Profession
JCAHO honors quality chief for patient safety leadership
NEWS IN BRIEF — Posted Dec. 26, 2005
The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations honored National Quality Forum President and CEO Kenneth W. Kizer, MD, MPH, for passionately advocating that the public be told about how hospitals score on performance measures to improve health-care quality, such as publicly reporting results from the standards used in the Dept. of Health and Human Services' Hospital Compare program.
JCAHO in November awarded Dr. Kizer the Ernest Amory Codman Award, named after the "father of outcomes measurement."
While at NQF, Dr. Kizer has led national efforts to establish consensus-based standards for public reporting of health-care safety and quality, according to JCAHO. He previously served as undersecretary for health in the U.S. Dept. of Veterans Affairs.
Note: This item originally appeared at http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2005/12/26/prbf1226.htm.