Mrs. Early has served as project manager for the implementation of wireless phones, the selection and implementation of an integrated Nurse Call system, and the implementation and support of the Nurse scheduling and management report software. She was co-project manager with Materials Management, Pharmacy and Technology Services for the implementation of automated drug dispensing equipment and the current Barcode Medication Administration System. She currently serves on several project committees, including the new consolidation project, override initiative team, and the code blue team. She chairs several Carilion committees, including computer advisory, nurse call, clinical secretaries and the medication management process team. She also serves on several Carilion nursing leadership committees.

A member of the American Nurses Association (ANA), Capital Area Roundtable on Informatics in Nursing (CARING), Virginia Organization of Nurse Executives (VONE), American Nursing Informatics Association (ANIA), and Health Information Management System Society (HIMSS), Mrs. Early previously worked as an oncology certified nurse and a system analyst programmer in technology services.
 

Robert Galvin, MD, is Director of Global Healthcare for General Electric (GE). He oversees the design and performance of GE's health programs, which total over $ 3.0 billion annually, and is responsible for GE's medical services, encompassing over 220 medical clinics in more than 20 countries.

Dr. Galvin completed his undergraduate work at the University of Pennsylvania, where he graduated magna cum laude and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. He also received his MD degree at U. Penn and was elected to Alpha Omega Alpha. He received an MBA in health care management from Boston University School of Management in 1995.

In his current role, Dr. Galvin has focused on issues of market-based health policy and financing, with a special interest in quality measurement and improvement. He has been a leader in pushing for public release of performance information and reform of the payment system. He is a founder of both The Leapfrog Group and Bridges to Excellence. He was a member of the Strategic Framework Board of the National Quality Forum and currently sits on the board of the National Committee for Quality Assurance and the CDC Director’s Advisory group on Emergency preparedness. He has served on several Institute of Medicine Committees and is currently a Commissioner on the Commonwealth Fund’s program on a High Performance Health System. Dr. Galvin’s work has received awards from the National Health Care Purchasing Institute, The National Business Group on Health and the National Coalition for Cancer Survivorship. He is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians, and his work has been published in the New England Journal of Medicine and Health Affairs. He is Professor Adjunct of Medicine and Health Policy at Yale where he leads a seminar in the private sector at the School of Medicine and the MBA program at the School of Management.
 

Candace graduated from George Mason University with a BSN 1978. She earned her Master of Science in Healthcare Administration from Bellevue University, Bellevue, NE, 2004.

Candace is the Director of Perioperative Services which includes OR, CPD, SPD, PACU, OPSS at Prince William Hospital in Manassas, VA. She has been a nurse for 28 years with experience at two area hospitals in multiple clinical areas including Medical – Surgical, Emergency Room, Labor and Delivery, Nursery, Pediatrics, and Operating Room. She was also certified in orthodontic radiology and appliance configuration and delivery as well as an Orthodontic first assistant.

Candace is very active in AORN, Association of Perioperative Registered Nurses, having held several offices incl. past chapter president. She is the president elect for 2007. She is also on the Fluid Management Task Force for AORN for 2006 - 2007.
 

Beth serves as the principal advisor to the Command Surgeon on all matters pertaining to the establishment and maintenance of effective Patient Safety, Performance Improvement, Quality and Risk Management, and Credentials programs, oversees these programs in eight hospitals, and conducts activities to ensure compliance with Joint Commission, Department of Defense, Air Force and other national agency standards. Prior to this position, Beth was the Air Force Patient Safety Program Manager and a member of the Department of Defense Patient Safety Planning and Coordinating Committee. During this time, she developed and implemented the Air Force Patient Safety Program across 75 hospitals world-wide and was course director for Air Force Medical Team Management program, teaching team training and communication principles.

She is Affiliate Faculty at Virginia Commonwealth University teaching communication principles for healthcare teams. Beth received her BS in Nursing in 1982 from Spalding College in Louisville, KY, and entered the Air Force shortly after, working in the medical, surgical, neurosurgical, post-anesthesia and critical care areas. In 1994, she obtained a MS in Nursing at Arizona State University. In 1996, she began working in performance improvement and is a Certified Professional in Healthcare Quality since 1997.
 

