APSF Stoelting Conference 2026
September 9 - September 10
Event Navigation
“SOS!: Signals of Safety… Safely across the Patient’s Perioperative Journey”
Click the names or photos below for more information.
Planning Committee:
Planning Committee Chair
Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center
201 Waterfront Street
National Harbor, MD 20745
Visit the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center website for hotel information.
ATTENDANCE & REGISTRATION
In-Person Attendance:
In-person attendance at the Gaylord National Resort is limited and primarily by invitation. If you are a prospective attendee, or for general registration inquiries, please contact Stacey Maxwell, APSF Administrator: [email protected]
Note: Day 2 programming will continue through lunch on Thursday, September 10, with the conference concluding at 1:00 p.m. ET. Attendees are encouraged to participate in the full program, including Day 2.
LIVESTREAM REGISTRATIONRegister for the APSF Stoelting Conference 2026 Livestream |
Thank You to our Supporters
APSF 2026 Stoelting Conference Supportors
 ConMed Corporation is a global medical technology company dedicated to supporting clinicians and improving patient care with advanced surgical solutions. We develop and deliver innovative surgical tools that provide elevated patient outcomes, promote safety, and raise standards of care – always grounding our work around a patient-first philosophy. We are proud to partner with the Anesthesia Patient Safety Foundation, supporting its mission to advance patient safety through education, collaboration, and innovation in patient care. |
 At Solventum, we enable better, smarter, safer healthcare to improve lives. Our 3M™ Bair Hugger™ Temperature Management Solutions, including warming blankets, gowns, and non-invasive core temperature monitoring, help support care teams in maintaining normothermia. We proudly support the APSF Stoelting Conference and its focus on Signals of Safety, recognizing that safer care depends on identifying and responding to critical signals, like patient temperature, across the perioperative journey. |
Additional Supporters
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 PPM provides medical malpractice insurance exclusively for anesthesia practices. Founded in 1987, PPM has earned a reputation of providing very aggressive claims defense and anesthesia-specific risk management that has proven to improve patient safety and reduce claims. To learn more, please go to www.ppmrrg.com or call 800 562-5589. |
Support the Conference:
For information on how to support this conference, please contact Jill Maksimovich, APSF Director of Development: [email protected]
OBJECTIVES
- Define six safety “axioms” for safe, frictionless perioperative care
- Examine how safety is actively produced—and eroded—across the perioperative continuum.
- Understand the sociotechnical conditions required to safely integrate emerging technologies in and beyond the operating room
- Identify interdependent strategies that improves the reliability of patient-centered outcomes.
- Build a shared language of Always Events to enable teams to strengthen perioperative safety.
PROGRAM
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*All times are EST
7:30 – 7:50 AM
SOS Opening
Della Lin, MS, MD, FASA
Della Lin, MS, MD, FASA is an inaugural National Patient Safety Foundation/Health Forums Patient Safety Leadership Fellow (2002). She is faculty and fellow with the Institute for Health Care Improvement (IHI), is a Global Salzburg Fellow and holds an Associate Faculty appointment with Ariadne Labs, a joint center for health systems innovation at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Lin also holds an appointment with the John A. Burns School of Medicine in Honolulu, Hawaii and has previously been Visiting Faculty with the Johns Hopkins Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality and a longstanding Senior Fellow in Patient Safety Leadership with the Estes Park Institute.
Lin facilitates multi-stakeholder groups to challenge and better the status quo of patient care systems through shared goals of improving safety culture, effective leadership and building sustainable solutions from the ground level. In that work, she has been part of the national AHRQ team implementing Improving Surgical Care and Recovery (ISCR) and leads her state’s Hawaii Safer Care collaborative. She is noted for her speaking through an engaging balance of science and storytelling.
Lin continues an active practice in anesthesiology in Hawaii, receiving her training from the University of California, San Diego.
President’s Welcome
Daniel J. Cole, MD
Professor of Clinical Anesthesiology,
Department of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine,
University of California, Los Angeles
Daniel J. Cole, M.D. is the President of Anesthesia Patient Safety Foundation and serves on the Board of Directors. A neuroanesthesiologist by training he currently services as a Professor of Clinical Anesthesiology in the Department of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles. He has published extensively, with more than 350 original manuscripts, chapters, abstracts, and editorials to his credit. He is also a distinguished lecturer with over 300 invited presentations on a broad range of topics in anesthesiology.
Cole is a past president of the American Society of Anesthesiologists. He is the Executive Director for Professional Affairs for the American Board of Anesthesiology, and the American Board of Medical Specialties. Most importantly he is a champion for patient safety throughout his many roles in organized medicine.
7:50 – 8:20 AM
Anchoring Note: “We aren’t getting safer fast enough: Is the conflation of quality and safety holding us back?”
