Speaker Bios

Tom Daschle

Former Senator

One of the most influential men in Washington today, Tom Daschle is a former senator whose lifelong passion and commitment to public service and healthcare reform is undeniable. As Senate majority and minority leader from 1994–2005, he cultivated a legacy as a dynamic party leader and tireless fighter for the common man.

He remains committed to everyday Americans, particularly in his quest to improve the nation’s healthcare system. The architect of President Obama’s healthcare plan, he is an outspoken advocate for reform, and a well-connected voice between the healthcare industry and Washington policy-makers. His recent book, Critical: What We Can Do About the Healthcare Crisis, offers exciting new solutions to changing America's healthcare system, and provided providing the framework for Obama’s plan.

Senator Daschle is also actively involved in the Bipartisan Policy Center, with fellow Senators Howard Baker, Bob Dole, and George Mitchell, and in both the public and private sector, remains dedicated to finding common ground between conservatives and liberals on the issues that impact us all.

Expanded bio

Harvey V. Fineberg, MD, PhD

President, Institute of Medicine

Harvey V. Fineberg is President of the Institute of Medicine. He served as Provost of Harvard University from 1997 to 2001, following thirteen years as Dean of the Harvard School of Public Health. He has devoted most of his academic career to the fields of health policy and medical decision making. His past research has focused on the process of policy development and implementation, assessment of medical technology, evaluation and use of vaccines, and dissemination of medical innovations.

Dr. Fineberg helped found and served as president of the Society for Medical Decision Making and also served as consultant to the World Health Organization. At the Institute of Medicine, he has chaired and served on a number of panels dealing with health policy issues, ranging from AIDS to new medical technology. He also served as a member of the Public Health Council of Massachusetts (1976-1979), as chairman of the Health Care Technology Study Section of the National Center for Health Services Research (1982-1985), and as president of the Association of Schools of Public Health (1995-1996).

Dr. Dale Bratzler, DO, MPH

President and CEO of Oklahoma Foundation for Medical Quality

Dale Bratzler, DO, MPH, is the Medical Director of the Hospital Interventions Quality Improvement Organization Support Center and the Hospital Quality of Care Measures Special Study located at the Oklahoma Foundation for Medical Quality. In these roles, he provides clinical and technical support for local and national quality improvement initiatives including the Medicare National Pneumonia Project and the National Surgical Care Improvement Project. He is a Past President of the American Health Quality Association and was recently appointed by the Secretary of Health and Human Services to the National Advisory Council for the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

Dr. Bratzler has published and presented locally and nationally on topics related to healthcare quality, particularly on improving care for pneumonia, increasing vaccination rates, and reducing surgical complications. Dr. Bratzler received his Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine degree at the University of Health Sciences College of Osteopathic Medicine in Kansas City, Missouri, and his Master of Public Health degree from the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center College of Public Health. He is board certified in internal medicine and an adjunct associate professor of health administration and policy at the University of Oklahoma College of Public Health.

Andrew Kramer, MD

Head of the Division of Health Care Policy and Research, University of Colorado

Andrew M. Kramer, MD is Head of the Division of Health Care Policy and Research and the Peter W. Shaughnessy Professor in the Department of Medicine at the University of Colorado. Dr. Kramer has 28 years of experience in health policy research serving as Principal Investigator for over 50 grants and contracts funded by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Planning and Evaluation (ASPE), NIH, foundations, and state govern ment. Dr. Kramer's research focuses particularly on quality, outcomes, and costs of care for chronically ill older persons in multiple settings. In the nursing home field, he has extensively studied the nursing home survey and enforcement process, quality of care and quality of life measurement, and the use of health information technology. He led the development of the Quality Indicator Survey (QIS), was Principal Investigator for the QIS demonstration, and is currently Principal Investigator in support of CMS to refine the QIS process and to conduct the training of State Survey Agencies in the national roll out of QIS. He is President and CEO of Nursing Home Quality, LLC, a company that provides automated quality assurance systems and training for Nursing Home Providers.

Dr. Kramer has also conducted national research studies on rehabilitation following stroke and hip fracture across care settings. He also serves as the Co-director for Community Research in the NIH-funded Colorado Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute. He has served on Institute of Medicine committees, testified before Congress, provided testimony to MedPAC, and frequently advises CMS staff on findings of his research. Currently he is appointed to the Advisory Panel on Medicare Education. Dr. Kramer attended Harvard Medical School and he remains actively involved in training research faculty in the School of Medicine.

Trent T. Haywood, MD, JD

Senior Vice President of Clinical Performance and Chief Medical Officer, VHA Inc.

Trent Haywood is Senior Vice President of Clinical Performance and Chief Medical Officer for VHA Inc. He works with more than 150 other physicians and nurses employed in the organization. His focus is on developing VHA’s best practices platform to drive quality across the VHA network, stimulating clinical innovation, supporting pay-for-performance, and preparing for consumer driven health care.

