Patient Safety and Quality Improvement: Foundations for Early Career Professionals

Jesse McCall, MBA, is Senior Director and Improvement Advisor for the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI). He coaches individuals and organizations through the process of improvement which includes the data-driven identification of strategic improvement priorities, development of operational systems to support improvement, and the building of practical improvement capability necessary for staff to get results that matter. Jesse also has extensive experience in coaching organizations to engage clinical staff to reduce burnout and foster joy in work. Jesse joined IHI in 2007 and over his tenure has designed, executed, and evaluated programs and projects around the world. Jesse is also a Teaching Fellow at The Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and has expertise in practical application of the science of improvement, staff engagement and wellness, program and product development, marketing and communications, customer relationship management, and large-scale initiative operations. He received his undergraduate degree in Business Administration from Northeastern University in Boston and MBA from the UMASS Amherst Isenberg School of Management.

Jessica Behrhorst, MPH, CPPS, CPQH, CPHRM, Quality, Safety and HRO Consultant, Aptive Resources, works in the areas of patient safety, workforce safety, and high reliability. She is faculty for the IHI Patient Safety Executive Development Program and on Redesigning Event Review with Root Cause Analysis and Action (RCA2). Prior to Joining Aptive Resources she served as the Senior Director at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI). She has also served as the Assistant Vice President of Quality & Patient Safety at Ochsner Health System where she helped set the strategic priorities in quality and patient safety and oversaw various projects involving patient safety, performance improvement, regulatory readiness, ambulatory nursing, and quality outcomes. She has presented her work on RCA2 and Improving the Culture of Safety at various regional and national meetings. She has also worked on research projects involving reduction in Sepsis mortality and access to healthcare for underserved populations. Jessica received her bachelor’s degree from Tulane University and her Master of Public Health Degree from the Louisiana State University School of Public Health. She is a Certified Professional in Patient Safety (CPPS), a Certified Professional in Healthcare Quality (CPHQ) and a Certified Professional in Healthcare Risk Management (CPHRM).

Lauge Sokol-Hessner, MD, CPPS, is a practicing clinician, educator, researcher, innovator, and leader in patient safety & quality improvement. He’s an Associate Professor of Medicine and an attending hospitalist at the University of Washington (UW) & Harborview Medical Centers, and a Quality Improvement Mentor at the UW Medicine Center for Scholarship in Patient Care Quality and Safety.  As the Associate Director for the UW Collaborative for Accountability and Improvement and a Faculty Coach for the PACT Collaborative, he helps lead national work to sustain and spread more proactive, ethical, person-centered responses after harm events.  He has operational quality & safety experience as a former Senior Medical Director of Patient Safety at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston.  As IHI Faculty, and as a former quality and safety fellowship program director and masters program course director at Harvard Medical School, he's passionate about helping develop the next generation of leaders in quality and safety, and he regularly teaches about patient safety, quality improvement, and leadership.  He completed his medical degree and internal medicine residency at the University of Pennsylvania.

Pat Folcarelli, RN, MA, PhD, is the Sr. Vice President for Patient Care Services and the Cynthia and Robert J. Lepofsky Chief Nursing Officer at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. Folcarelli rejoined BIDMC after serving for 3 years as Vice President for Patient Safety at CRICO the insurance captive for the 35 Harvard affiliated institutions. In her CRICO role Pat assisted with strategic and operational patient safety solutions. Prior to joining CRICO in 2020, Folcarelli worked in various roles at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) for more than 30 years both in nursing leadership roles and in the area of patient safety and health care quality finally serving as the Vice President for Health Care Quality. Folcarelli is a part time lecturer in Medicine at Harvard Medical School (HMS) and for the past 5 years has co-directed a course on Patient and Family Engagement in Quality and Safety for the master’s in healthcare quality and safety at HMS. Folcarelli received her BS in Nursing from Hunter College of the City University of NY and earned both her M.A. and Ph.D. from New York University. She serves on the PNQIN (Perinatal Quality Improvement Network) advisory board, the Quality and Safety Board Subcommittee for Mercy, a health system headquartered in St. Louis, MO, and the Board Subcommittee for Quality and Safety Committee of Baystate Health. Folcarelli is also the former Co-Chair of MACRMI (the Massachusetts Alliance for Communication and Resolution Following Medical Injury) and MITSS (Medically Induced Trauma Support Services) both of which are now a part of the Betsy Lehman Center. She has also served on the Board of the Massachusetts Coalition for the Prevention of Medical Errors and is a past president of the Massachusetts Society for Healthcare Risk Management.