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C. Michael and S. Anne Armstrong Professorship in Patient Safety

School of Medicine
Patient Safety

Established in 2014

Armstrong.Anne-MikeC. MICHAEL ARMSTRONG, the eldest of three sons born in pre-World War II Detroit, Michigan, was president of his high school senior class, and earned college football scholarships to the University of Michigan, Western Michigan University, and Miami University in Ohio. Mr. Armstrong attended Miami University, where he earned a Bachelor of Science degree in business in 1961, and he completed the Advanced Management Curriculum at Dartmouth Institute in 1976. He has been awarded honorary Doctor of Laws degrees from Pepperdine University, Loyola Marymount University, Shenandoah University, The Johns Hopkins University, and Miami University and also holds an honorary Doctor of Engineering degree from the Worcester Polytechnic Institute.

Mr. Armstrong began his 31-year career with IBM as a systems engineer and rose through the ranks to become senior vice president and lead international operations as Chairman of the Board of the IBM World Trade Corporation. At IBM, he was described by analysts and co-workers as strong, affable, and competitive. From IBM, Mr. Armstrong moved on to become Chairman and CEO of Hughes Electronics (a public company majority owned by General Motors Corporation), where he expedited development of DirecTV and implementation of the nation’s first digital broadband television system. He left Hughes to take the position of Chairman and CEO of AT&T and later served as Chairman of the Board of Comcast Corporation, retiring in 2004.

A strong supporter of higher education and community activities, Mr. Armstrong served as the Chairman of the Board of Trustees for Johns Hopkins Medicine, Johns Hopkins Health System Corporation, and The Johns Hopkins Hospital from July 2005 to June 2011 and again, from July 2012 to June 2013. He was also Vice Chairman of the Johns Hopkins University Board of Trustees and was involved in the School of Medicine’s implementation of the new Genes to Society curriculum. In 2005, through the generosity of him and his wife, Johns Hopkins opened the Anne and Mike Armstrong Medical Education Building, where the Genes to Society curriculum is taught. Long-time champions of patient safety and quality care, the Armstrongs again demonstrated their support of Johns Hopkins Medicine with a generous contribution to create the Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality in 2011.

Among his extensive civic and community activities, Mr. Armstrong served as chair of the President’s Export Council under President Bill Clinton, the U.S.-Japan Business Council, and the Federal Communications Commission’s Network Reliability and Interoperability Council. Additionally, he served as chair of the Homeland Security Task Force, the National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee, and the Defense Policy Advisory Committee. Mr. Armstrong is co-founder and past president of Connecticut’s A Better Chance in Darien and past president of the Darien YMCA. He is a member of the advisory boards of the All Stars Project, Inc. in New York City and the Telluride Foundation, the Board of Directors of Artis—Naples, the Naples Neighborhood Health Clinic board, The Conference Board, The United States Marine Corp Scholarship Foundation Board of Directors, and is an emeritus member of the Johns Hopkins Medicine, Hospital, and Health System Boards of Trustees.

Held by Peter J. Pronovost

Pronovost.PeterPETER J. PRONOVOST, MD, PhD, FCCM, the inaugural C. Michael and S. Anne Armstrong Professor, is the Senior Vice President for Patient Safety and Quality for Johns Hopkins Medicine, the Director of the Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality, and a Professor in the Department of Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine. He received his medical degree from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in 1991. He remained at Johns Hopkins and completed an internship in Emergency Medicine (1991-1992), a residency in Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine (1992-1995), and a fellowship in Critical Care Medicine (1994-1996). In 1997, Dr. Pronovost became an instructor in the Department of Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine and in the Department of Surgery, while completing two certificates—one from the Johns Hopkins Business of Medicine Program and the other from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Organizational Learning Program—and started the doctoral program in Graduate Training in Clinical Investigation in the Bloomberg School of Public Health. He was promoted in 1998 to Assistant Professor in Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine and in Surgery and received an adjunct appointment in Health Policy and Management in the Bloomberg School of Public Health. Dr. Pronovost graduated with his PhD in clinical investigation in 1997 and, in 2001, was promoted to Associate Professor and then to Professor in 2005. He received an adjunct appointment in the School of Nursing in 2003. Dr. Pronovost served as the Co-Director of the Cardiac Surgical Intensive Care Unit (ICU) from 2004 to 2009 and is the Director of the Division of Adult Critical Care Medicine. Since 2012, Dr. Pronovost has had a courtesy appointment as a Professor in the Carey Business School.

