Distinguished Faculty

James Conway, CHE, is a Senior Fellow at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement and a Senior Consultant at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. From 1995-2005, he served as Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of DFCI. Prior to joining Dana-Farber, he had a 27-year career at Children’s Hospital, Boston in Radiology Administration, Finance, and as Assistant Hospital Director for Patient Care Services.

Jim is a member of the IOM Committee on Identifying and Preventing Medication Errors, is an Advisor to the Massachusetts Coalition for the Prevention of Medical Errors, a Distinguished Advisor to the National Patient Safety Foundation, and a member of the JCAHO Sentinel Event Alert Advisory Group.

Andrew Dreyfus is Executive Vice President of Health Care Services for Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts. In this position, he is responsible for the company’s quality, member health, provider contracting and provider services divisions.

Andrew previously served as the first President of the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts Foundation, which works to expand access and reduce barriers to health care for Massachusetts residents. During his tenure, the foundation awarded more than $11 million in grants to community organizations and launched a series of policy initiatives focused on low-income health and the uninsured.

Lucian Leape, M.D. is an Adjunct Professor of Health Policy in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Harvard School of Public Health. Prior to joining the faculty at Harvard in 1988, he was Professor of Surgery and Chief of Pediatric Surgery at Tufts University School of Medicine and the New England Medical Center. Dr. Leape is internationally recognized as a leader of the patient safety movement, starting with the publication in JAMA of his seminal article, Error in Medicine, in 1994. His subsequent research demonstrated the success of the application of systems theory to the prevention of adverse drug events. In addition, he has directed research into overuse and underuse of cardiovascular procedures. He has published over 100 papers on patient safety and quality of care.

Lucian has been an outspoken advocate of the nonpunitive systems approach to the prevention of medical errors and he has talked and written widely about the need to make patient safety a national priority. He has testified many times before Congress and served on numerous public and private organizational boards and committees. Dr. Leape was one of the founders of the National Patient Safety Foundation, the Massachusetts Coalition for the Prevention of Medical Error, and the Harvard Kennedy School Executive Session on Medical Error.