Robert J. Latino has been facilitating RCA & FMEA analyses with his clientele around the world for over 20 years and has taught over 10,000 students in the PROACT ® Methodology. Mr. Latino is co-author of numerous seminars and workshops on FMEA, Opportunity Analysis and RCA as well as co-designer of the national award winning ROACT Suite Software Package.

Mr. Latino is an author of Root Cause Analysis: Improving Performance for Bottom Line Results (3rd Ed., 2006, c. 284 pp., ISBN: 0-8493-5340-8, Taylor & Francis [CRC Press], contributing author of Error Reduction in Healthcare: A Systems Approach to Improving Patient Safety (1999, c. 284, ISBN; 1-55648-271-X, AHA Press) and The Handbook of Patient Safety Compliance: A Practical Guide for Health Care Organizations, (2005, c. 350 pp. ISBN 0-7879-6510-3, Jossey-Bass).

Robert has also published a paper entitled “Optimizing FMEA and RCA Efforts in Healthcare” in the ASHRM Journal (ASHRM Journal, 2004, Volume 24, No.3, pages 21-28). Mr. Latino presented a paper entitled “Root Cause Analysis Versus Shallow Cause Analysis: What’s the Difference?” at the ASHRM 2005 National Conference. He has been published in numerous trade magazines on the topic of Reliability, FMEA, Opportunity Analysis and RCA as well as a frequent speaker on the topic at domestic and international trade conferences.

Robert has recently co-authored a cover story paper entitled “MRIs: A Need for Risk Management and Patient Safety” published in Materials Management for Healthcare magazine in January 2006.

Mr. Latino has applied the PROACT methodology to the field of Terrorism and Counter Terrorism via a published paper entitled “The Application of PROACT RCA to Terrorism/Counter Terrorism Related Events” (Muresa, Gheorghe., The Application of PROACT RCA to Terrorism/Counter Terrorism Related Events, in Proc. IEEEE International Conference on Intelligence and Security Informatics, Kantor, P., Roberts, F., Wang, F., Merkle, R., Zend, D., and Hsinchum, C., Springer, Atlanta, 2005, 579-589.
 

Before his election as Attorney General, McDonnell represented the 84th District in the Virginia House of Delegates for 14 years, defeating a 20-year Democrat incumbent to win the seat in 1991. In the House of Delegates, McDonnell served as Chairman of the House Courts of Justice Committee, which acts upon nearly twenty percent of the legislation introduced in the House.

In the General Assembly, Attorney General McDonnell was known as a leader on criminal justice and victims’ rights issues, as well as welfare, taxation and family policy. He was Chief Patron of Gov. Allen’s Juvenile Justice Reform Initiative, Chief Patron of Virginia’s historic Welfare Reform legislation, Chief Co-Patron of legislation to abolish the death tax in Virginia, Chief Patron of legislation to protect the Transportation Trust Fund, and Chief Patron of legislation to rewrite Virginia’s Public Private Partnership Act. He also authored legislation and secured funding for the creation of Virginia’s first Judicial Performance Evaluation Program to assist the General Assembly in evaluating and reappointing judges.

Attorney General McDonnell has served on many major policy reform commissions, including the 2005 Crime Commission Taskforce on Sexually Violent Predators (Chair), Governor Allen’s Commission to Abolish Parole, the Attorney General’s Task Force on Youth and Gang Violence, and the Governor's Commission on Environmental Stewardship.

Prior to being elected to the House of Delegates in 1991, Attorney General McDonnell served as a prosecutor in the Virginia Beach Commonwealth's Attorneys office. He holds an undergraduate degree in Management from Notre Dame, a Masters of Science Degree in Business Administration from Boston University, and a Masters Degree and Law Degree from Regent University. Attorney General McDonnell served 21 years in the U.S. Army, both active duty and reserves, and retired as a Lt. Colonel. He was a partner at the law firm of Huff, Poole & Mahoney, P.C for 14 years. He is married to the former Maureen Gardner and has five children, ages 15-26. His oldest daughter, Jeanine, recently returned from serving a tour of duty in Iraq, as a 1st Lieutenant in the U.S. Army.
 

