Research team

The people behind the benchmark.

Our credibility comes from who builds and reviews the work. The team includes the people who wrote the national medication-safety standard, clinical informatics leaders, and the engineers who built the safety platforms used in thousands of hospitals.

Founding expert partners
Technical leadership
Publication co-authors

The clinical pharmacy, safety, informatics, and physician leaders, at top U.S. and international organizations, whose contributions as publication co-authors make the benchmark possible. Select any name for the full bio.

Validation network

Practicing clinical pharmacists, informaticists, safety officers, surgeons, and regulatory specialists peer-review and certify PsiBench content. The network is forming with leaders at top U.S. academic medical centers, large integrated health systems, national patient-safety bodies, and international ministries and quality councils.

Join the network. Open to peer-reviewers across pharmacy, safety, informatics, surgery, and regulatory practice.
Join the network →
DC

David Classen, MD MS

Co-author, national medication-safety standard
Professor of Medicine, University of Utah School of Medicine · Division of Epidemiology, Department of Internal Medicine

Professor of Medicine and consultant in infectious diseases at the University of Utah. Served on multiple Institute of Medicine committees on patient safety, data standards, and health IT. Consulting Chief Medical Information Officer advisor to Pascal Metrics. More than 30 years of work using EHRs for automated adverse-event detection.
SP

Stan Pestotnik, MS RPh

Senior author · Medication safety pioneer
Posognos

Directed LDS Hospital's Drug Surveillance and Safety Program and led knowledge engineering for Intermountain's Infectious Diseases Informatics Group, work credited with the early comprehensive clinical decision support used for infection control, antimicrobial stewardship, and adverse-drug-event surveillance. Author of more than 75 peer-reviewed publications. Former Chief Strategy Officer at Pascal Metrics and Vice President of Patient Safety Products at Health Catalyst.
BD

Bryce Daines, PhD

Chief Executive Officer
Posognos

Former entrepreneur-in-residence at the Allen Institute for AI (AI2). Led product at PierianDx, where the Clinical Genomics WorkSpace served more than 45 CLIA/CAP clinical-genomics laboratories. Earlier led product at Tute Genomics through its acquisition.

bryce@posognos.com
DC

Dan Cramer

Chief Technology Officer
Posognos

SVP of Product at Vizient. Previously built and scaled the clinical quality platforms at TheraDoc and at Safe & Reliable Healthcare through two acquisitions.
JP

Joshua Proulx, BSEE MIDS

Chief AI Officer
Posognos

Architected TheraDoc's clinical decision-support alerting engine. Co-founded Safe & Reliable Healthcare, acquired by Vizient. Re-architected the Knome genomics platform at Tute Genomics.
WA

Wadie Abu-Rahmeh, MSN MBA-HSA

Director, Risk Management & Patient Safety
AdventHealth · Altamonte Springs, FL

Director of Risk Management & Patient Safety at AdventHealth, one of the largest faith-based multi-hospital systems in the U.S. Prior roles include patient-safety officer positions and time at Florida Hospital Medical Group. Public commentary emphasizes the consistent application of Just Culture methodology to safety events.
MA

Maryam AlQaseer, MD

Consultant Cardiologist · Group VP, Quality & Performance
King Fahad Specialist Hospital, Dammam · Eastern Health Cluster, Saudi Arabia

More than a decade of cardiology practice at King Fahad Specialist Hospital, Dammam, with a focus on heart failure and cardio-oncology; helped establish the cardio-oncology service. Group Vice President of Quality and Performance at the Eastern Health Cluster, focused on person-centric and value-based care. Contributor to the Saudi Heart Failure Working Group consensus pathway on therapy implementation.
MB

Michael Barton, PharmD

Principal · Barton Healthcare Consulting
Salt Lake City, UT

Joined the University of Utah Pharmacoepidemiology Team in 1994 and practiced in the LDS Hospital Shock-Trauma ICU. Twelve years at TheraDoc, serving on the senior leadership team as SVP of Knowledge and Product Development, overseeing knowledge management, product, engineering, and quality. Later Vice President at Health Catalyst. Now operates Barton Healthcare Consulting.
CD

Caryn Douma, MS RN CPPS

Corporate Director, Patient Safety Strategy
Penn Medicine · Office of the Chief Medical Officer · University of Pennsylvania Health System

Patient-safety leadership history across Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Memorial Hermann, Texas Children's Hospital, and Brigham and Women's Hospital. Has spoken publicly on Penn Medicine's incident-reporting and learning systems. Co-author of an AHRQ Making Healthcare Safer IV review on high-reliability-organization principles.
KF

Karen Frush, MD CPPS

Patient-safety leader · Pediatric emergency physician
Georgetown University School of Health · Duke Divinity School

Former Chief Patient Safety Officer of Duke University Health System (more than a decade). Former Chief Quality Officer of the Duke Quality Network and Vice President for Quality at LifePoint Health. Former Chief Quality Officer at Stanford Health Care. Recipient of the John M. Eisenberg Award for the Duke–LifePoint National Quality Program. TeamSTEPPS Master Trainer and Certified Professional in Patient Safety. A 35-year career spanning nursing, pediatric emergency medicine, and health-system quality leadership. Now teaches in Georgetown's executive master's program in clinical quality, safety, and leadership.
JG

