ORLANDO, Fla., Dec. 8, 2010— The winners of the 2010 Picker Awards for Excellence® were honored by a crowd of 5,500 physicians and healthcare leaders from around the world representing hospitals, health systems, government agencies, health maintenance organizations, LTC facilities and medical supply companies on Wednesday, Dec. 8, at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement’s 22nd annual National Forum on Quality Improvement in Health Care.
Paul D. Cleary, Ph.D.
Dr. Cleary, the dean of the Yale University School of Public Health, was cited for his commitment to patient-centered care, his tireless efforts to elicit patient experiences through well-designed surveys and his success in demonstrating that quality patient experiences are linked to positive patient outcomes.
Dr. Cleary also chairs the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health and is the Anna M.R. Lauder Professor of Public Health. His research is wide-ranging, with a focus on developing better ways to use patients’ own reports about their care and health status to evaluate the quality of the medical care they receive, and on studying the relationship between clinician and organizational characteristics and the quality of medical care. Most recently he has completed a long-term study of the correlation between patient-centered care and positive health outcomes.
Dr. Cleary is a principal investigator for one of the CAHPS (Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems) grants from AHRQ (Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality) to develop surveys for collecting information from consumers on their health plans and services. He is also leading a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation project to stimulate and facilitate research on public health systems.
A prolific writer, Dr. Cleary has written nearly 300 journal articles either alone or with co-authors in the fields of health behavior, patient assessment of healthcare and outcomes, quality improvement and health quality.
He is a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences and a Distinguished Fellow with the Association for Health Services Research.
Atul Gawande, M.D., M.P.H.
Dr. Gawande was recognized for his outstanding work in highlighting the importance of patient-centered care through his investigations of the modern healthcare system and the widespread publication of his findings for professional audiences and the public as a whole.
Dr. Atul Gawande is a general surgeon in Boston, Mass., and the author of several internationally best-selling books on modern medicine. He has also been a staff writer at The New Yorker magazine since 1998, and many of the pieces published there about his life as a surgical resident have played a larger role in clinical and political developments in the healthcare industry.
“The Cost Conundrum,” which appeared in the June 2009 New Yorker, was cited as having had a galvanizing effect on Pres. Barack Obama in his pursuit of healthcare reform legislation
Dr. Gawande’s most recent book, The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right, a wide-ranging rumination on the revolutionary use of a simple to-do list to increase positive patient outcomes exponentially, speaks directly to his belief that teamwork and organization are vital to the successful practice of medicine and a personal sense of satisfaction. The book reached the New York Times’s nonfiction best-seller list in 2010.
Dr. Gawande took his undergraduate degree at Stanford University and his medical degree at Harvard Medical School. During that time he worked for Al Gore’s 1988 presidential campaign and for Congressman Jim Cooper as a healthcare researcher. He served as a healthcare adviser to Pres. Bill Clinton and the director of one of the three committees comprising the Clinton Health Care Task Force.
Arnold P. Gold, M.D.
Dr. Gold, Chairman Emeritus of the board and co-founder in 1988 with his wife, Sandra O. Gold, of the Arnold P. Gold Foundation, was honored for his lifelong dedication to the advancement of patient-centered care by preserving the tradition of the caring physician and emphasizing the crucial need for humanism in medicine.
The mission of the Gold Foundation is to preserve the tradition of the caring doctor and advance humanism in medicine through physician education. Students at more than 94 percent of the schools of medicine and osteopathy in the United States participate in one or more of the foundation’s nearly two dozen programs.
Dr. Gold is professor of clinical neurology and clinical pediatrics at Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons, with which he has been associated for more than 50 years. He received the college’s Distinguished Service Award in 1998. The author of more than 80 published articles and several books in the field of pediatric neurology, Dr. Gold has received numerous special awards, lectureships and professorships and has been a visiting professor at many schools and colleges throughout the world, including Africa and Europe.
The Dr. Arnold P. Gold Child Neurology Center at the Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital of New York-Presbyterian Hospital, Columbia University Medical Center, was dedicated and opened in 2003.
Dr. Gold received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Child Neurology Center in 2005 and an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters degree from the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in 2008,
Below are some photos from the events:
The winners of the 2010 Picker Awards for Excellence® in the Advancement of Patient-Centered Care are, from left, Paul Cleary, Dr. Arnold Gold and Dr. Atul Gawande.
Picker Award winner Paul Cleary is congratulated by Picker Institute board member Gail Warden, president emeritus of Henry Ford Health System.
Picker Award winner Dr. Arnold Gold and Sam Fleming, secretary/treasurer of the Picker Institute Board of Directors.
IHI president and CEO Maureen Bisognano, left, and Lucile O. Hanscom, executive director of Picker Institute.
Picker Award winners Paul Cleary, left, Dr. Arnold Gold and Dr. Atul Gawande with Sandra Gold, cofounder with her husband, Arnold, of the Arnold P. Gold Foundation, at the Picker Awards dinner on Tuesday, Dec. 7.
Dr. Elliott Fisher of the Dartmouth Institute, left, and Picker Award winner Dr. Atul Gawande giving the Picker Lecture following the Picker Awards ceremony.
Dr. Tony DiGioia of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and his wife, Cathy, at the Picker Awards dinner.
Picker Award winners Dr. Atul Gawande, left, and Dr. Arnold Gold in a pre-awards ceremony conversation.
IHI board members A. Blanton Godfrey, left, and Diana Chapman Walsh with Picker board chairman Mark Waxman at the Picker Awards dinner.
Picker Award winner Dr. Atul Gawande accepts his $10,000 award check from Dr. Steve Schoenbaum, vice chairman of the Picker Institute board of directors.
