Peggy O’Kane Wins 2009 Individual Picker Award for Excellence®

Peggy O’Kane, the president of the National Committee for Quality Assurance, received the 2009 Individual PickerAward for Excellence. O’Kane was cited for “… her leadership of the NCQA and her lifetime achievement in improving patient-centered health care through measurement, reporting, and accountability.” The award was presented at the annual ISQua (International Society for Quality in Health Care) annual international conference inDublin, Ireland, in October 2009. Picker, a major sponsor of ISQua, also presented a series of education sessions addressing ”The Positive Patient Experience.” (A video of O’Kane’s presentation on “Accountability and Patient-Centered Care” is below.)

Margaret E. O'Kane, the winner of the 2009 Individual Picker Award, with J. Mark Waxman, left, chairman of the Picker Institute Board of Directors, and board member Sir Donald Irvine.

O’Kane is the founding president of the National Committee for Quality Assurance and one of the nation’s leading advocates for improving healthcare quality through measurement, reporting and accountability. Under her leadership, NCQA has been widely recognized as a leader in the healthcare quality field; in 2005, NCQA received awards from the National Coalition for Cancer Survivorship, the American Diabetes Association and the American Pharmacists’ Association.

Ms. O’Kane plays a key role in many efforts to improve healthcare quality. In 1999, she was elected as a member of the Institute of Medicine. The following year she received the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention “Champion of Prevention” award, the agency’s highest honor. She has frequently appeared on Modern Healthcare’s list of the 100 Most Powerful People in Healthcare, most recently in August 2008. She currently serves as co-chair of the National Priorities Partnership of the National Quality Forum, a group charged to develop broad-based consensus around national priorities and goals for healthcare performance measurement and public reporting.

Ms. O’Kane holds a master’s degree in Health Administration and Planning from The Johns Hopkins University.

Click here for Peggy O’Kane’s 2009 ISQua presentation.

Institute for Family-Centered Care Wins 2009 Organizational Picker Award for Excellence®

The Institute for Family-Centered Care, a nonprofit organization founded in 1992, received the 2009 Organizational Picker Award for Excellence® in the Advancement of Patient-Centered Care. IFFCC was cited for its “success . . . in advancing patient- and family-centered care in all settings where individuals receive care and support.” Institute president Bev Johnson accepted the award on behalf of IFFCC.

IFFCC works in partnership with families, friends and healthcare professionals to advance the understanding and practice of patient- and family-centered care in all settings where individuals and families receive care and support, including health, education, mental health and social services.

The institute accomplishes its mission through consultation, training  and technical assistance; materials development and information dissemination; and research and public policy initiatives. It also serves as a central resource for policymakers, administrators, program planners, direct service providers, educators, design professionals and patient and family leaders.

To bring about a profound change in the way healthcare is provided to  individuals and their families in North America, the institute seeks to ensure that every encounter between health/human services professionals and patients/families builds on the strengths of patients and families to enhance their confidence and competence, and that the healthcare delivery system recognizes and encourages patient and family strengths, choice and independence.

(Note: The Institute changed its name to the Institute for Patient and Family-Centered Care late in 2010.)

Click here to see Johnson’s ISQua presentation on “How patients and their families can help providers achieve better patient- and family-centered care.”

2009 Picker Award for Excellence^® in the Advancement
of Patient-Centered Care in a Long-Term  Care Setting

Dr. Bill Thomas, an international authority on geriatric medicine and eldercare and the founder of The Eden Alternative^® and The Green House Project^®, received the first individual Picker Award for Excellence^® in the Advancement of Patient-Centered Care in a Long-Term Care Setting on Aug. 14, 2009, at the 9th annual Pioneer Network Conference in Little Rock, Ark.

Dr. Thomas was cited for “his outstanding achievements in envisioning and implementing a new paradigm for long-term care that focuses on nurturing and sustaining a meaningful life for the aging.”

A 1986 graduate of the Harvard Medical School, Dr. Thomas went on to graduate medical training in the Highland Hospital/University of Rochester Family Medicine Residency. While he planned on a career in emergency medicine, a part-time position as the medical director of a small rural nursing home turned into a full-time and lifelong passion for improving the well-being of older people.

In the early 1990s Dr. Thomas and his wife, Judith Meyers-Thomas, developed the Eden Alternative, which embodied a revolution in the status quo in long-term care and offered a creative way to “change the culture” of nursing homes by bringing life and laughter into the lives of elders. The philosophy also called for fundamental changes in the relationship between staff and management. His book on the initial implementation project,  The Eden Alternative: Nature, Hope, and Nursing Homes, was published by the University of Missouri Press in 1994.

On a tour of  America’s nursing-home buildings, Dr. Thomas noted that they were “aging faster than the people living inside them.” This led him to develop a new approach to long-term care supported at first by the Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation and later by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. This model of care is now being replicated nationwide.

Dr. Thomas left full-time medical practice in 2004 and continues to lecture at the SUNY Health Science Center’s Clinical Campus in Binghamton. In 2007 he was appointed Distinguished Fellow and Professor of Aging Studies at the University of Maryland Baltimore County’s Erickson School. A very active proponent of person-centered care, Dr. Thomas continues to travel widely, speaking and consulting with groups that are seeking change.

Dr. Thomas giving his acceptance speech at the Pioneer Network conference in August 2009

Click here to see Dr. Thomas’s acceptance speech.

Click here to see Dr. Thomas and Dr. Mary Jane Koren of The Commonwealth Fund discuss aging in America.

Click here to see The Picker Report on Aging with Dr. Bill Thomas

2006-2010 Picker Awards for Excellence^® brochures

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