Rollin J. “Terry” Fairbanks, MD, MS
Senior Vice President, Chief Quality & Safety Officer, MedStar Health
Professor of Emergency Medicine, Georgetown University
Rollin J “Terry” Fairbanks MD MS is senior vice president, chief quality & safety officer, MedStar Health, and professor of emergency medicine, Georgetown University, responsible for clinical quality, patient safety, infection prevention, and health equity at MedStar Health, a 10-hospital academic health system in the Baltimore/Washington DC region. An emergency physician, human factors engineer, safety science researcher, and former paramedic and general aviation pilot, Dr. Fairbanks founded the National Center for Human Factors in Healthcare in 2010, the largest healthcare-embedded human factors/safety center in the US. He has published more than 200 papers and a book on healthcare safety, and served in advisory roles for the US, Great Britian, Spain, and Australian governments. Dr. Fairbanks is an elected Fellow in the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, appointed member of the National Academies of Sciences Engineering and Medicine Board on Human-Systems Integration, Board Chair, Certification Board for Patient Safety Professionals (CPPS), and Board Chair, Mid-Atlantic Patient Safety Center. Dr. Fairbanks earned a BA in mathematics and physics from Potsdam College, MS in human factors/industrial systems engineering from Virginia Tech, Medical Degree from VCU/Medical College of Virginia, and emergency medicine residency at University of Rochester where he served as chief resident. He is a recipient of the Robert Wears Safety Leadership Award and the Eisenberg Award for Individual Achievement in Quality and Safety.
8:20 – 8:50 AM
The 30,000-foot Problem
Perioperative Mortality
Daniel Sessler, MD
Vice President, Clinical Research at UTHealth
Dr. Sessler attended medical school at Columbia University, and subsequently completed pediatric and anesthesia residencies at the University of California, Los Angeles. He is currently Vice-president for Clinical Research at UTHealth in Houston. Dr. Sessler has published more than 1,000 full papers including three-dozen in the New England Journal of Medicine, Lancet, and JAMA. More than 150 of his papers were accompanied by editorials, and more than 35 were cover articles for major anesthesia journals since 2010. His papers have been cited 120,000 times in peer-reviewed articles — making him the world’s most published and cited anesthesia investigator (H Index 166). He is among the top 0.01% of cited scientists in any field. Dr. Sessler is also Senior Editor for Trials at the Journal of Clinical Anesthesia. He has given more than 500 invited presentations, including more than two-dozen eponymous lectures. Dr. Sessler has been a principal or co-investigator on grants totaling $100 million. He founded and directs the Outcomes Research Consortium. The Consortium is the world’s largest anesthesia research group; it publishes a full paper every other day, for a total of more than 2,400 papers. Dr. Sessler’s awards include a Fulbright Fellowship and the American Society of Anesthesiologists Excellence in Research prize.
Problem-solving while connecting the dots
Nassib Chamoun
Founder & CEO
Health Data Analytics Institute (HDAI)
Nassib Chamoun is a successful serial healthcare entrepreneur, researcher, and inventor. He is founder and CEO of Boston-based Health Data Analytics Institute (HDAI), a predictive-AI company that developed and introduced the first EHR-embedded enterprise AI platform HealthVision™, to help leading health systems, ACOs, and payers improve diagnostic discovery, quality outcomes, operational efficiency, and economics. Prior to HDAI, Chamoun founded and led Aspect Medical Systems a Nasdaq traded company that pioneered and established the worldwide market for EEG based depth-of-anesthesia BIS™ monitoring technology, which has helped transform anesthesia delivery and outcomes. Chamoun earned a BS in Electrical Engineering from Northeastern University and a MS in Computer Engineering from Boston University. He was Chairman of the Lown Institute (2009-2020), member emeritus of the Northeastern University Corporation, Vice President of the Anesthesia Patient Safety Foundation, and currently serves on the Board of Trustees for Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital – Needham. Chamoun holds 14 patents for physiological monitoring and processing technology and is published widely in scientific journals.
8:50 – 9:00 AM
What next?
Moderated Q&A
9:00 – 10:30 AM
AXIOM: Discharge is a Transition, Not an Endpoint
Desirée Chappell, MSNA, CRNA, FAANA
Desirée Chappell, MSNA, CRNA, FAANA is Director of Medical Affairs and Medical Science Liaison with BD Advanced Patient Monitoring, where she partners with clinicians, health systems, and industry leaders to advance evidence-based perioperative care, hemodynamic optimization, and patient safety.
With over two decades of clinical practice experience and perioperative quality leadership, Desirée focuses on translating clinical evidence into practical insights that support care teams and inform system-level improvement. Her work emphasizes collaboration, education, and the thoughtful application of data and technology to improve patient outcomes.
Desirée serves on the Board of Directors of the Anesthesia Patient Safety Foundation and is on faculty for the Middle Tennessee School of Anesthesia Acute Pain Management Fellowship, with a focus on ERAS and perioperative care.
