TARGET AUDIENCE:
This course is designed for Physicians, Nurses, Nurse Practitioners, Physician Assistants, Hospital Administrators, Chief Nursing Officers, Patient Safety Officers, Healthcare Quality Officers, Compliance Officers, and other professionals dealing with patient safety and healthcare quality improvement.

PROGRAM PURPOSE:
As a nation, our healthcare costs have been rapidly rising and at the same time issues around millions of uninsured, poor quality and unsafe healthcare practices abound. It has been a decade since the Institute of Medicine's," To Err is Human Report" declared that as a result of medical and medication errors approximately 44,000 to 98,000 Americans die or are injured as a result of medical errors. Although there have been many improvements with patient safety and healthcare quality initiatives, driven both by the government as well as the private sector, it is apparent from multiple studies that much remains to be done. With the passage of the Stimulus Bill (American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009) and the Healthcare Reform Bill (Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act) many legislative and regulatory changes will look to address the issues of healthcare access and coverage, patient safety, quality of care and escalating costs. This course will look at patient safety, healthcare quality and risk management in terms of how these issues impact the delivery of health care in various settings as well as what is being done by the various stakeholders involved to make needed improvements.

OBJECTIVES:
To provide the audience with an overview of the status of the quality and safety of the United States healthcare system as reported by the government, the private sector and academia. Presenters will provide outlines of what is being done to assess, address, and improve the situation from multiple perspectives of healthcare practitioners, healthcare entities, third party payers, and employers at the local and national levels.

A more complete list of objectives will be provided in the course syllabus.

Course and Faculty Coordinator
Sunil K. Sinha MD, MBA, FACP
Vice President Medical Affairs
Bon Secours – Regional Medical Center
Richmond, VA

Dr Sinha is a board certified internist with over 15 years experience with clinical practice, health systems administration, federal health care policy work, national patient safety and quality improvement initiatives, and active involvement with several national professional societies and the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award program.
He is a past director of medical and public health policy at Pfizer, where he developed and represented corporate policies on comparative effectiveness, medication adherence, primary care access, therapeutic substitution and the patient centered medical home (PCMH).
He was a senior medical officer in the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) from 2004 till 2008 and coordinated the quality initiatives within the Medicare Advantage, Medicare Drug Benefit and Special Needs Programs. As an acting division director he worked on the National Voluntary Hospital Reporting Initiative, Doctors Office Quality – IT Initiative, the Physicians Quality Reporting Initiative (PQRI), and the Chronic Care Improvement Pilot.

Dr Sinha worked for the Department of Veterans’ Affairs from 1999 till 2004 and was the director of the Managed Care Clinical Center of the VA Maryland Health Care System within VISN 5 (Veteran’s Integrated Service Network) and served as the chief of performance measures. Prior to joining the Department of Veterans Affairs, he practiced Internal Medicine in a 45-member multi-specialty clinic in Illinois and served as chairman of the department of medicine.

Dr. Sinha is board certified by the American Board of Internal Medicine, American Board of Quality Assurance and Utilization Review, American College of Healthcare Executives, and the American College of Physician Executives. He is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians and serves as a council member for the Maryland chapter. He is a Senior Fellow of the Council for Excellence in Government. He is past President of the Maryland chapter of the American College of Healthcare Executives and currently serves as the Regent for Maryland and received that organization’s Early Career Achievement Award in 2002, Senior Executive Achievement Award in 2007 and Service Award in 2008. He received the CMS Administrator's Achievement Award in 2004 and the Administrator’s Citation Award in 2007. He has served on the editorial board of the Journal of Healthcare Management.

He has been a senior examiner for the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award program, and served as the Chairperson for the Governing Board of the Maryland Performance Excellence Award (Baldrige based) program. He teaches the Baldrige criteria to the Johns Hopkins University Preventive Medicine Residency program and has served as a juror for the National Quality Forums’ (NQF) National Health Care Quality Award and the Department of Veteran’s Affairs Robert Carey Award. Dr Sinha received his medical education in India and completed an Internal Medicine Residency at the Loyola University Medical Center in Chicago, where he served as Associate Chief Resident and was recipient of the Intern of the Year Award. He received his MBA in management from the Southern Illinois University and will be completing a MS in Information Systems from the Johns Hopkins University Carey Business School in 2010.

Additional faculty vary from program to program.

ACCREDITATION:
The A. Webb Roberts Center for Continuing Medical Education of Baylor Health Care System, Dallas designates this educational activity for a maximum of 12 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit(s). Physicians should only claim credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.

This activity has been planned and implemented in accordance with the Essential Areas and policies of the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education through the joint sponsorship of A. Webb Roberts Center for Continuing Medical Education of Baylor Health Care System, Dallas and Northwest Anesthesia Seminars, Inc. The A. Webb Roberts Center for Continuing Medical Education of Baylor Health Care System, Dallas is accredited by the ACCME to provide continuing medical education for physicians.

Physician Assistants AAPA accepts Category I credit from AOACCME, Prescribed credit from AAFP, and AMA PRA Category 1 Credit™ from organizations accredited by the ACCME.

CME certificates will be mailed following completion of the course. Please allow 12 weeks.

AANA approved for 20 CEC Code #32892 EXP DATE 10/11/2010

NWAS is an approved provider by the California and Florida State Boards of Nursing, Provider number #04833 and 50-7480 respectively. This program offers 12 contact hours.

COURSE DIRECTOR
Mark Murphy, MD, Anesthesiologist and Medical Director, Northwest Anesthesia Seminars, Inc., Pasco, Washington

SCHEDULE AND FACULTY CHANGES:
Factors beyond our control sometimes necessitate changes in the schedule and faculty. If time permits, we will inform all registrants of any changes prior to the program. Changes on site due to local conditions will be announced in class.

COURSE CANCELLATION BY PROVIDER:
We reserve the right to cancel a course for any reason. In such case, a minimum of 30 days notice will be given to those registered and a full refund of tuition paid. Neither NWAS nor NW-WWT will be responsible for any non-refundable airfare, hotel accommodations or other expenses you may incur. We recommend purchase of Travel Insurance.

FAP: (Frequent Attendee Points)
FAP lets you accumulate points based on dollars spent with NWAS, including tuition, net cruise and hotel (but not air). These points can later be redeemed for tuition. A great program to reward you for supporting NWAS. You must have enough FAP to cover the full tuition.

Lecture notes will be provided on a CD in PDF format.

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