Updates on Leapfrog and Insights for 2024

Leah Binder, President & CEO, and Michelle Martin, VP at Paramount and Leapfrog Board Chair

Opening Keynote

Joe Kiani, key advisor to President Biden on patient safety

What Patients and Employers Expect for Patient Safety

Panel session featuring Krista Hughes, BCPA, Sue Sheridan, MBA, MIM, DHL, Robert Otto Valdez, Ph.D., M.H.S.A., Sally Welborn, Barbara Wentworth, PhD.

Conversations to Transform Tomorrow

An opportunity for Leapfrog’s diverse constituency to meet each other and share best practices

Healthcare-Associated Infection (HAI) Spike: Is it Over? 

Panel session featuring Lee Fleischer, MD, MS, CIC, Stephanie Taylor, MD, Rebecca Bartles, DrPH, CIC, FAPIC, and Karen van Caulil, Ph.D, and Shaunte Walton, MS, CIC, FAPIC

Closing Keynote Address

David W. Bates M.D., M.Sc., Internationally known leader of health care technology and patient safety. 

Closing Remarks

Leah Binder, President & CEO, and Michelle Martin, VP at Paramount and Leapfrog Board Chair

Joe Kiani, Founder, Patient Safety Movement Foundation, Founder and CEO, Masimo

Joe Kiani is a committed patient safety advocate. His desire to improve patient care and decrease medical errors with innovative medical technology led him to co-invent Masimo Signal Extraction Technology^® (SET^®). Masimo SET^® is known today as modern pulse oximetry. Around the world, clinicians rely on Masimo SET^® pulse oximetry to monitor more than 200 million patients each year¹. Joe Kiani founded Masimo, a medical technology company that is recognized worldwide as an industry-leading developer and producer of monitoring technologies, in 1989. Masimo’s wide array of technology innovations include measurements, sensors, and patient monitors. Holding over 600 patents, Kiani and his team have introduced numerous innovations in noninvasive monitoring, hospital automation, connectivity, and remote healthcare. Joe Kiani also founded the Patient Safety Movement Foundation, a nonprofit that works to eliminate patient harm and deaths from preventable medical errors worldwide. In 2021, President Joe Biden appointed Kiani to serve on the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.

Dr. Robert Valdez, Director, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ)

Robert Otto Valdez, Ph.D., M.H.S.A., was appointed Director of AHRQ in February 2022. He was previously the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) Professor Emeritus of Family & Community Medicine and Economics at the University of New Mexico (UNM).  From 1993 through 1997, Dr. Valdez served at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Health (Public Health Service) and simultaneously as Director of Interagency Health Policy (Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services).  Before joining DHHS in 1993, he served as a Special Senior Advisor to the Clinton White House on healthcare reform. He chaired the Healthcare Reform Benefits Workgroup and was a member of the Analytic Modeling Workgroup. He previously served in the Office of Child Health for the Health Care Financing Administration during the Carter Administration.

In 2008, Dr. Valdez was the Founding Executive Director of the RWJF Center for Health Policy at UNM. He previously served as the founding Dean at the Drexel University School of Public Health. From 1985 through 1999, he was a Professor of Health Services at the UCLA School of Public Health. He directed the health services doctoral studies program, the MBA/MPH program, in collaboration with the UCLA Anderson School of Business. He served as associate director of the Chicano Studies Research Center.

Dr. Valdez started his career as the lead child health researcher for the historic RAND Health Insurance Experiment. Internationally recognized as an expert in health services research, the U.S. healthcare system, and health policy analysis, he has led numerous global healthcare initiatives with the Pan American Health Organization and the University of California. His health promotion and disease prevention work with Univision Communications Corporation, “Salud es Vida: ¡Enterate!” was recognized with journalism’s prestigious Peabody Award. In 1998, he served as Special Senior Advisor to the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanic Americans. His public service includes serving as Chairman of the New Mexico Community Foundation, the American Hospital Association Foster G McGaw Prize Committee, and the Public Health Institute, one of the nation’s largest non-profit public health agencies serving communities across California and internationally.

Leah Binder, President & CEO, The Leapfrog Group

Since 2008, Leah Binder has served as President & CEO of The Leapfrog Group, an award-winning national nonprofit based in Washington, D.C., representing employers and other purchasers of health care calling for improved safety and quality in hospitals. She is a regular contributor to Forbes.com, Harvard Business Review, and other publications, and consistently cited among the most influential people and top women in healthcare. Through annual surveys, the Leapfrog Group collects data from hospitals and ambulatory surgery centers on the quality of care. Leapfrog also grades hospitals on how safe they are, a bold initiative experts estimate resulted in saving over 40,000 lives a year since 2017.

