Barbara Balik, RN, EdD, Principal, Common Fire Healthcare Consulting, is also Senior Faculty at the Institute of Healthcare Improvement. Her areas of expertise include leadership and adaptive systems for quality and safety, patient- and family-centered care and patient experience, policy and systems development to improve transitions in care, and creating systems that excel in transforming care and services prior to or after an electronic health record implementation. She works with leaders to develop adaptive systems and skills to excel and innovate in complex organizations, and to ensure sustained improvement and innovation in care settings.
Martha Hayward is the Lead for Public and Patient Engagement for IHI. In this consultant role, she is developing a strategic plan to integrate patient- and family-centered principles throughout IHI’s portfolios and programming. Martha has a twenty-year career in fundraising, communications, and business consulting and is currently Interim Executive Director of the Partnership for Healthcare Excellence in Massachusetts. The Partnership is working to bring the public and patient perspective to the table and has developed a framework for public and patient engagement with health care that has been widely accepted in Massachusetts as well as by many national initiatives. Martha also serves as faculty for the HCA/IHI Patient Experience Collaborative. When she was diagnosed with cancer two months after her sister was diagnosed with the same disease, Martha became committed to making the health care system more of a partner with patients rather than an obstacle. She served on the Patient Family Advisory Council of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and founded the non-profit Women's Health Exchange (WHE) to teach women across the world the importance of early detection of breast cancer.
Tracy Jacobs, BSN, RN, currently directs IHI's work with Improving Patient Care, a wide-reaching improvement program within the Indian Health System, and the ongoing “Achieving Excellence in Primary Care” call series. She has worked on several large IHI collaborative improvement projects, including the Transforming Care at the Bedside inpatient-focused initiative and a ten-year collaborative initiative with the Health Resources and Services Administration's Federally Qualified Health Centers focused on improving chronic disease and preventive care services for the nation's underserved populations. Tracy has 12 years of experience in health care quality improvement.
Kevin Little, PhD, is a statistician specializing in the use of information to study, understand, and improve system performance. His experience in application of statistical methods includes direct work with scientists and engineers in a range of disciplines. He has also coached improvement teams in a range of industries, including an extended consulting engagement with an integrated health care system. An Improvement Advisor to the National Health Disparities Asthma II Collaborative in 2001-2002, he presently serves as Improvement Advisor to the National Health Disparities Chronic Disease Collaborative, supporting improvements in diabetes and asthma care.
Kristine K.S. White, RN, BSN, MBA, President, Spectrum Health Innovations, LLC, is also Vice President of Innovation and Patient Affairs at Spectrum Health System, where she is responsible for the innovation program, including staff and physician participation, intellectual property and business planning, and oversight of education and planning workshops. She is also responsible for the Center for Exceptional Experiences, which includes Patient Relations, Biomedical Ethics, and Patient and Family Services. Her career in health care began when she joined Spectrum Health as a nurse in 1985 and has included leadership roles in medical critical care, cardiac rehabilitation, and the cardiac transplant program.
