Consistent with the IHI’s policy, faculty for this program are expected to disclose at the beginning of their presentation(s), any economic or other personal interests that create, or may be perceived as creating, a conflict related to the material discussed. The intent of this disclosure is not to prevent a speaker with a significant financial or other relationship from making a presentation, but rather to provide participants with information on which they can make their own judgments.
Unless otherwise noted below, each presenter provided full disclosure information, does not intend to discuss an unapproved/investigative use of a commercial product/device, and has no significant financial relationship(s) to disclose. If unapproved uses of products are discussed, presenters are expected to disclose this to participants.
Mary Ann Abrams, MD, MPH, is in Clinical Performance Improvement at Iowa Health System (IHS), where she leads their health literacy work and serves as faculty for resident education in quality and community pediatrics. IHS was among eight health systems nationwide identified by the 2005 AMA Hospital Recognition Project for Innovative Approaches to Patient-Centered Communication for its work in health literacy. Dr. Abrams co-chairs the American Academy of Pediatrics Health Literacy Project Advisory Committee, and served on the AMA Health Literacy and Patient Safety Work Group. She is Medical Director for Reach Out and Read—Iowa, working to make literacy promotion a standard part of pediatric well child care. Her interests focus on fostering interaction between diverse clinical and public health practitioners to increase awareness about and action toward using health literacy and population-based preventive and health-promoting interventions to improve the health of patients and families. She received her medical degree from Ohio State University College of Medicine, and her Master of Public Health from the Harvard School of Public Health. She is board-certified in pediatrics and preventive medicine.
Norma Kenoyer, a leader in New Readers of Iowa, is a member of the board of the Drake Adult Literacy Center, and an active participant in Iowa Health System's health literacy initiative. She has co-presented at the National Health Safety Conference. She is also a determined learner.
Gail A. Nielsen, BSHCA, FAHRA, RTR, Clinical Performance Improvement Education Administrator, Iowa Health System, is responsible for leveraging system-wide knowledge capital and building capacity for transformational change through designing quality improvement education, establishing education faculty, and developing learning systems that will take Iowa Health to a new level of performance in quality and safety. She was a 2004-05 George W. Merck Fellow, Patient Safety Scholar, and faculty of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement. Ms. Nielsen mentors the Iowa Health system-wide Falls Team, which has significantly reduced falls and harm from falls across 10 hospitals. In April 2006 the VISN 8 Patient Safety Center honored the Iowa Health system-wide efforts with the Organizational Leadership Award.