Before joining Leapfrog, Leah was vice president for a nationally noted rural health system in Farmington, Maine; and prior to that served as senior policy advisor in the New York City Mayor’s Office. She started her career at the National League for Nursing. She has a bachelors from Brandeis and two master’s degrees from University of Pennsylvania. She lives in the Washington, DC, area with her husband and two sons.

David W. Bates, M.D., M.Sc.,  Medical Director of Clinical and Quality Analysis at Mass General Brigham, Professor at Harvard Medical School, Professor at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

Dr. David Bates is the Medical Director of Clinical and Quality Analysis at Mass General Brigham in Boston, MA. In June 2023, he stepped down as Chief of General Internal Medicine and Primary Care at Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH), a position held for 25 years. Dr. Bates is also a Professor at Harvard Medical School and a Professor of Health Policy and Management at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, where he co-directs the Program in Clinical Effectiveness. In addition, he directs the Center for Patient Safety Research and Practice at BWH.

Dr. Bates is an internationally renowned expert in patient safety, using information technology to improve care, quality-of-care, cost-effectiveness, and outcomes assessment in medical practice. He previously served as president of the International Society for Quality in Healthcare (ISQua) and is the editor of the Journal of Patient Safety. Dr. Bates is a member of the National Academy of Medicine and has been elected to the Institute of Medicine, the American Society for Clinical Investigation, the Association of American Physicians, and the American College of Medical Informatics, and was Chairman of the Board of the American Medical Informatics Association. He has published over 1,200 peer-reviewed papers which have been cited over 150,000 times and has an h-index of 174, ranking him among the 400 most cited biomedical researchers of any type.

Susan E. Sheridan, MIM, MBA, DHL, Founding Member of Patients for Patient Safety (PFPS) US,Director of Patient Engagement Emeritus at the Society to Improve Diagnosis in Medicine

Susan E. Sheridan, MIM, MBA, DHL, is a Founding Member of Patients for Patient Safety (PFPS) US and the Director of Patient Engagement Emeritus at the Society to Improve Diagnosis in Medicine (SIDM). In 2022, Sheridan was appointed to the Patient Safety Working Group of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST). Prior to her current roles, she served as the Patient and Family Engagement Adviser in the Center for Clinical Standards and Quality at the Centers of Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), the Director of Patient Engagement of the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) and led the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Patients for Patient Safety initiative, a program under the World Health Organization (WHO) Patient Safety Program.  Sheridan is also a member of the  Institute of Healthcare Improvement Lucian Leape Institute and a member of the Future of Health, a global community of leaders whose purpose is to influence, transform and redesign the future of health.  Sheridan had previously spent 10 years in patient advocacy inspired by adverse family experiences in the healthcare system.

 In April 2009, Sheridan was named to Modern Healthcare's list of Top 25 Women in Healthcare as well as Modern Healthcare’s 100 Most Powerful People in Healthcare.  In 2011 Sheridan was appointed by The Secretary of Health and Human Services to serve on the   Advisory Committee on Infant Mortality.  She also served on the Centers for Disease Control’s (CDC) CLIAC Federal Advisory Council and the Accreditation Council of Graduate  Medical Education (ACGME) Board of Directors as a Public Director. In 2022 she was awarded the Mark Graber Award of Excellence by SIDM.  Sheridan and her family have been featured in USA Today, Wall Street Journal and New York Times and in the international documentaries,  Chasing Zero: Winning the War on Healthcare Harm and To Err is Human.

Sheridan received her BA from Albion College, her MIM and MBA from Thunderbird School of Global Management and her Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Adrian College.  She has a professional background in international banking and served in Ecuador with her late husband, Pat, as Peace Corps volunteers.

Krista Hughes, BCPA, Founder and CEO, Hughes Advocacy

Krista Hughes, BCPA, is a board-certified patient advocate and founder & CEO of Hughes Advocacy.  Ms. Hughes advocates for better health care for her clients in Alabama and elsewhere. She has over 25 years of experience working in the medical industry, where she equips, empowers, educates, and teaches patients how to get the best care they need and deserve. Ms. Hughes has emerged as a national advocate for patients.  She was appointed by U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Beccera to serve a three-year term on the National Advisory Council (NAC) for the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). A resident of Birmingham, Ms. Hughes is the first Alabamian known to have ever served on the prestigious council that addresses the quality of care in the United States.

She is an ambassador and committed partner with the Patient Safety Movement Foundation. In addition, she is a Patients for Patient Safety US Champion, Committee Lead for Patients for Patient Safety US's National Patient Family and Reporting Committee, a member of the National Patient Safety Board, and an active member of the Greater National Advocates Organization and Solace Health.  She is also an APHA Emeritus member of The Alliance of Professional Health Advocates (APHA), a former Board President of the National Association of Healthcare Advocacy (NAHAC), a former Board Member of the Mountain Brook Chamber of Commerce, and a former Emerging Leader of The Women’s Network (TWN).

