The Joint Commission appointed Edward Pollak, MD, as medical director and patient safety officer of its division of healthcare improvement, and Andrew C. Bland, MD, as medical director of its division of healthcare quality evaluation. Drs. Pollak and Bland assumed their new roles on Jan. 2.
Here are five things to know:
1. Dr. Pollak is a practicing board-certified anesthesiologist, and previously served as vice chief of anesthesiology and perioperative medicine at William Beaumont Hospital Royal Oak and associate professor at Oakland University William Beaumont School of Medicine in Royal Oak, Mich.
2. At The Joint Commission, Dr. Pollak is responsible for the promotion of performance improvement and patient safety initiatives. He provides oversight to the Office of Quality and Patient Safety and leads the Patient Safety Advisory Group panel of external healthcare industry experts to identify patient safety issues and advise on national patient safety goals and accreditation standards.
3. Dr. Bland is board-certified in nephrology and internal medicine by the American Board of Pediatrics, and previously served as system chief quality officer at Hospital Sisters Health System in Springfield, Ill.
4. At The Joint Commission, Dr. Bland is responsible for leading annual strategic planning to engage national stakeholders, identifying key quality and safety improvement targets, and selecting strategies to meet them. He leads efforts to identify best practices and quality improvement tools to meet new standards and performance measure requirements, and leads technical advisory panels as well as develops rationale statements for requirements in certification and accreditation programs.
5. Dr. Pollak had patient safety officer training at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement and root cause analysis training at ECRI Institute, and Dr. Bland has a master's degree in business administration from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst and will complete a master's degree in predictive analytics in March at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill.
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