Peter J. Pronovost, M.D.

Peter Pronovost, M.D. is an internationally acclaimed physician and author renowned for his ground-breaking work around improving patient safety and increasing both the quality and value of healthcare. Dr. Pronovost has deep experience and a proven track record for saving lives on an organizational scale. As a critical care specialist at Johns Hopkins Hospital, he developed a scientifically proven method for reducing the deadly infections associated with central line catheters. His life-saving clinical practices have yielded dramatic improvements in hospitals across the United States and around the world.

‍

With his current focus on reliably organizing the work of patient care, Dr. Pronovost again leads us into the future of healthcare innovation. Previous innovation phases brought us safer surgery, first through technical advancements, then through standardizing procedures like checklists; this next phase of 'high reliability organizing,' or relational coordination, calls for reducing harm by tracking frontline practices and behaviors, responding to and learning from errors, stopping policies that don't work, and shifting culture toward teamwork and care coordination.

At University Hospitals in Cleveland, Ohio, where Dr. Pronovost is Chief Quality & Clinical Transformation Officer, he launched in 2023 the Veale Initiative for Health Care Innovation, a new operating model to identify and address barriers to healthcare delivery that have a real and immediate economic impact on U.S. hospitals. This innovative, holistic initiative has delivered empirical results for reducing medical harm, keeping people healthy at home, and improving nurse labor productivity, healthcare access, and chronic disease management.

‍

The Veale Initiative is based on the premise that the greatest challenge facing healthcare today is its ability to collaboratively solve complex problems. Routed in an ethos of 'living and leading with love,' the initiative empowers all levels of UH organizations. It is a model of transformation that, in the words of Dr. Pronovost, 'draws strength from the goodness and the wisdom of caregivers, that connects them and leverages that power to solve problems better, faster, cheaper.' It calls for disciplined management and shared accountability, requiring every higher level of an organization to create a table where every lower level which touches the process has a seat—from board to bedside. The model delivers healthcare that is relational rather than transactional, and by stratifying and measuring performance by hospital, unit, and subunit, views this delivery as a science rather than an art.

‍

The Veale Initiative has helped University Hospitals receive the American Hospital Association (AHA) Quest for Quality Award and the International Hospital Federation (IHF) Leadership and Management Award.

‍

‍

At University Hospitals, Dr. Pronovost also leads the growth and adoption of digital health solutions, including telehealth and virtual health, to better serve the patient and provider communities.

‍

Before joining University Hospitals, Dr. Pronovost served as the Director of the Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality at Johns Hopkins Medicine, practicing anesthesiologist and critical care specialist physician at Johns Hopkins Hospital, and a researcher and professor at Johns Hopkins University.

‍
‍
He has also advised the World Health Organization on improving patient safety measurement through WHO's World Alliance for Patient Safety, and established the Quality and Safety Research Group (QSRG) to advance the science of safety and make patient care safer worldwide.

‍

‍

He is a recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship "genius grant," and has won several national awards, including the ABMS' first Health Care Quality and Patient Safety Award, the John Eisenberg Patient Safety Research Award, and the 2017 David E. Rogers Award from the American Association of Medical Colleges.

‍

‍

Dr. Pronovost is a co-author of Safe Patients, Smart Hospitals: How One Doctor's Checklist Can Help Us Change Health Care from the Inside Out.

‍

Credentials

‍‍Chief Quality & Clinical Transformation Officer, University Hospitals
Former Chief Medical Officer, UnitedHealthcare
Former Director, Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality, Johns Hopkins, Intensive care specialist physician and practicing anesthesiologist, Johns Hopkins Hospital, Professor, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, departments of Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine, and Surgery, Professor, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Dept of Health Policy and Management and the School of Nursing
Founder, Quality and Safety Research Group
Advisor, Alliance for Patient Safety, World Health Organization
Co-founder, Doctella
‍
Honors
Institute of Medicine
MacArthur Fellowship
John Eisenberg Patient Safety Research Award
Named one of the world's "most influential people" of 2008, TIME
‍
Education
‍PhD, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
MD, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine
BS, Fairfield University

‍