Stacie Deiner, MS, MD
Professor of Anesthesiology, Geisel School of Medicine, Dartmouth
Stacie Deiner, MS, MD is an anesthesiologist who has focused her research and clinical career toward best practice for older surgical patients. Her research interests focus on postoperative cognition and frailty in older surgical patients. She is a National Institute of Aging and American Federation of Aging Research Beeson K23 alumna; her project focused on identifying risk factors and outcomes associated with postoperative cognitive dysfunction and whether intraoperative anesthetic depth affects long term cognitive outcomes. She was a co-investigator on an R01 funded randomized trial of the use of dexmedetomidine and one which focused on cognitive effects of anesthesia (without surgery) in healthy volunteers. She has served as the executive lead for the ASA Brain Health Initiative. In 2019 she was recruited to Dartmouth to be the LeRoy Garth Vice Chair for Research. In 2020, she received a Levy Incubator Grant at Dartmouth Hitchcock to implement multidisciplinary care for older surgical patients. Deiner has a long track record of successful mentorship including support for T32 scholars, summer and year-long student and resident FAER awardees, and faculty projects. She is Vice President of the Board of Directors for the American Board of Anesthesiology, and incoming President in 2027. Currently she is site PI for the PCORI THRIVE Trial, PCORI Anesthesia My Choice, and a Hitchcock Foundation Pilot grant to study postoperative nutrition. She has been an enthusiastic participant in the Dartmouth Systemwide Delirium Prevention program and most recently the Dartmouth Age Friendly Initiative.
Brenda Campbell, MS, BSN
Project Management – Executive Administration
Houston Methodist
Brenda Campbell, MS, BSN serves as a Project Manager supporting Executive Leadership at Houston Methodist, where she helps drive strategic initiatives that advance organizational performance, patient outcomes, and clinical excellence. With more than 24 years of experience in executive healthcare leadership, Brenda has built a career focused on healthcare transformation, operational improvement, and quality outcomes.
Over the past four years, her work has centered on the development and implementation of risk stratification tools, leveraging data-driven insights to improve patient quality, support care delivery, and enhance clinician engagement. She is passionate about translating complex healthcare challenges into practical solutions that improve both the patient and provider experience.
Brenda brings a unique combination of clinical expertise, leadership experience, and strategic project management, enabling her to bridge the gap between executive vision and operational execution. She is committed to advancing innovative approaches that strengthen healthcare quality, promote clinician well-being, and drive meaningful organizational change.
Daryl J. Kor, MD
Professor of Anesthesiology
Daryl J. Kor, MD is a consultant at Mayo Clinic and chair of the Department of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. Kor also serves as medical director of the Perioperative Information Management, Implementation and Analytics Program. He joined the staff of Mayo Clinic in 2005 and holds the academic rank of professor of anesthesiology, Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science. Kor is recognized with the distinction of the Walter and Leonore Annenberg Professor of Anesthesiology Honoring Dr. Daniel R. Brown.
Kor is a leading expert in transfusion medicine and patient blood management, with a distinguished career in clinical research, policy development and innovation in blood utilization strategies. His research has been instrumental in identifying transfusion-associated risks, including transfusion-related acute lung injury (TRALI) and transfusion-associated circulatory overload (TACO), shaping evidence-based transfusion guidelines.
Kor is frequently invited to give presentations on his research both nationally and internationally. As a recognized authority in the field of patient blood management, Kor has advised federal agencies and led numerous multicenter transfusion studies. At Mayo Clinic, his work has shaped institutional transfusion policies through his leadership of the Mayo Clinic Transfusion Committee and his role in developing informatics-driven solutions for blood management. His efforts continue to influence national and international best practices.
Kor has previously held roles as dean of Mayo Clinic Research Data and Digital Solutions, medical director for the Center for Digital Health Digital Data & AI Value Program, informatics co-lead for the Center for Translation Science, chair of the Data Governance and Enablement Committee, medical director for the Clinical Informatics Program in the Robert D. and Patricia E. Kern Center for the Science of HealthCare Delivery, and a member of Mayo Clinic Platform’s Advisory Board.
In addition to his clinical and research activities, Kor is a dedicated educator. He has provided mentorship to multiple anesthesiology residents as well as critical care and infectious diseases fellows, among other learners. He holds master’s faculty privileges in Clinical and Translational Science at Mayo Clinic Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences.
10:30 – 10:45 AM
BREAK
10:45 AM – 12:15 PM
AXIOM: Risk Must be Matched with Readiness
Carol Peden, MB ChB, MD (Res), FRCA, FFICM, FFMLM, MPH
Professor of Anesthesiology at the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California. Her research interests include improving clinical outcomes, patient safety, perioperative medicine and innovation in healthcare. She was named the Harvard School of Public Health Innovator of the Year in 2016 for her work in improving outcomes for high risk surgical patients. She is Vice Chair of the American Society of Anesthesiologists Brain Health Initiative, and was recently elected to the Enhanced Recovery after Surgery US board. Carol is a Fellow of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) and has helped design and lead quality and safety improvement projects around the world. Before leaving the U.K. in 2015, she held roles as Associate Medical Director for Quality and Safety at a national level for NHS England, National Clinical Director in the Enhanced Recovery program for Emergency Surgery and a founder and board member of the National Emergency Laparotomy Audit (NELA). She is dually accredited in Anesthesiology and Intensive Care Medicine. She received her medical degree and a research doctorate in Medicine from the University of Edinburgh UK, and has an MPH from Harvard.