Ms. Hughes has over 25 years of experience working in the medical industry. She has a tremendous passion for patients, and her goal as a healthcare advocate is to be your voice and put you back at the center of your healthcare! She equips, empowers, educates, and teaches her clients how to get the best medical care they need and deserve. Ms. Hughes believes in healthcare for all; patients should be treated equally with dignity, compassion, and respect. It is an honor and privilege to assist patients and their loved ones in their health care journey.

Sally Welborn, Welborn Advisory Associates

Sally currently advises employers, health care organizations, entrepreneurs, and others in the health care and employee benefits arenas. She works extensively as the Executive Advisor to the Employer Health Innovation Roundtable (EHIR). Prior to her current activities, she was most recently the Senior Vice President of Global Benefits for Walmart Stores, Inc. where she was responsible for overseeing the global benefits programs for Walmart’s more than 2.2 million associates and their families in twenty-eight countries. Prior to joining Walmart, she was senior vice president, Corporate Benefits for Wells Fargo & Company. Before that, her career includes consulting with large employers in all areas of benefits strategy and health care optimization when she was with HCIA, Inc. and William M. Mercer, Inc. She also worked at Aetna as a relationship manager and at Union Bank as the Vice President of Benefits.

Sally currently serves on the Board of Directors of Truveris, Inc., the Leapfrog Group, and Vivante Health. She also serves on the Advisory Board for the Penn Center for Health Incentives and Behavioral Economics.

Steve Burrows, Award-Winning Director/Writer and Patient Safety Advocate

This award-winning writer/director/performer has been reinventing stereotypes and challenging expectations in film, television, commercials, and theatre for over two decades.

His original voice - coupled with his edgy, character-driven humor - has made his work a favorite around the world, where his range in comedy is as diverse as the locations of his shoots - London, Rome, Tokyo, Bangkok, South Africa, and Milwaukee, Wisconsin to name a few. In a complete career 180°, Burrows dropped out of show business to take care of his mother, who had gone in for a routine partial hip replacement and came out in a coma with permanent brain damage. For real. The insane years that followed - fighting for his Mom’s life and for medical and legal justice - became Burrow’s latest feature, the award-winning, critically acclaimed HBO documentary film, Bleed Out. Leapfrog honored his mother by establishing the Judie Burrows Education Institute in 2022 to offer transformational educational programming that advances patient safety and empowers real, measurable progress.

Stephanie Taylor, MD, M Arch, CEO Building 4 Health, Inc., InCite Health Fellow, Harvard Medical School, ASHRAE Epidemic Task Force

Dr. Stephanie Taylor received her MD from Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts. For the next several decades she practiced clinical medicine in pediatric oncology and did research on cellular growth control mechanisms.

During her clinical work, she became increasingly convinced that the hospital building played a role in the healthcare-associated infections that too many patients acquired during their in-patient treatment. Determined to gain a better understanding of the impact of the built environment on patient healing, she returned to school and obtained her Master's Degree in Architecture. With new insights, she delved into research on the relationship between indoor environments and clinical outcomes of hospitalized patients. Her research revealed new findings on the powerful role of indoor air quality in driving acute infections, chronic inflammation, cognitive impairment, and a multitude of other diseases. Not surprisingly, she found that the conditions that influence patient outcomes also affect acute and chronic health conditions of all building occupants.

In 2019 she founded Building4Health, Inc. to scale the powerful yet underutilized approach of IAQ management for disease prevention.

To communicate the fascinating convergence of human health, microbiology and architecture, Dr. Taylor writes monthly columns and bi-annual feature articles for Engineered Systems Magazine and publishes in other healthcare journals. She is an ASHRAE Distinguished Lecturer and is on the Environmental Health Committee. She is also a member of the US Green Building Council technical advisory board on Indoor Air Quality.

Shaunté Walton, MS, CIC, FAPIC, System Director, Clinical Epidemiology & Infection Prevention, UCLA Health 

Shaunté Walton is the Health System Director of Clinical Epidemiology & Infection Prevention at UCLA Health.  She is responsible for oversight of the infection prevention program of all inpatient hospitals and 260+ ambulatory clinics. Shaunté is a trained Molecular Microbiologist and has over fifteen years of Infection Prevention experience, including pediatric and women’s services, adult and pediatric transplant services, oncology, neurology, critical care, surgical services, heart and vascular services, rehab services, and orthopedic services.  She has a proven record of healthcare associated infection reduction.  Most recently, overall infection reduction efforts at UCLA Health were highlighted in the following award application: Newsweek’s World’s Best Hospitals and U.S. Best Hospitals for Infection Prevention Award in 2021. 