Prior to joining VHA, he served as Deputy Chief Medical Officer for the Office of Clinical Standards and Quality within the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. As Deputy Chief Medical Officer, Haywood was part of the senior management team directing quality management and quality improvement initiatives connected to Medicare.

Haywood holds a bachelor's degree from the University of Notre Dame and a medical degree from the University of Illinois in Chicago; he completed his internal medicine residency at Loyola University. Haywood also holds a law degree from Northwestern School of Law.

Deborah Adler

Principal, Deborah Adler, LLC.

Motivated by a desire to make people’s lives easier and safer, Deborah Adler designed a comprehensive system for packaging prescription medicine as her master’s thesis. The result—a completely reinvented pharmacy experience. She brought this innovation to Target, and together they developed the ClearRx system.

Adler continues to deliver new directions in products, packaging, labeling, identity and information systems through her multi-disciplinary design studio Deborah Adler LLC. There she pioneers design solutions for clients such as Target, Johnson and Johnson, and Medline in addition to exploring and developing her own projects. Always at the heart of her work is the belief that design can change people’s behavior.

Prior to forming her firm in 2007, Adler was a senior designer for Milton Glaser for five years where she provided guidance to clients seeking new avenues in visual communications, signage programs and brand identity. Many prominent media outlets including New York Magazine, Glamour Magazine, NBC Nightly News, and CBS Sunday Morning have featured Adler. Her work is in the permanent collection at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and has been shown at the Cooper Hewitt as part of the National Design Triennial and as a solo exhibition From Master’s Thesis to Medicine Cabinet.

Adler received her Master of Fine Arts in Design from The School of Visual Arts in 2002.

Alan F. Rothfeld, MD

Vice President for Medical Quality, Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center

Dr. Rothfeld is pursuing several projects to reduce harm caused by hospitalization and to improve the quality of acute care medicine.

In 2007 Dr. Rothfeld left clinical practice to become the Vice President of Medical Quality at Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center and the Chief Medical Officer of QueensCare Family Clinics. He has several teaching positions at USC, where he is a Clinical Professor of Medicine and the Claremont Colleges, where he is an Adjunct Professor of Applied Life Sciences.

He attended college at Cornell University and Medical School at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas. He completed Internal Medicine training in Houston and Pulmonary Specialty Training in Chapel Hill, North Carolina before joining the faculty of the University of Southern California School of Medicine in 1979. He left USC to enter the private practice of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine and remained in practice for 30 years.

Dea Kent, RN, MSN, NP-C, CWOCN

Manager, WOC Clinic, Riverview Hospital

Dea Kent has been a practicing nurse for 20 years and is currently the manager and primary provider at the Wound Healing Center at St. Joseph Hospital in Kokomo, Indiana. She is a published author on subjects related to wound, ostomy and continence issues.

Ms Kent has an interest in research and feels that research, with real applications for the real nurse, is very important. She is active in WOCNs nationally and at the regional level as well. Ms Kent is passionate about her profession and is a thought leader in the industry.

Günter Kampf, MD

Consultant Hospital Epidemiologist

Dr. Kampf is a member of the German association for infection control and a lecturer at Ernst Moritz University in Greifswald, Germany. He has worked in the department of scientific affairs at Bode Chemie GmbH & Co. in Hamburg, Germany since 1998.

Dr. Kampf is the author or co-author of 119 mainly peer-reviewed scientific papers in international and national journals on infection control. He has written a monograph on hand hygiene in German and Russian, as well as four book chapters on sterilization, hand hygiene, active ingredients, and hygiene in dialysis and endoscopy. Dr. Kampf has reviewed manuscripts for various journals such as Archives of Internal Medicine, Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology, Journal of Hospital Infection, and European Journal of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases.

Professor Didier Pittet, MD, MS

Epidemiologist and Director of the Infection Control Program at the University of Geneva Hospitals

Dr. Pittet is the Hospital Epidemiologist and Director of the Infection Control Program at the University of Geneva Hospitals and Faculty of Medicine, Geneva, Switzerland; Professor of Medicine and Hospital Epidemiology at the University of Geneva; and Attending Physician in Adult and Pediatric Infectious Diseases, University of Geneva Hospitals.

He holds Honorary Professorships at the Division of Investigative Sciences and School of Medicine, Imperial College London, UK, the Faculty of Health and Social Sciences, Hong Kong Polytechnic University School of Health Science, and First Medical School of the Fu, Shanghai, China. Professor Pittet is a member of the Advisory Board of the WHO World Alliance for Patient Safety and Lead of the First Global Patient Safety Challenge “Clean care is safe care”, a core component of the Alliance. Professor Pittet is co-author of more than 300 publications and several chapters in textbooks.