Kenneth Cummings, MD, MS, FASA, DFPM
Director, Center for Perioperative Medicine, Cleveland Clinic
Kenneth Cummings, MD, MS, FASA, DFPM is a Professor of Anesthesiology at Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine of Case Western Reserve University and the Director of the Center for Perioperative Medicine at Cleveland Clinic. He completed medical school and anesthesiology training at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, MO followed by a master’s degree in clinical research at Case Western Reserve University. His practice focuses on perioperative medicine, working to transform perioperative care at Cleveland Clinic from an episodic model to a longitudinal process. In collaboration with other perioperative stakeholders, he is working to bridge pre- and postoperative care to improve patient outcomes.
Cliff Schmiesing, MD
Clinical Professor, Department of Anesthesiology, Pain, and Perioperative Medicine
Stanford Medicine
Cliff Schmiesing is a Clinical Professor in Stanford’s Department of Anesthesiology, Pain, and Perioperative Medicine, where he has been on the faculty since 1997. He is board-certified in Internal Medicine, Anesthesiology, and Clinical Informatics.
Clinically, he works in the Stanford Anesthesia Preoperative Assessment Clinic and the Interventional Platform, where he has supervised residents for nearly 30 years. He co-directed the Preoperative Assessment Program from 2010 to 2025 and currently serves as Associate Division Chief of the Multispecialty Division.
He served as Medical Informatics Director for both the department and Stanford Health Care from 2008 to 2026. His scholarly work focused on the perioperative use of clinical informatics and technology and included 20 presentations on topics ranging from transfusion module implementation to AI-assisted preoperative workflows.
He has published 27 peer-reviewed articles and authored 10 book chapters, with work covering preoperative evaluation, perioperative buprenorphine management, open anesthetic records, and AI in perioperative care. He is currently co-editing the 7th Edition of the Jaffe Anesthesiologist’s Manual of Surgical Procedures with Brenda Golianu, his third edition of the book.
Joshua Biro, PhD
Research Scientist, MedStar Health National Center for Human Factors in Healthcare
Assistant Professor, Department of Family Medicine, Georgetown University
Joshua Biro, PhD, is a Research Scientist at the MedStar Health National Center for Human Factors in Healthcare and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Family Medicine at Georgetown University. His research draws on cognitive systems engineering and human factors to study the safe, effective, and equitable integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into healthcare. His work focuses on how clinicians interact with AI-enabled technologies in real-world clinical environments, including issues related to safety, trust, workflow integration, usability, and human-AI teaming.
Dr. Biro has received the MedStar Early Investigator Grant to study generative AI in patient-provider communication and an R03 grant from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality to investigate the implementation of ambient digital scribes in primary care. He has delivered invited talks on AI in healthcare to clinical, academic, and industrial audiences nationwide and has published in prestigious journals including npj Digital Medicine, the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, and the British Journal of Anaesthesia.
Dr. Biro earned his PhD and MS in Industrial Engineering from Clemson University and a BS in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Maryland, College Park.
12:15 – 1:00 PM
LUNCH
1:00 – 1:30 PM
Anchoring Note: Connecting the Dots: Patient and Staff Experience with Clinical and Financial Outcomes of Care
Jessica C. Dudley, MD
Chief Clinical Officer
Qualtrics
As Press Ganey’s Chief Clinical Officer, Jessica C. Dudley, MD is responsible for leading efforts to support organizations in increasing clinician engagement, workforce well-being, and improving patient care outcomes, particularly among physicians. Her areas of expertise include leadership development, clinical care redesign through outstanding teamwork, addressing clinician burnout, and hardwiring communication skills.
Prior to joining Press Ganey, Dudley was Chief Medical Officer at the Brigham and Women’s Physicians Organization, where she was responsible for the strategic development and oversight of physician-led efforts to improve the quality and efficiency of clinical care. Dudley led the organization’s overall well-being efforts to address burnout and improve professional fulfillment for more than 1,700 physicians, and she participated in systemwide efforts supporting more than 5,000 physicians and 2,000 trainees. She also developed multiple training programs to advance the development of physician leadership skills and clinical performance, and she created a clinician incubator program to increase front-line clinicians’ engagement in identifying opportunities to redesign care to deliver improved outcomes and quality and reduce overall health care costs.
Dudley also served as Vice President for Care Innovation at Brigham Health, where she coordinated institutional and physician-led efforts to develop population health management and care redesign programs supporting the delivery of high-value patient care. Prior to that, she was a Medical Director within the Partners HealthCare System, and she served as Medical Director for Partners’ Human Resources department.
Dudley received her undergraduate degree from Yale University and her medical degree from Harvard Medical School. She completed her internship and residency in primary care internal medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, where she was a practicing primary care physician for 10 years. Dudley is board-certified in internal medicine and is an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School.
