Peter Pronovost, M.D., Ph.D.

Today’s ATS President’s Lecture will be delivered by Peter Pronovost, M.D., Ph.D., a professor at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine’s Bloomberg School of Public Health and School of Nursing.

Dr. Pronovost, a recipient of the MacArthur “Genius Award” and one of Time magazine’s 2008 “100 Most Influential People,” is the medical director for the Center for Innovation in Quality Patient Care, which supports quality and safety efforts at the Johns Hopkins University Hospitals. Dr. Pronovost said he would focus his address on the challenges he’s faced convincing traditional scientists, and quality and safety experts to adapt their viewpoints to include patient quality and safety as an area of science.

“Medical errors are one of the leading causes of death in the country,” Dr. Pronovost said. “I will talk about how we’ve created the science of patient safety and virtually eliminated central line-associated bloodstream infections in several states. Physician members of the ATS could be helping to prevent death through these kinds of errors.”

Dr. Pronovost said his multi-disciplinary team is installing similar programs at hospitals across the country.

“We are working to change the too-often toxic culture of medicine,” he said. “We need to stamp out dysfunctional teamwork between various teams or physicians and nurses—when things are done based on who is right, and not what is right, or nurses who are afraid to speak up because they are going to get their head bitten off.”

Dr. Pronovost said cooperation among teams who are using evidence-based medicine and regularly measuring performance could significantly cut down on the number of medical errors.

“It is time to start working together to reduce needless death,” he said. “And science and physician leaders need to guide the way.”