Throughout his tenure at Johns Hopkins, Dr. Pronovost has remained a practicing anesthesiologist and critical care physician and is dedicated to finding ways to make hospitals and health care safer for patients. He brought patient safety and quality of care to the forefront at Johns Hopkins starting in 2001. Dr. Pronovost founded and co-chairs the Patient Safety Committee for The Johns Hopkins Hospital and founded and co-directed the Center for Innovation in Quality Care. He has served on many committees, councils, and other groups for The Johns Hopkins Hospital, The Johns Hopkins University, and Johns Hopkins Medicine. In 2011, he was appointed Senior Vice President for Patient Safety and Quality for Johns Hopkins Medicine and Director of the Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality.

Dr. Pronovost epitomizes the clinician researcher. He developed a scientifically proven method to reduce deadly infections associated with central line catheters and scaled this method up from several ICUs at Johns Hopkins to ICUs throughout the United States and in other countries. This method translated evidence into clinical practice, implemented a comprehensive unit-based safety program to improve culture and teamwork, engaged frontline staff in quality and safety, and used measurement and feedback of performance to motivate and sustain the work. Dr. Pronovost has used this same method to develop programs for other hospital-acquired infections such as surgical site infections, ventilator-associated infections, and catheter-associated urinary tract infections.

An extremely prolific writer, Dr. Pronovost has published more than 500 scholarly articles related to patient safety, quality of care, and the measurement and evaluation of safety and quality improvement efforts. Since 2001, Dr. Pronovost has had continuous grant funding from sponsors, such as the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, the National Institutes of Health, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Department of Health & Human Services, the World Health Organization, and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation.

A dedicated teacher, Dr. Pronovost has developed and directed many patient safety-related courses for the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, the Bloomberg School of Public Health, and at the undergraduate Homewood campus and has been a course instructor for many years. Since 1997, Dr. Pronovost has mentored more than 50 trainees and junior faculty. He is also a visiting professor at the University of Leicester in the United Kingdom. Dr. Pronovost is nationally and internationally recognized for his accomplishments. He has won many awards and honors including the 2004 John M. Eisenberg Patient Safety Research Achievement Award, the coveted MacArthur Fellowship in 2008 (known popularly as the “genius grant”), the American Board of Medical Specialties Health Care Quality and Patient Safety Award in 2012, the Malcolm Baldrige Executive Fellowship in 2012, and was elected to the Institute of Medicine in 2011. Dr. Pronovost has been named by Time magazine as one of the world’s 100 “most influential people” for his work in patient safety.

As the Director of the Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality, Dr. Pronovost leads efforts throughout Johns Hopkins Medicine and beyond to improve patient safety and quality and is a critical driving force in the rapid growth and expansion of the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions as the foremost leader in patient safety throughout the United States and around the world. As the C. Michael and S. Anne Armstrong Professor in Patient Safety, Dr. Pronovost will continue to develop the potential of the Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality so that it serves as an anchor for exemplary research and life-saving clinical applications from the laboratory to the bedside and will use the resources of the Armstrong Professorship to advance knowledge, education, and expert clinical practice in patient safety in the future.

Dr. Pronovost is married to Marlene R. Miller, MD, MSc, a Professor in the Department of Pediatrics in the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and the Department of Health Policy and Management in the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. She serves as Vice Chair of Quality and Safety at the Johns Hopkins Children’s Center, Chief Quality Officer for Pediatrics at Johns Hopkins Medicine, and Senior Advisor for Quality at the Children’s Hospital Association.

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