1:30 – 3:00 PM
AXIOM: The Patient’s Experience is a Vital Sign
Vonda Vaden Bates
CEO, 10th Dot
Vonda Vaden Bates is an alliance builder, public speaker, and coach who helps multidisciplinary teams communicate effectively, align around shared goals, and achieve extraordinary results. For more than 30 years, she has guided professionals and organizations in moving from potential to action — strengthening leadership, collaboration, engagement, and communication. Her work has contributed to major market shifts across television, retail, banking, technology, education, and health care.
Known for facilitating meaningful conversations across roles and perspectives, Vonda helps organizations navigate complexity, strengthen trust, and build cultures where people are heard, valued, and achieve ambitious goals together.
In 2012, after her husband, Yogiraj Charles Bates, died from a hospital-associated venous thromboembolism, Vonda began applying her expertise to patient safety and healthcare communication. Through national speaking engagements, advocacy, facilitation, and published work — including a recent co-authored article with the Anesthesia Patient Safety Foundation, “The Patient Experience: The Missing Vital Sign for Safe Perioperative Care” — she brings a compassionate voice and strategic perspective to improving communication between patients, families, clinicians, and healthcare teams.
Vonda is the CEO of 10th Dot®, a company founded by her late husband that coaches and trains individuals, teams, and organizations to identify potential and bring ideas to life.
Mike Grocott, MD
Professor of Anaesthesia and Critical Care Medicine, University of Southampton
Mike Grocott is the Professor of Anaesthesia and Critical Care Medicine at the University of Southampton, director of the Southampton NIHR Biomedical Research Centre (2022-27), an NIHR Senior Investigator (reappointed 2022) and was formerly NIHR CRN national specialty lead for Anaesthesia Perioperative Medicine and Pain (2015-2020).
He is the president of the Perioperative Quality Initiative (POQI). Mike was previously elected vice-president of the Royal College of Anaesthetists (2019-20), served on the board of the Faculty of Intensive Care Medicine (2013-2016) and was president of the Critical Care Medicine section of the Royal Society of Medicine (2017-19). the current president of the Perioperative Quality Initiative (POQI).
He is co-chair of the global anaesthesia/perioperative care core outcomes initiative (StEP-COMPAC) and in 2022 he chaired the “High-risk patients” panel for the global Outcome4Medicine initiative. He has chaired two sets of international guidelines on ‘Prehabilitation for people with cancer’.
Leah Binder, MA, MGA
President & CEO, The Leapfrog Group
Leah Binder, MA, MGA, is President & CEO of The Leapfrog Group, a national nonprofit representing employers and other purchasers of health care calling for improved safety and quality in hospitals. Under her leadership, The Leapfrog Group has grown fourfold in size, and launched major new initiatives including the Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade, which assigns letter grades assessing the safety of general hospitals across the country.
Prior to her position at The Leapfrog Group, Leah spent eight years as vice president at Franklin Community Health Network, an award-winning rural hospital network in Farmington, Maine. Prior to that she served as senior policy advisor at the New York City Mayor’s Office. She started her career at the National League for Nursing, where she handled policy and communications for more than 6 years.
Ms. Binder has a bachelor’s degree from Brandeis University and two master’s degrees from the University of Pennsylvania, one from the Annenberg School of Communication and the other from the Fels Institute of Government. She was born and raised in Maine and lives in Maryland with her husband and two sons.
3:00 – 3:15 PM
BREAK
3:15 – 4:45 PM
AXIOM: No Surgery Without Shared Understanding
Colonel (ret.) Steven Coffee
Colonel retired, Steven Coffee is a distinguished leader whose impact spans military service, healthcare advocacy, and academia. Colonel Coffee is the former military deputy assistant secretary of the Air Force for human resources policy affecting over 700,000 military and civilian personnel in the Air and Space Forces. He holds an undergraduate degree in political science from Morehouse College and has earned many advanced degrees and certificates, including a Master’s degrees in Legislative Affairs from George Washington University, Clinical Quality, Safety, and Leadership from Georgetown University, and the Joint and Combined Warfighting School at the National Defense University, as well as a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion certification from Cornell University, highlighting his dedication to creating equitable and inclusive environments.
Col. Coffee is a founding member of Patients for Patient Safety US, the CEO and president of Head-2-Heart-Connections LLC. In addition to service on multiple boards of directors and advisory boards focused on developing policy and healthcare research initiatives including the American Board of Internal Medicine, Governance Board for Internal Medicine, and ABIM Fairness Review Board. An international speaker, best-selling children’s book author of “Baby Steven’s Gift of Life” and educator, Col. Coffee continues to inspire change and innovation.
Mike Grocott, MD
Professor of Anaesthesia and Critical Care Medicine, University of Southampton
Mike Grocott is the Professor of Anaesthesia and Critical Care Medicine at the University of Southampton, director of the Southampton NIHR Biomedical Research Centre (2022-27), an NIHR Senior Investigator (reappointed 2022) and was formerly NIHR CRN national specialty lead for Anaesthesia Perioperative Medicine and Pain (2015-2020).
He is the president of the Perioperative Quality Initiative (POQI). Mike was previously elected vice-president of the Royal College of Anaesthetists (2019-20), served on the board of the Faculty of Intensive Care Medicine (2013-2016) and was president of the Critical Care Medicine section of the Royal Society of Medicine (2017-19). the current president of the Perioperative Quality Initiative (POQI).