Joseph A. Garcia, MD

Internal Medicine
Revere Health, Orem, UT · Utah Valley Hospital

Board-certified internist at Revere Health Orem Internal Medicine; affiliated with Utah Valley Hospital. Trained at the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine with internal-medicine residency at Wilford Hall Medical Center, San Antonio. Bilingual in English and Spanish; focuses on complex systemic disease.
JJ

Jaclyn Jeffries, PharmD

Executive Director, Safety, Clinical Operations & Strategy
AdventHealth · Orlando, FL

Executive Director of Safety, Clinical Operations & Strategy at AdventHealth, a multi-hospital faith-based system spanning multiple states. Career sits at the medication-safety and pharmacy-quality intersection inside a large operating system.
NK

Nishaminy Kasbekar, PharmD FASHP

Vice President & Chief Pharmacy Officer
Penn Medicine · University of Pennsylvania Health System

Inaugural Vice President and Chief Pharmacy Officer of Penn Medicine, a system-wide role since 2023, after serving as Chief Pharmacy Officer of Penn Presbyterian Medical Center. Twenty-five-plus years at Penn, beginning her career implementing antimicrobial stewardship. Past President of ASHP, the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists. Fellow of ASHP. BS Pharmacy and PharmD from the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy and Science; pharmacy-practice and infectious-diseases residencies at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.
ML

Molly E. Leonard, MD

General Surgery
Hiram C. Polk, Jr. Department of Surgery · University of Louisville

General surgeon trained at Oregon Health & Science University and the University of Utah. Published work on recurrence of severe diverticulitis by age and birth decade in the Journal of Gastrointestinal Surgery (2024).
ML

Mathieu Louiset

Healthcare quality & patient safety
PAQS asbl, Brussels · Institute of Health and Society (IRSS), UCLouvain · Leuven Institute for Healthcare Policy, KU Leuven

More than 20 years in healthcare quality improvement, organizational culture and leadership, and healthcare certification. Affiliated with KU Leuven and UCLouvain; works through PAQS, the Belgian francophone platform for care quality and patient safety. Educated at the Louvain School of Management.
MM

Muhammad Bilal Maqsood, PhD

Quality & Performance
Eastern Health Cluster, Health Holding Company · Dammam, Saudi Arabia

Clinical-pharmacy-trained quality and performance lead at the Eastern Health Cluster, Dammam. Affiliation history with the King Abdullah International Medical Research Center (Ministry of National Guard Health Affairs). Published work spans antimicrobial stewardship, pharmacy-practice research, and healthcare management, including a systematic scoping review of barriers to antimicrobial stewardship in tertiary care.
SW

Sam R. Watson, MSA CPPS

Executive Director, MHA Keystone Center
Michigan Health & Hospital Association · Okemos, MI

Executive Director of the MHA Keystone Center, a federally listed AHRQ Patient Safety Organization, and the MHA's senior leader for patient safety and quality. Oversaw the launch of a core-measures clinical data system and led statewide collaboratives spanning surgery, obstetrics, HAIs, sepsis, falls, pressure ulcers, VTE, and care transitions. Recipient of the John M. Eisenberg Award and the Dick Davidson Quality Award. Co-author of patient-safety books. Certified Professional in Patient Safety.
TW

Timothy W. West, MD

Neurology · Multiple Sclerosis Lead
Department of Neurology · Intermountain Health Salt Lake Clinic

Neurologist at Intermountain Health Salt Lake Clinic, affiliated with LDS Hospital and Intermountain Medical Center, specializing in neuroimmunology and multiple sclerosis. MS lead in neurology at Intermountain Health. MD and neurology residency at UCSF; National MS Society-funded neuroimmunology fellowship at the UCSF MS Center. Internal-medicine internship at University of Utah Health. Published work includes reviews of transverse myelitis and natalizumab discontinuation.
DG

Darshan K. Grewal, PhD MBA MPH BSN

Healthcare Executive · Patient Safety Leader
Quality/Patient Safety · Alameda Health System · Oakland, CA

Healthcare executive and patient-safety leader at Alameda Health System in Oakland, California, with responsibility in Quality and Patient Safety. Credentials span clinical nursing practice (BSN), population health (MPH), healthcare administration (MBA), and doctoral research (PhD).
ML

Michael Leonard

Patient safety leader
Independent Consultant

Former National Physician Leader for Patient Safety at Kaiser Permanente. Former adjunct faculty at Duke University School of Medicine. Co-founder of Safe & Reliable Healthcare.
AF

Allan Frankel

Patient safety leader
Independent Consultant

Former Director of Patient Safety and the first physician Patient Safety Officer in the United States for the Harvard hospitals / Partners Healthcare. Co-founder of Safe & Reliable Healthcare.
MV

Mary J. Voutt-Goos

Clinical Quality & Safety
Office of Clinical Quality and Safety · Henry Ford Health · Detroit, MI

Clinical quality and patient-safety leader in the Office of Clinical Quality and Safety at Henry Ford Health, Detroit.
BY

Bronson Young

Kootenai Health
Coeur d’Alene, ID

Kootenai Health, Coeur d’Alene, Idaho.