Deborah Morris Nadzam Ph.D., Practice Leader, Patient Safety, Joint Commission Resources, Inc. Dr. Deborah Nadzam has more than 30 years of experience in health care as a practitioner, educator, administrator, and researcher. She joined Joint Commission Resources, Inc. (JCR) and Joint Commission International (JCI) in 2006, as the Consultant Practice Leader for Patient Safety. Before joining JCR, Dr. Nadzam served as executive director of The Quality Institute of the Cleveland Clinic health system. In this role she coordinated quality measurement and improvement activities for the 10-hospital health system in northeast Ohio, including standardized collection and reporting of clinical measures and patient experience (satisfaction) in multiple settings. In addition, Dr. Nadzam led the launching of a system-wide patient safety committee and program based on seven strategies associated with preventing harm to the patient. During her tenure at Cleveland Clinic, the accredited network won two Codman awards for demonstrating improvement in heart failure care (2001) and stroke care (2003).
Dr. Nadzam has also been active in National Quality Forum (NQF) activities, serving as vice chair of the research and quality council for NQF's first four years, and most recently serving on the Ad Hoc Committee on Improving the Consensus Development Process. She has also been a member of the National Coordinating Council for Medication Error Reporting and Prevention since its inception in 1995, and is the current Council chairperson.
Dr. Nadzam has held staff nurse positions and served as a mental health consultant and clinical nurse specialist. Faculty positions include those at Kent State University, Case Western Reserve University, University of Illinois and Ursuline College. She has held multiple positions associated with quality measurement and improvement, ranging from the nursing unit and division levels, to directing a 10-hospital system quality measurement program at Cleveland Clinic, to a position of national scope at the Joint Commission, where she was vice president for performance measurement and participated in the development and launch of the ORYX initiative. Dr. Nadzam has also had extensive experience related to health care informatics and implementation of performance measurement systems at the institutional level, as well as at the national level.
Dr. Nadzam has a BSN from the University of Michigan, and an MSN and PhD from Case Western Reserve University, with a minor concentration in applied statistics. She also has a green belt in Six Sigma and has experience with the use of Lean tools.