Peter Pronovost
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Peter J. Pronovost (born February 22, 1965) is Chief Quality and Transformation Officer at
University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center (UH Cleveland Medical Center) is a large not-for-profit academic medical complex in Cleveland, Ohio, United States. University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center is the main affiliate hospital of Ca ...
, the main affiliate of the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine. At UH, Pronovost is responsible for improving value across the health system, helping people stay well, get well and manage their most acute medical conditions. He is the clinical lead for population health and the lead for high-reliability medicine, with direct responsibility for the UH employee accountable care organization. He is also responsible for telehealth and virtual health programs serving patient and provider communities. He previously served as an intensive care
physician A physician (American English), medical practitioner (Commonwealth English), medical doctor, or simply doctor, is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through th ...
and director of the ''Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety'' at the
Johns Hopkins Hospital The Johns Hopkins Hospital (JHH) is the teaching hospital and biomedical research facility of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, located in Baltimore, Maryland, U.S. It was founded in 1889 using money from a bequest of over $7 million (1873 mo ...
in
Baltimore Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...
,
Maryland Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean to ...
. At
Johns Hopkins University Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hem ...
, he was Professor in the Departments of Anesthesiology & Critical Care Medicine as well as Surgery, Professor of Healthcare Management at the Carey Business School, Professor of Health Policy and Management at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and Medical Director of the Center for Innovation in Quality Patient Care. He introduced an intensive care
checklist A checklist is a type of job aid used in repetitive tasks to reduce failure by compensating for potential limits of human memory and attention. It helps to ensure consistency and completeness in carrying out a task. A basic example is the " to d ...
protocol that during an 18-month period saved 1500 lives and $100 million in the State of
Michigan Michigan () is a state in the Great Lakes region of the upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the 10th-largest state by population, the 11th-largest by area, and the ...
. According to surgeon Atul Gawande in ''
The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...
'', Pronovost's "work has already saved more lives than that of any laboratory scientist in the past decade." In 2008 ''
Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...
'' magazine named Pronovost among the
100 most influential people ''Time'' 100 (often stylized as ''TIME'' 100) is an annual listicle of the 100 most influential people in the world, assembled by the American news magazine ''Time''. First published in 1999 as the result of a debate among American academics, po ...
in the world. That same year, Pronovost was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship. Pronovost's book ''Safe Patients, Smart Hospitals: How One Doctor's Checklist Can Help Us Change Health Care from the Inside Out'' was released in February 2010.


Early life and education

Pronovost grew up in Waterbury, Connecticut. His parents were an elementary school teacher and a math professor. He received his B.S. from
Fairfield University Fairfield University is a private Jesuit university in Fairfield, Connecticut. It was founded by the Jesuits in 1942. In 2017, the university had about 4,100 full-time undergraduate students and 1,100 graduate students, including full-time ...
, M.D. from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, and Ph.D. in Clinical Investigation from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. In his Ph.D. thesis, he documented that in intensive-care units in Maryland, an intensive care specialist on the staff reduced death rates by a third.


Work

In 2003 he founded the Quality and Safety Research Group. Pronovost has published over 800 articles and chapters on patient safety and advises the
World Health Organization The World Health Organization (WHO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for international public health. The WHO Constitution states its main objective as "the attainment by all peoples of the highest possible level of h ...
on improving patient safety through WHO's World Alliance for Patient Safety. He started studying hospital-acquired infections in 2001, concluding that a simple 5 item check-list protocol would greatly reduce infections when inserting a
central venous catheter A central venous catheter (CVC), also known as a central line(c-line), central venous line, or central venous access catheter, is a catheter placed into a large vein. It is a form of venous access. Placement of larger catheters in more central ...
; Doctors should: # Wash their hands with soap. # Clean the patient's skin with chlorhexidine antiseptic. # Put sterile drapes over the entire patient. # Wear a sterile mask, hat, gown and gloves. # Put a sterile dressing over the catheter site. In the Keystone Initiative, a 2003 study by a collection of Michigan hospitals and health organizations, the median rate of infections at a typical ICU dropped from 2.7 per 1,000 patients to zero after three months. The Keystone Initiative published its results in the December, 2006 '' New England Journal of Medicine''. In the first three months of the project, the infection rate in Michigan's ICUs decreased by sixty-six per cent. In the Initiative's first eighteen months, they estimated that 1500 lives and $100 million were saved. These results were sustained for almost four years. Several reasons may explain why a simple checklist protocol is not more widely adapted: *Many physicians do not like being monitored by nurses or otherwise being forced to follow a checklist; *A wish to avoid standardized tasks and bureaucracy; and *A focus by researchers on "more exciting" issues such as disease biology and new treatment therapies. According to Pronovost, :The fundamental problem with the quality of American medicine is that we’ve failed to view delivery of health care as a science. The tasks of medical science fall into three buckets. One is understanding disease biology. One is finding effective therapies. And one is ensuring those therapies are delivered effectively. That third bucket has been almost totally ignored by research funders, government, and academia. It’s viewed as the art of medicine. That’s a mistake, a huge mistake. And from a taxpayer’s perspective it’s outrageous.