He is co-chair of the global anaesthesia/perioperative care core outcomes initiative (StEP-COMPAC) and in 2022 he chaired the “High-risk patients” panel for the global Outcome4Medicine initiative. He has chaired two sets of international guidelines on ‘Prehabilitation for people with cancer’.
Ronald A. Charles, MD, FACS
Assistant Professor of Surgery, Case Western Reserve University
Surgical Director of Operating Room Operations; Program Director of the Colon and Rectal Surgery Fellowship, University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center
Ronald A. Charles, MD, FACS, is an academic colorectal surgeon, educator, and healthcare leader dedicated to advancing both surgical excellence and the human experience within medicine. He serves as Assistant Professor of Surgery at Case Western Reserve University and holds key leadership roles in perioperative operations and surgical education at University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center, including Surgical Director of Operating Room Operations and Program Director of the Colon and Rectal Surgery Fellowship.
Clinically, Charles specializes in complex colorectal disease and is committed to delivering high-quality, patient-centered care. His academic work spans surgical outcomes, enhanced recovery pathways, and quality improvement, with a focus on translating evidence into meaningful improvements in patient safety and system performance.
Beyond his clinical and academic roles, Charles is a nationally recognized leader in transforming operating room culture. He is the architect of the “We Are the Culture” initiative, a multidisciplinary effort designed to reshape the operating room into a high-performing, psychologically safe, and team-centered environment. Grounded in behavioral science and organizational theory, this work emphasizes that culture is not a passive backdrop to care delivery, but an active and measurable driver of safety, performance, and well-being.
His leadership philosophy centers on the belief that excellence in healthcare is inseparable from the environments in which teams work. He has championed initiatives that promote psychological safety, strengthen interprofessional relationships, and create systems where individuals feel valued, empowered, and connected. This work reflects a broader commitment to elevating the human experience in medicine—recognizing that trust, respect, and purpose are as critical to outcomes as technical skill.
Through his scholarship, leadership, and programmatic innovation, Charles is helping to redefine culture as a core domain of patient safety and organizational excellence. His work aims not only to improve how care is delivered, but to transform how it feels to deliver it.
4:45 – 5:15 PM
Reactor Panel/Gallery Walk
Matthew B. Weinger, MD, MS
Matthew B. Weinger, MD, MS holds the Norman Ty Smith Chair in Patient Safety and Medical Simulation and is a Professor of Anesthesiology, Biomedical Informatics, and Medical Education at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine and Vanderbilt University Medical Center. He is an internationally recognized researcher and educator in patient safety, human factors engineering, and medical simulation. Dr. Weinger has been the PI on 16 federal research grants, and dozens of others as Mentor. He has almost 250 publications that have been cited nearly 6000 times and he has given more than 250 invited presentations. Dr. Weinger is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society. He has actively served, frequently in a leadership role, the ABA, ASA, APSF, AQI, HFES, National Academy of Sciences, and the STA.
Lauren Green
6:00 – 9:00 PM
Reception
7:45 – 8:00 AM
Second Day Opening: Thinking Differently
Della Lin, MS, MD, FASA
Della Lin, MS, MD, FASA is an inaugural National Patient Safety Foundation/Health Forums Patient Safety Leadership Fellow (2002). She is faculty and fellow with the Institute for Health Care Improvement (IHI), is a Global Salzburg Fellow and holds an Associate Faculty appointment with Ariadne Labs, a joint center for health systems innovation at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Lin also holds an appointment with the John A. Burns School of Medicine in Honolulu, Hawaii and has previously been Visiting Faculty with the Johns Hopkins Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality and a longstanding Senior Fellow in Patient Safety Leadership with the Estes Park Institute.
Lin facilitates multi-stakeholder groups to challenge and better the status quo of patient care systems through shared goals of improving safety culture, effective leadership and building sustainable solutions from the ground level. In that work, she has been part of the national AHRQ team implementing Improving Surgical Care and Recovery (ISCR) and leads her state’s Hawaii Safer Care collaborative. She is noted for her speaking through an engaging balance of science and storytelling.
Lin continues an active practice in anesthesiology in Hawaii, receiving her training from the University of California, San Diego.
8:00 – 8:35 AM
Anchoring Note: Safety in Motion – How Teams Adapt When Best Practice Isn’t Possible
Charles Vincent, PhD
8:35 – 10:05 AM
AXIOM: Early Detection must be matched with Early Action
Brent Dunworth, DNP, MBA, APRN, CRNA, NEA-BC, FAANA
Brent Dunworth, DNP, MBA, APRN, CRNA, NEA-BC, FAANA
Dunworth holds a Bachelor of Science, Master of Science, and Doctor of Nursing Practice from the University of Pittsburgh, and a Master of Business Administration from Waynesburg University. He is an Associate Professor and the founding academic program director for the Nurse Anesthesia Program at Vanderbilt University School of Nursing and has been actively involved in nursing education for 25 years.
