Physician Patient Safety Leader Named President of National Patient Safety Foundation
Tejal K. Gandhi, MD, MPH, Begins New Role July 1
The Board of Directors of the National Patient Safety Foundation announced today that Tejal K. Gandhi, MD, MPH, will become the Foundation’s next president, effective July 1. The announcement came at the opening session of the 15th Annual NPSF Patient Safety Congress, which is being held this week in New Orleans.
“With a broad background in clinical care, research, and health care quality and safety leadership, Dr. Gandhi brings unmatched credentials to this role,” said Gerald B. Hickson, MD, chair, NPSF Board of Directors. “Throughout her career, she has demonstrated a strong commitment to advancing the patient safety field. We are thrilled with this appointment.”
Dr. Gandhi currently serves as chief quality and safety officer at Partners Healthcare in Boston. In her role, she has led efforts to standardize and implement patient safety best practices across the Partners system, which includes Massachusetts General Hospital and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, among others. She is also director of the Harvard Medical School fellowship in patient safety and quality. She was previously executive director of quality and safety at Brigham and Women’s, a position she held for 10 years before joining the parent organization.
Board certified in internal medicine, Dr. Gandhi is also well known for her research in the areas of diagnostic error and health information technology. In 2009, she received the John M. Eisenberg Patient Safety Award for contributions to understanding the epidemiology of, and possible prevention strategies for, medical errors in the outpatient setting.
Dr. Gandhi has long served on the NPSF Board of Governors, most recently as vice chair. As president of the organization, she also assumes the role of president of the Lucian Leape Institute at NPSF, a think tank made up of national experts who explore new paths to improving patient safety.
“I am very much looking forward to beginning my new role at NPSF,” Dr. Gandhi said. “As a long-time board member of the organization, I am familiar with its history and the great work done in the past. I am committed to continuing that tradition and building upon it for the future. Despite successes, there is still so much work to do to ensure the safest care for all patients.”
Dr. Gandhi is currently associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. She earned her MD and MPH degrees from Harvard Medical School and the Harvard School of Public Health, and trained at Duke University Medical Center.
About National Patient Safety Foundation
The National Patient Safety Foundation (NPSF) has been pursuing one mission since its founding in 1997–to improve the safety of care provided to patients. As a central voice for patient safety, NPSF is committed to a collaborative, multi-stakeholder approach in all that it does. NPSF is an independent, not-for-profit 501(c)(3) organization. To learn more about the work of the National Patient Safety Foundation, please visit: www.npsf.org.
About the Lucian Leape Institute at NPSF
The Lucian Leape Institute at NPSF, established in 2007, is charged with defining strategic paths and calls to action for the field of patient safety, offering vision and context for the many efforts under way within health care, and providing the leverage necessary for system-level change. Its members comprise national thought leaders with a common interest in patient safety whose expertise and influence are brought to bear as the Institute calls for the innovation necessary to expedite the work and create significant, sustainable improvements in culture, process, and outcomes critical to safer health care.