Dr. Graber has an extensive background in biomedical and health services research, authoring and co-authoring over 70 peer-reviewed publications. Winner of the 2014 John M. Eisenberg Patient Safety and Quality Award from the Joint Commission and National Quality Forum and the originator Patient Safety Awareness Week, he is a nationally recognized leader in the field.

Dr. Graber has pioneered in efforts to identify, measure and improve diagnostic error in medicine. His research in this area has been supported by the National Patient Safety Foundation (NPSF) and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). In 2008, he convened and chaired the first annual Diagnostic Error in Medicine conference. In 2011 he founded the new Society to Improve Diagnosis in Medicine (SIDM) and serves as President.

Through the DEM Conferences and SIDM, he has been instrumental in convening the experts in the field, sparking interchange and further research, and cultivating a new generation of researchers, educators and practitioners dedicated to diagnostic excellence. He has led the field of scholars who have identified diagnostic error as the new frontier in patient safety. He defined diagnostic error as diagnosis that is wrong, missed or delayed. His research showed diagnostic error to be multifactorial averaging 6 factors per error in one study; related to the most common diagnoses, not the most rare; due most commonly to a combination of cognitive and systems-related failures; and occurring 5-15% of the time. He identified physician overconfidence as an important contributing factor.

Dr. Newman-Toker’s clinical expertise is in disorders of the brainstem and cranial nerves, including visual loss, double vision, and dizziness. He also specializes in the evaluation and treatment of headaches and facial pain. He has done a prodigious amount of research and publication in his field.

Dr. Newman-Toker is also a pioneer in a new frontier: the recognition and prevention of diagnostic error. His work on improving the diagnosis of stroke in patients with acute dizziness has been recognized by national and international societies. He has served as chairman of the annual Diagnostic Errors in Medicine (DEM) conference for the past three years and is a founding Board member of the Society for the Improvement of Diagnosis in Medicine (SIDM).

• 1991, B.S., Yale University, Molecular Biophysics & Biochemistry
• 1995, M.D. University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine
• 1996, Intern, Harvard University/Massachusetts General Hospital, Internal Medicine
• 1999, Resident, Harvard University/Massachusetts General Hospital, Neurology
• 2000, Fellow, Harvard University/Massachusetts Eye & Ear Infirmary, Neuro-ophthalmology
• 2002, Fellow, The Johns Hopkins University/Johns Hopkins Hospital, Neuro-otology

Pat Croskerry is a Professor in Emergency Medicine at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada and also Director of the Critical Thinking Program in the Division of Medical Education at Dalhousie Medical School. He has pioneered the application of critical thinking and the dual process theory of decision making to the practice of medicine and particularly to the process of medical diagnosis.

In addition to his medical training, he earned a doctorate in Experimental Psychology and a Fellowship in Clinical Psychology. He has worked in the field of patient safety for 15 years and has given hundreds of talks internationally, including the Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children, the British Intensive Care Society, the Mayo clinic, Case Western Reserve, and Harvard Medical School. Dr. Croskerry established the first Canadian Symposium on Patient Safety in 2001 in Halifax, which continued annually for 10 years. In 2006, he received the Ruedy Award from the Association of Faculties of Medicine of Canada for innovation in medical education. In the same year, he was appointed to the Board of the Canadian Patient Safety Institute. He became a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh in 2012. Dr. Croskerry was a member of the organizing committee of the first international conference on Diagnostic Error in Medicine (DEM) in 2008 and has contributed to each of subsequent conferences. The DEM Conference is now the annual meeting of the Society to Improve Diagnosis in Medicine (SIDM). In 2014, he was appointed to the Institute of Medicine’s (IOM’s) Committee on Diagnostic Error in Medicine.