Dunworth has received numerous awards, including the Agatha Hodgins Award, the Pennsylvania Association of Nurse Anesthetists’ Didactic Instructor of the Year Award, the University of Pittsburgh School of Nursing’s Outstanding Young Alumnus Award, and the Dr. Nevin Downs Leadership Award. He is a certified nurse executive and a fellow in the American Association of Nurse Anesthetists. He has also served as an executive health care leader at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and Vanderbilt University Medical Center.
In addition to his academic roles, Dunworth lectures internationally on nurse anesthesia and health care leadership and maintains clinical practice in anesthesiology at Vanderbilt.
Christopher R. Roscher, MD
Chairman, Department of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine
St. Luke’s University Health Network
Christopher R. Roscher, MD is the Chairman of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine at St. Luke’s University Health Network in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
A graduate of the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, he completed residency training in anesthesiology and fellowship training in cardiothoracic anesthesiology at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. Chris has a wealth of real-world experience with continuous vital signs monitoring for hospitalized general care floor patients, and for the past ten years, has been a key physician leader in the development and implementation of the Patient SafetyNet remote monitoring system at St. Luke’s, which in 2026 currently monitors nearly one thousand hospitalized patients “24/7″ across the network each day.
Professor Guy Ludbrook, MBBS PhD(U Adel) MSc(LSE) FANZCA DipPOM GAICD
Professor Guy Ludbrook, MBBS PhD(U Adel) MSc(LSE) FANZCA DipPOM GAICD, is a practicing anaesthesiologist in the public and private sectors. His contributions in addition to patient care include activities as a scientific meeting convenor in Australia and internationally, College examiner, and committee member and advisor. He is a speaker at national and international meetings on topics such as pharmacology, perioperative medicine, and economics. He has worked with the Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists (ANZCA) in numerous roles to grow the emerging specialty of peri-operative medicine. He conceived and implemented a new model of postoperative care, ARRC, and is medical lead of the first unit, in Adelaide. He is a Board member of the international Perioperative Quality Initiative (POQI), a group leading consensus on key topics and peri-operative medicine in order to improve safety and quality. He is a pharmacologist, with a PhD in pharmacokinetics. He has been involved in designing and conducting pre-clinical and clinical trials for 35 years. He established and leads a clinical trials unit, PARC Clinical Research, to support clinical trials across all specialities and organisations across S.A. PARC designs and conducts academic and industry clinical trials, with approx. 40 clinical trials underway at any given time. This is a profit-for-purpose unit. Retained capacity is used to support innovation projects and research projects for S.A. He has a long history of innovation through a range of roles, including as a member of the SA Clinical Senate, exploring new healthcare staffing such as physician assistants, and devising peri-operative pathways. In recent years he has obtained a Masters degree in economics from London School of Economics specifically to be able to provide expert economic input in healthcare and health systems. He has recently joined the board of AusHealth, a charity with the purpose of supporting innovation and research startups in healthcare; and FORGE Ventures, an organisation to help develop new medical devices. He has been a clinical academic for 30 years, and Professor of Anaesthesia since 2000. He conceived and leads the Discipline of Acute Care Medicine at Adelaide University, bringing together the specialities of intensive care, anaesthesia, and emergency medicine. He has supervised numerous postgraduate students, in Australia and internationally. He was an advisor to Federal Department of Health’s statutory committees on therapeutic goods for 18 years until 2026. He is an expert regulatory advisor on medicines.
Michael Scott, MB, ChB
10:05 – 10:15 AM
BREAK
10:15 – 11:45 AM
AXIOM: Every Transition Handover Must Preserve and Enhance Meaningful Context
Meghan Lane-Fall, MD, MSHP, FCCM
E. M. Papper Professor and Chair of Anesthesiology
Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons
Columbia University in the City of New York
Anesthesiologist-in-Chief
New York-Presbyterian/Columbia University Irving Medical Center
Meghan Lane-Fall, MD, MSHP, FCCM, serves as E. M. Papper Professor and Chair of Anesthesiology at the Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons and is the Anesthesiologist-in-Chief at New York-Presbyterian/Columbia University Medical Center. An accomplished anesthesiologist and intensive care physician, Dr. Lane-Fall completed advanced training in health services research and implementation science and brings a multidisciplinary approach to her work. Her research lab is at the forefront of applying implementation science and systems engineering to enhance patient safety and communication in perioperative and critical care environments. Dr. Lane-Fall co-leads an NIH-funded national implementation science hub dedicated to improving maternal health outcomes and she collaborates internationally on a range of implementation research initiatives. A passionate mentor, Dr. Lane-Fall has guided more than 90 mentees across all levels of training, from undergraduate students to faculty, fostering the next generation of clinicians and scientists. Her commitment to advancing the field extends to her service on the Boards of Directors for both the Anesthesia Patient Safety Foundation and the Foundation for Anesthesia Education and Research. Dr. Lane-Fall’s leadership, research, and mentorship have made her a prominent figure in academic medicine, dedicated to driving innovation, improving patient care, and supporting the professional growth of her colleagues and trainees.