He is the recipient of several national and international honors including a CBE (Commander of the British Empire) awarded by Her Majesty Queen Elisabeth II for services to the prevention of healthcare-associated infection in the UK (2007), the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America Lectureship for his contribution to infection control and healthcare epidemiology (2008), and the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases’ Award for Excellence (2009). Professor Pittet’s current research interests include the epidemiology and prevention of healthcare-associated infections, methods for improving compliance with barrier precautions and hand hygiene practices, as well as methods for improving the quality of patient care and patient safety. He is also involved in research on the epidemiology of infectious diseases.

Elizabeth A. Ayello, PhD, RN, ACNS-BC, ETN, FAPWCA, FAAN

President, Ayello, Harris and Associates

Elizabeth A. Ayello is president of Ayello, Harris and Associates. She is a faculty member at Excelsior College School of Nursing, Albany New York, Co-Director of the International Interprofessional Wound Care Course at the University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada, and Senior Advisor, the John A Hartford Institute for Geriatric Nursing, New York, New York. Dr. Ayello is the Executive Editor for the World Council of Enterostomal Therapists (WCET) Journal and Clinical Associate Editor for the interdisciplinary journal, Advances in Skin and Wound Care. Dr. Ayello has served in many leadership positions in several wound care organizations including Board of Directors and 1999 President of the National Pressure Ulcer Advisory Panel (NPUAP). She was one of two nurses nationally who served on the CMS panel that revised the guidance for surveyors on F Tag 314 on pressure ulcers. She is the Chairperson for the New Jersey Hospital Association collaborative that decreased pressure ulcer incidence among its partners by 70% across care settings. Dr. Ayello is co-author/editor of the book "Wound Care Essentials: Practice Principles."

Caroline Fife, MD

Chief Medical Officer, Intellicure

Dr. Fife is the Chief Medical Officer of Intellicure, Inc. and is an Associate Professor within the Department of Anesthesiology, the University of Texas Medical School at Houston and Director of Clinical Reseach at Memorial Hermann Center for Wound Healing and Hyperbaric Medicine, and Aerospace and Industrial Medicine. She currently serves on the Boards of the American Academy of Wound Management, the Association for the Advancement of Wound Care, the Diver's Alert Network, and NOAA's Diving Medical Review Board. Caroline is also co-editor of "Wound Care Practice," a textbook on the assessment and management of chronic wounds, and co-editor of Today's Wound Clinic.

Expanded Bio

Kevin W. Yankowsky, JD

Partner, Fulbright & Jaworski L.L.P.

Kevin W. Yankowsky is a partner in the Health Law Litigation group of Fulbright & Jaworski L.L.P.’s Houston office. A true trial lawyer, Kevin has served as lead counsel in over twenty jury trials and nine appeals, in both State and Federal Court. Kevin's trial practice encompasses virtually all types of civil litigation facing the health care industry. He serves as lead counsel in professional liability claims, complex commercial suits, class actions, products liability matters, ERISA actions, premises liability suits and Federal False Claims Act cases. In addition to his extensive courtroom experience, he advises on Joint Commission investigations, hospital committee and medical peer review matters.

Kevin also is a member of Fulbright's Electronic Discovery and Information Management group and routinely advises on a variety of electronic data and document retention issues. Combining his experience in both practice areas, he counsels health care providers on data and document challenges faced when attempting to minimize the dangers, uncertainties and expense of twenty-first century litigation.

John Nance

Best Selling Author

John J. Nance, JD, is a founding member of the National Patient Safety Foundation and a thought leader on change in America’s healthcare system and improving patient safety and satisfaction. Mr. Nance is a world class speaker, consultant, author and regular contributor to ABC World News and Good Morning America. He brings a rich diversity of professional training and background to the quest of patient safety and medical practice improvement. His new book, Why Hospitals Should Fly: The Ultimate Flight Plan to Patient Safety and Quality Care (Second River Healthcare Press, 2008), is reinventing the cultural foundations of healthcare and bringing clarity to the decade-long patient safety and quality care debate.

Mr. Nance is a native Texan who earned his Bachelor’s degree from Southern Methodist University (SMU) and his Juris Doctor degree from SMU School of Law before admission to the Texas bar. Installed as a Distinguished Alumni of Southern Methodist University in 2002, he is also a decorated Air Force officer-pilot veteran of Vietnam and Operations Desert Storm/Desert Shield. He is a Lt. Colonel in the USAF Reserve well known for his pioneering involvement in Air Force human factors flight safety education.

A best-selling author, Mr. Nance has 18 major books published (five non-fiction, 13 fiction), two of which, Pandora’s Clock and Medusa’s Child, were both made into major, successful two-part mini-series for NBC and ABC respectively.