Recent work

In 2013, Pronovost co-founded Doctella, a startup that provides surgical checklists for patients to improve patient engagement, patient safety, and lead to better health outcomes. Also in 2013, Pronovost advocated for a system of alcohol and drug testing for doctors in a Journal of the American Medical Association article. He has participated in an online course, or
MOOC A massive open online course (MOOC ) or an open online course is an online course aimed at unlimited participation and open access via the Web. In addition to traditional course materials, such as filmed lectures, readings, and problem sets, m ...
, from Johns Hopkins provided via Coursera. In January 2018, he announced that he would be taking a position at United HealthCare. Shortly after taking the position he was promoted to Chief Medical Officer. Within weeks of taking this position, his departure from the position and the company was confirmed, although no reason was given. In October 2018, he joined
University Hospitals A teaching hospital is a hospital or medical centre that provides medical education and training to future and current health professionals. Teaching hospitals are almost always affiliated with one or more universities and are often co-located ...
as Chief Quality and Clinical Transformation Officer, adding value across the entire health system.


Honors

In 2008, he was named in ''Time'' magazine's
100 most influential people in the world ''Time'' 100 (often stylized as ''TIME'' 100) is an annual listicle of the 100 most influential people in the world, assembled by the American news magazine ''Time''. First published in 1999 as the result of a debate among American academics, po ...
, and was also named a MacArthur Fellow. In 2011, Pronovost was recognized for his outstanding professional achievement and commitment to service with election to membership in the
Institute of Medicine The National Academy of Medicine (NAM), formerly called the Institute of Medicine (IoM) until 2015, is an American nonprofit, non-governmental organization. The National Academy of Medicine is a part of the National Academies of Sciences, E ...
, one of the highest honors in the fields of health and medicine. On March 28, 2013, he was named a Gilman Scholar at Johns Hopkins University.


Personal life

Pronovost has two children. His wife, Marlene Miller, is ''Chair of Pediatrics'' as well as ''Pediatrician-in-Chief'' at
University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center (UH Cleveland Medical Center) is a large not-for-profit academic medical complex in Cleveland, Ohio, United States. University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center is the main affiliate hospital of Ca ...
.


See also

*
Evidence-based medicine Evidence-based medicine (EBM) is "the conscientious, explicit and judicious use of current best evidence in making decisions about the care of individual patients". The aim of EBM is to integrate the experience of the clinician, the values of t ...
*
Iatrogenesis Iatrogenesis is the causation of a disease, a harmful complication, or other ill effect by any medical activity, including diagnosis, intervention, error, or negligence. "Iatrogenic", ''Merriam-Webster.com'', Merriam-Webster, Inc., accessed 27 ...
*
Medical error A medical error is a preventable adverse effect of care (" iatrogenesis"), whether or not it is evident or harmful to the patient. This might include an inaccurate or incomplete diagnosis or treatment of a disease, injury, syndrome, behavior ...
*
Patient safety Patient safety is a discipline that emphasizes safety in health care through the prevention, reduction, reporting and analysis of error and other types of unnecessary harm that often lead to adverse patient events. The frequency and magnitude of a ...


References


External links


Peter J. Pronovost, Testimony before Government Oversight Committee, April 16, 2008
from johnshopkins.edu
Johns Hopkins University Quality and Safety Research Group
from jhu.edu
Teaming Up to Improve Quality
*
"The Secret to Fighting Infections"
article on Pronovost by Laura Landro, Wall Street Journal, March 28, 2011.
Example of co-produced Johns Hopkins Medical patient education video
to help surgery patients prevent and recognize blood clots, describes the video but does not link to it. {{DEFAULTSORT:Pronovost, Peter American anesthesiologists Johns Hopkins University faculty 1965 births Living people Fairfield University alumni Johns Hopkins School of Medicine alumni Johns Hopkins Hospital physicians Patient safety People in evidence-based medicine Health care quality MacArthur Fellows Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health alumni American physicians Members of the National Academy of Medicine