For twenty years she was in private practice at Village Green Family Medicine in Midlothian, VA. There she began work in 1993 in continuous quality improvement. She has participated in the Idealized Design of Clinical Office Practice with the IHI. She served on the Board of the VAAFP and several PHOs and IPAs. She has taught Foundations of Clinical Medicine at MC/VCU since its inception. Her current interest is in helping create a tipping point in healthcare using the tools of CQI to create safe, effective, efficient, timely, patient centered and equitable healthcare in the region.
She is married to Dr. Kenneth Kendler, Professor of Psychiatry and Genetics at VCU, and they have three wonderful children.
 

Internationally recognized for his work in outcomes management, medical staff development and quality-of-care improvement, his publications have appeared in more than 100 articles in major journals. He has edited fifteen books, including A Systems Approach to Disease Management by Jossey-Bass, Connecting with the New Healthcare Consumer by Aspen and The Quality Solution by Jones and Bartlett. In 1995, he was awarded the Latiolais (“Lay-shee-o-lay”) Prize by the Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy for his leadership in disease management and pharmacoeconomics. He also received the Philadelphia Business Journal Healthcare Heroes Award in October 1997 and was named an honorary distinguished fellow of the American College of Physician Executives in 1998.

Repeatedly named by Modern Healthcare to the top 100 most powerful persons in healthcare list, his national activities include appointment to the JCAHO Advisory Committee on Performance Measurement, the CIGNA Physician Advisory Committee, membership on the board of directors of the Disease Management Association of America (DMAA) and Chair of an NQF Technical Advisory Panel—four key national groups focusing on quality measurement and improvement. He continues as one of the principal faculty members for quality of care issues of the American College of Physician Executives in Tampa, Florida, and the developer of the ACPE Capstone Course on Quality. Dr. Nash is on the National Advisory Committee for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Partnerships in Quality Education program, which is helping to transform medical education. Finally, he is a member of the board of trustees of Catholic Healthcare Partners in Cincinnati, Ohio—one of the nation’s largest integrated delivery systems—and chairs the board committee on quality and safety.

Dr. Nash is a consultant to organizations in both the public and private sectors including the Technical Advisory Group of the Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council (a group he has chaired for the last six years), and numerous corporations within the pharmaceutical industry. He is on the board of directors and advisory board of multiple healthcare companies. From 1984 to 1989, he was Deputy Editor, Annals of Internal Medicine, at the American College of Physicians. Currently, he is Editor-in-Chief of four major national journals including P&T, Disease Management, Biotechnology Healthcare and the American Journal of Medical Quality.

Dr. Nash received his B.A. in economics (Phi Beta Kappa) from Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York; his M.D. from the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry; and his M.B.A. in Health Administration (with honors) from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. While at Penn, he was a former Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholar and medical director of a nine physician faculty group practice in general internal medicine.

Dr. Nash lives in Lafayette Hill, Pennsylvania, with his wife, Esther J. Nash, M.D., fraternal twin eighteen-year old daughters, and fifteen-year old son. He is an avid tennis player. Please visit: www.jefferson.edu/dhp/ 
 

His health care experience includes helping integrated systems, hospitals, and medical practices to accelerate the improvement of quality and the reduction of costs in clinical and administrative services. He is a Senior Fellow and member of the executive team of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement. His primary responsibility at IHI is the oversight of the Research and Development initiatives.

Dr. Nolan has a Ph.D. in statistics from George Washington University and is the author of three books on improving quality and productivity. He has published articles on quality and safety in a variety of peer-reviewed journals including the Journal of the American Medical Association and the British Medical Journal. He was the year 2000 recipient of the Deming Medal awarded by the American Society for Quality.