communication and resolution program design, development, implementation, and evaluation led to the codesign of the CANDOR toolkit in partnership with the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, which has been adopted by hundreds of hospitals across the US.