Dr Croskerry has published over 80 journal articles and 30 book chapters in the area of patient safety, clinical decision making and medical education reform. He is senior editor on a textbook Patient Safety in Emergency Medicine published in 2009 and is the senior author of Diagnosis: Promises and Pitfalls and The Cognitive Autopsy, published in 2015. Here are just a few of his most recent peer reviewed publications:

• Croskerry P, Petrie D, Reilly J, Tait G. Deciding about fast and slow decisions. Acad Med. 2014;
• Croskerry P. Bias: A normal operating characteristic of the diagnosing brain. Diagnosis. 2014; January, Volume I, Issue 1.
• Croskerry P. ED Cognition: Any decision by anyone at any time. ED administration series. CJEM 2014; 16(1):13-19.
• Croskerry P. From mindless to mindful practice--cognitive bias and clinical decision making. N Engl J Med. 2013; 368:2445-2448.
• Croskerry P, Singhal G, Mamede S. Cognitive debiasing 1: origins of bias and theory of debiasing. BMJ Qual Saf. 2013; 22 (suppl 2): ii58-ii64.
• Croskerry P, Singhal G, Mamede S. Cognitive debiasing 2: impediments to and strategies for change. BMJ Qual Saf. 2013; 22(Suppl 2): ii65-ii72.

Hardeep Singh, M.D., M.P.H., is Chief of the Health Policy, Quality & Informatics program at the VA Health Services Research Center for Innovations based at the Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center and Baylor College of Medicine, Houston. He leads a portfolio of multidisciplinary patient safety research, largely funded by the VA and AHRQ, focusing on two related areas: improving the use of health IT and reducing diagnostic errors in healthcare. In 2012, he received the AcademyHealth Alice S. Hersh New Investigator Award for high impact research and in 2014, received the prestigious Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) from President Obama for his pioneering work in the field.

Dr. Singh’s work has informed several national patient safety initiatives and policy reports, including those by the AMA, AHRQ, and IOM and was foundational for developing national VA policy on test results communication to providers and patients. He also co-developed the “ONC SAFER Guides” for safe and effective electronic health record use and was elected as a Fellow of the American College of Medical Informatics for significant and sustained contributions to biomedical informatics.

Dr. Sittig is the Christopher Sarofim Family Professor of Biomedical Informatics and Bioengineering at the School of Biomedical Informatics in The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston and a member of the UT Houston-Memorial Hermann Center for Healthcare Quality and Safety. He is also Executive Director of the Clinical Informatics Research Collaborative, a group of academic applied clinical informatics researchers committed to improving our understanding of issues involved in the design, development, implementation, use and evaluation of all aspects of health information technology with a particular emphasis on electronic health records. He was instrumental in the creation of the SAFER Guides that have been adopted by several organizations.

Dr. Brown received his medical degree from Howard University School of Medicine in Washington, DC, and completed a residency at Louisiana State University, Charity Hospital. He received a Masters in Business Administration from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. Dr. Brown maintained a solo private practice in Lafayette, Louisiana for 24 years and served as Medical Director and Chief Medical Officer of Woman’s Hospital in Baton Rouge, LA for 15 years. He is an Associate Clinical Professor in OB/GYN at LSU Health Science Center Residency Programs and served as Department Head and Chief of Obstetrics-Gynecology at University Medical Center in Lafayette. Dr. Brown presently consults on matters of Healthcare and Quality Improvement. He entered hospital administration at Our Lady of Lourdes Regional Medical Center and served as Medical Director, Vice President of Medical Affairs, Vice President of Patient Care Services, and Senior Vice President/Chief Medical Officer.

Dr. Brown is a Diplomat and Fellow for the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology and represented ACOG as a Primary Care Fellow at the U.S. Public Health Service and Department of Health and Human Services in Washington, DC. He is a Diplomat and Fellow of the American Board of Quality Assurance and Utilization Review Physicians (with certification in Healthcare Quality and Management) and is a Fellow of the American Board of Healthcare Executives. He is also a Diplomat in the American Board of Medical Management.

He was a member of The Joint Commission’s Technical Advisory Panel on Quality Measures. He was a member of the American Congress of Ob-Gyn (ACOG) Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Committee for three years, serving as Vice-Chair. He was a member and Team Leader of the ACOG Voluntary Review of Quality of Care Program having evaluated over 30 hospitals nation-wide. He is a member of the Board of Directors of LAMMICO and also serves on LAMMICO’s Risk Management and Joint Risk Assessment Committees, and is Chairman of the Compensation and Governance Committees. He is the author of several monographs and videos offered through LAMMICO’s educational programming.