Helen Higham, MB
Fireside Chat
Meghan Lane-Fall, MD, MSHP, FCCM
E. M. Papper Professor and Chair of Anesthesiology
Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons
Columbia University in the City of New York
Anesthesiologist-in-Chief
New York-Presbyterian/Columbia University Irving Medical Center
Meghan Lane-Fall, MD, MSHP, FCCM, serves as E. M. Papper Professor and Chair of Anesthesiology at the Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons and is the Anesthesiologist-in-Chief at New York-Presbyterian/Columbia University Medical Center. An accomplished anesthesiologist and intensive care physician, Dr. Lane-Fall completed advanced training in health services research and implementation science and brings a multidisciplinary approach to her work. Her research lab is at the forefront of applying implementation science and systems engineering to enhance patient safety and communication in perioperative and critical care environments. Dr. Lane-Fall co-leads an NIH-funded national implementation science hub dedicated to improving maternal health outcomes and she collaborates internationally on a range of implementation research initiatives. A passionate mentor, Dr. Lane-Fall has guided more than 90 mentees across all levels of training, from undergraduate students to faculty, fostering the next generation of clinicians and scientists. Her commitment to advancing the field extends to her service on the Boards of Directors for both the Anesthesia Patient Safety Foundation and the Foundation for Anesthesia Education and Research. Dr. Lane-Fall’s leadership, research, and mentorship have made her a prominent figure in academic medicine, dedicated to driving innovation, improving patient care, and supporting the professional growth of her colleagues and trainees.
Jeffrey B. Cooper, PhD
Professor of Anaesthesia Emeritus (retired)
Harvard Medical School
Boston, MA
Executive Director Emeritus & Senior Fellow
Center for Medical Simulation
Jeffrey B. Cooper, PhD, now retired, is Professor of Anaesthesia, Emeritus, at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital. He is the founder, Executive Director Emeritus and Senior Fellow of the Center for Medical Simulation, which is dedicated to the use of simulation in healthcare to improve the process of education and training and to avoid risk to patients.
Cooper is one of the pioneers in what is now called patient safety. He did landmark research in medical errors in the 1970’s and is a co-founder of the Anesthesia Patient Safety Foundation (APSF). He was for many years Director of Biomedical Engineering at the Massachusetts General Hospital and then Partners Healthcare System. He is author or co-author of over 150 peer reviewed articles and book chapters. He is still active on several research projects and as a mentor and advisor.
Cooper has been awarded several honors for his work in patient safety, simulation and clinical engineering, including the John M. Eisenberg Award for Lifetime Achievement in Patient Safety from the National Quality Forum and the Joint Commission and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Academy of Clinical Engineering. He received the Distinguished Service Award of the American Society of Anesthesiologists in 2013, the only non-MD to receive the honor. He is one of the first two members of the Hall of Fame of the American College of Clinical Engineering. The Society for Simulation in Healthcare recently honored him with its Pioneer Award.
11:45 AM – 12:15 PM
Reactor Panel/Gallery Walk
Matthew B. Weinger, MD, MS
Matthew B. Weinger, MD, MS holds the Norman Ty Smith Chair in Patient Safety and Medical Simulation and is a Professor of Anesthesiology, Biomedical Informatics, and Medical Education at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine and Vanderbilt University Medical Center. He is an internationally recognized researcher and educator in patient safety, human factors engineering, and medical simulation. Dr. Weinger has been the PI on 16 federal research grants, and dozens of others as Mentor. He has almost 250 publications that have been cited nearly 6000 times and he has given more than 250 invited presentations. Dr. Weinger is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society. He has actively served, frequently in a leadership role, the ABA, ASA, APSF, AQI, HFES, National Academy of Sciences, and the STA.
Lauren Green
12:15 PM – 1:00 PM
LUNCH
The Power of One
“One thing at the conference I won’t forget…”
“One axiom I will now see differently…”
“One signal I will no longer ignore…”
Della Lin, MS, MD, FASA
Della Lin, MS, MD, FASA is an inaugural National Patient Safety Foundation/Health Forums Patient Safety Leadership Fellow (2002). She is faculty and fellow with the Institute for Health Care Improvement (IHI), is a Global Salzburg Fellow and holds an Associate Faculty appointment with Ariadne Labs, a joint center for health systems innovation at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Lin also holds an appointment with the John A. Burns School of Medicine in Honolulu, Hawaii and has previously been Visiting Faculty with the Johns Hopkins Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality and a longstanding Senior Fellow in Patient Safety Leadership with the Estes Park Institute.
Lin facilitates multi-stakeholder groups to challenge and better the status quo of patient care systems through shared goals of improving safety culture, effective leadership and building sustainable solutions from the ground level. In that work, she has been part of the national AHRQ team implementing Improving Surgical Care and Recovery (ISCR) and leads her state’s Hawaii Safer Care collaborative. She is noted for her speaking through an engaging balance of science and storytelling.
Lin continues an active practice in anesthesiology in Hawaii, receiving her training from the University of California, San Diego.