Shaunté has served as a National member of Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC) since 2010, Board Member of APIC Houston Chapter (2011-2015) and general member of Greater Los Angeles APIC chapter since 2016.  She currently holds a Director position on the California APIC board. Shaunté serves on the editorial review board of Prevention Strategist and APIC Academic Pathway Steering Committee. 

In addition to her Bachelor of Science degree in Microbiology from Xavier University of Louisiana, Shaunté received her Master of Science in Health Systems from the University of Medicine and Dentistry New Jersey.  She has been board certified in infection prevention since 2010. 

Lee A. Fleisher, MD, Emeritus Professor of Anesthesiology and Critical Care and Professor of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine

Lee A. Fleisher, MD, is Emeritus Professor of Anesthesiology and Critical Care and Professor of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine.  He also serves as a Senior Advisor of the Bipartisan Policy Center, Senior Fellow of the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics and Visiting Fellow of the Duke-Margolis Center.  From 2004 through July 2020, he was the Robert D. Dripps Professor and Chair of Anesthesiology and Critical Care and Professor of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.  From July 2020-July 2023, he was the Chief Medical Officer and Director of the Center for Clinical Standards and Quality for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.  In this capacity, he was responsible for executing all national clinical, quality, and safety standards for healthcare facilities and providers, as well as establishing coverage determinations for items and services that improve health outcomes for Medicare beneficiaries. His research focuses on measurement of quality of care, decision making, implementation of cultural change and health policy.  In 2007, he was elected to membership of the National Academy of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences and served on Committees including the Board of Health Services of the NAM 

Karen van Caulil, Ph.D., President and CEO of the Florida Alliance for Healthcare Value

Dr. van Caulil leads a nationally recognized business coalition on health, overseeing all activities and operations including research projects, educational programs, conferences, and member engagement. Dr. van Caulil previously served in executive positions for the University of Central Florida College of Medicine and the Health Council of East Central Florida. 

Dr. van Caulil graduated from Duke University with a Bachelor of Sciences degree in Biology and completion of the “Science, Technology, and Human Values” degree program. She received a Master of Science in Public Health in Health Policy and Administration from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where she also completed a United States Public Health Service Federal Traineeship. She earned an interdisciplinary Doctorate in Public Affairs from the University of Central Florida.

Barbara A. Wentworth, Ph.D., Program Manager, Health Net

Barb Wentworth is a Program Manager at Health Net, a California-based health insurance company. Dr. Wentworth is responsible for Health Net’s hospital quality initiatives, ranging from incentive programs, hospital engagement, poor performer initiatives, and member education. These activities involve extensive collaboration with external organizations aligned across performance improvement objectives, particularly in the areas of patient safety and maternal health. In addition, she oversees Health Net’s programs to address the overuse of antibiotics and inappropriate imaging. She currently serves as co-chair of The Leapfrog Group’s Partners Advisory Committee.

Prior to joining Health Net, Dr. Wentworth worked as a policy analyst at the UCLA Center for Healthier Children, Families and Communities where she collaborated with faculty on health systems design. Previously, at KFF (the Kaiser Family Foundation), she managed Women's Health and California Health Policy initiatives, and the State Health Facts program. She began on Capitol Hill working for the U.S. House Committee on Government Reform under Ranking Member Congressman Henry Waxman, where she focused on a range of health care issues. Dr. Wentworth earned her bachelor’s degree from Dartmouth College and a Ph.D. from UCLA’s Fielding School of Public Health.  

Rebecca Bartles, DrPH, CIC, FAPIC, Executive Director, CIPCRPI, APIC

Rebecca (Becca) Bartles is the Executive Director of the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Prevention (APIC)’s Center for Infection Prevention and Control Research, Practice, and Innovation (CIPCRPI). Becca has practiced Infection Prevention and Infectious Disease Epidemiology for the last 18 years in a variety of healthcare settings and has numerous publications focused on infection prevention staffing and endoscope safety. She received both her BS in Public Health, Health Education and her MPH in Epidemiology from East TN State University. She completed her Doctorate in Public Health in 2021 with a dissertation topic of “Assessing efficacy of an evidence-based Clostridiodes difficile screening tool using electronic medical record data”. Becca also teaches courses at the University of Providence for a Masters in Infection Prevention degree program that she founded in 2016. She has been CIC certified since 2008 and is an APIC fellow. Most notably, though, Becca is the mother of four amazing daughters, ages 9-24.