He is presently Treasurer and Chair of the Finance Committee and past President of the Woman’s Foundation, Inc. of Women’s and Children’s Hospital in Lafayette, LA and is a member and past President of the Lafayette Parish Medical Society. He is a member of the National Medical Association and serves as parliamentarian of the OB/GYN Section. He served as the Community Impact Committee Chair of the United Way of Acadiana and was its first Policy Council Chairman for Early Childhood Development. He presently serves on the state Board of the March of Dimes, and is a consultant to LDH, Region 4 Office of Public Health.

Ms. Curran has been a practitioner in high risk obstetrics for 25 years. Her clinical experience ranges from Los Angeles to Virginia Beach and from clinical staff nurse and OB-GYN Nurse Practitioner to founder and CEO of Perinatal University. She is a nationally recognized expert in Electronic Fetal Monitoring (EFM).

Ms. Curran earned her Bachelor of Science in Nursing from Radford University in Virginia in 1987 and her Master of Science in Nursing from Virginia Commonwealth University in 1992. She practiced at several tertiary care hospitals including the Medical College of Virginia in Richmond, VA where she gained expertise with critical care obstetrical patients requiring arterial lines, pulmonary artery catheters and ventilator support. Ms. Curran is a nationally known speaker and educator in clinical obstetrics. She has authored and co-authored many articles and chapters published by JOGNN, JOPNN, AJMCN, AWHONN’s Perinatal Nursing Textbook (3rd Ed), Lippincott Manual of Nursing Practice (10th Ed). She co-authored abcdEFM The Textbook & Pocket Guide: Electronic Fetal Monitoring.

Dr. Rigamer received his training in psychiatry at the New York Hospital-Cornell University and Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York. He received his MPA from Harvard. He is a Diplomate of the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology and the American Board of Child Psychiatry, a Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, and a member of Physicians for a National Health Program and Alpha Omega Alpha.

Dr. Rigamer served as a Peace Corps Volunteer Physician in Monrovia, Liberia. He was the Medical Director for the U.S. State Department for many years, overseeing the healthcare of Foreign Service diplomats and their families, and advising the Secretary of State on international health issues. He also served the Department of State as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Medical Affairs and held other posts for Europe, the Soviet Union, and South Asia. He has also held positions with Kaiser Permanente HMO and Ochsner Clinic.

Dr. Rigamer is the Medical Director for Catholic Charities Archdiocese of New Orleans and directed several disaster relief programs for victims of Hurricane Katrina. He opened the first Program for All Inclusive Care for the Elderly (PACE) in New Orleans. He was named a 2008 "Healthcare Hero" by New Orleans City Business magazine.

Dr. Rigamer is also the co-founder and chairman of the Partnership for Access to Total Health (PATH), a coalition sponsored by the Catholic Health Care organizations in Louisiana to improve healthcare systems for the medically underserved. He has worked to enhance the exchange of information between community health clinics and the Medical Center of Louisiana, develop organizational partnerships to implement population-based health programs in pilot communities in New Orleans.

Dr. Rigamer is a longtime member of the LAMMICO Risk Management Committee and facilitates the litigation stress management seminars for LAMMICO insured physicians.

Dr. Drill-Mellum is the Chief Medical Officer of MMIC Group, a medical professional liability company based in Minnesota, and Co-Medical Director of the Ridgeview Medical Center Hospice Program. She also serves as a staff physician with Emergency Medicine Physicians & Consultants. She previously served as Medical Director of the Ridgeview Medical Center Emergency Department, member of the Ridgeview Medical Center Medical Executive Committee, and Chief of Staff, Ridgeview Medical Center.

Dr. Drill-Mellum earned her medical degree from the University of Minnesota Medical School and her MPH degree at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health. She completed her Residency in Emergency Medicine at the Hennepin County Medical Center. She completed a Fellowship in Integrative Medicine at the University of Arizona 2009-2011.

Dr. Drill-Mellum is Board-certified in Emergency Medicine and a Fellow of the American College of Emergency Physicians, a Diplomate of National Board of Medical Examiners, and is Board-certified in Integrative and Holistic Medicine.