Dr Paul Barach is double board-certified (anesthesia and intensive care), from the Massachusetts General Hospital/ Harvard Medical School, is a formally trained health services researcher, with advanced post graduate training in quality improvement and medical education and bioengineering.
Paul has more than 13 years of experience and commitment to creating and leading innovative quality programs in complex, large academic teaching hospitals and integrated healthcare systems. He was Chief Quality Officer for the University of Miami and Jackson Memorial Healthcare System, Associate Dean for Patient Safety, and Founder and Director of the one the first simulation and skills training centers, the Miami Center for Patient Safety and Simulation.
He was Director of the University of NSW Injury Risk Management Research Centre (IRMRC) as Professor of Safety Science and Injury Prevention, and acting Head, School of Risk and Safety Sciences. He held academic positions at the Universities Cork, Ireland; and the Utrecht Medical Center, Netherlands, and has active positions at the Universities of Oslo, Norway, and University of Stavanger, Norway. (See https://au.linkedin.com/in/paulbarachmd)
Paul is president of J Bara Innovation and has worked in the health industry over two decades as a clinician, educator, researcher, health administrator, CEO advisor and consultant with special focus on improving surgical design, function and outcomes. Paul has vast experience establishing and developing relationships, and led and participated in negotiations, partnership agreements and collaborations, with the highest levels of Government and at the executive levels in the public sector in Europe, the US and around the world. He has international experience as consultant in strategic health planning, human factors, health facility design, and understanding contemporary models of care, service planning and development, developing and implementing organizational change programs, assessing resource utilization, clinical governance, and capital works planning.
Paul is identified as a bridge builder or integrationist between service providers, device manufacturers, E-health community and the architecture and construction industry. Paul chaired the research coalition of the US Centre for Health Design and is one of the few clinicians, members of the US Healthcare Facilities Guidelines Institute (https://www.fgiguidelines.org/hgrc.php) that sets hospital design standards, used by the US and 18 countries. He is active member of the International Academy Design and has chaired the research efforts and award committee.
Paul's passion is to challenge healthcare leaders to think differently and to help make healthcare equitable, safer and centered around the needs of patients and communities. Paul has a reputation for vigorous leadership and a successful track record of effectively driving and supporting clinical quality at all levels of academic organizations, including in strategy, policy-making, financing, and technology. He spent 5 years in the military as a combat occupational physician, battalion physician, field hospital commander and strategic health advisor and was discharged at the rank of Major.
Paul has extensive experience advising academic and major health centers (at the Universities of Chicago, Miami, South Florida; New South Wales, and Alfred Medical Center, Australia; Utrecht Medical Center, Netherlands; Cork, Ireland; Stavanger, Norway, etc) and consulting to governments (i.e., US, Dutch, Norway, Australian, Singapore, UK, Greek, etc), World Health Organization, and industry about healthcare delivery, patient centeredness, value assessment, policy and innovation. He was a Baldrige and National Quality Forum examiner, member of the National Board of Medical Examiner’s Innovation Board, member of the MA Medical Society, the AMA Council on Long Range Planning, member of the American Society of Anesthesia Clinical Outcomes Committee, and was inducted in 2005 into the lead honorary society for Anesthesia leaders (AUA).
He has an absolute belief in working with and empowering interprofessional clinical staff to develop to their highest potential as a key to business success. Some recent and significant examples include advising the US DoD on creating a national healthcare team training program; Florida, New York and MA Departments of Health on creating near miss and adverse event reporting systems; UK National Health Service around clinical audit and clinician engagement; advising South Australia CEO on optimizing surgical efficiency and safety; Consultant to the NSW Life Time Care and Support Agency around centralization of specialized services; advisor the NSW Health Department Health Infrastructure CEO about healthcare facilities procurement and design; Executive Advisor to the Australasian College of Health Services Management on value, quality, safety leadership and strategic planning; and, advisor to the Dutch National Inspectorate on centralization of health services.
Paul has a proven record of research and scholarship leading healthcare research projects using implementation science methods, strong quantitative and qualitative skills, and he has attracted over $13 million in research funds from US (AHRQ, VA, AHA, HRSA, ABIM, DoD, etc), EU (FP-7, Erasmus), Norway (NRC), Australia (NHMRC, ARC) funding agencies. His major research expertise has been around developing and implementing practical tools and solutions, extending theoretical work in the areas of medical leadership, surgical safety and leadership, injury prevention, patient safety, quality improvement, and medical education. He was the medical lead and co-author of the internationally awarded team training program, TeamSTEPPS, and has developed one of the lead programs on assessing surgical team performance and non technical skills (https://teamstepps.ahrq.gov/). He lead the European Commission funded European Handover Research Collaborative, a $5 million project to assess and improve patient transitions from hospital to primary care with a goal to reduce patient readmissions (see www.handover.eu). He was editor of the lead patient safety journal, he British Medical Journal on Quality and Safety. He led the New South Wales Trauma and Rehabilitation Collaborative Research Program (https://www.traumacollaborative.com/). He led the research council at the US Center for Health Design and is member of the US facilities Guidelines Institute. He was regular faculty for 7 years at the lead international program for safety and quality, the Advanced Training Program at Intermountain Healthcare in Utah; set up the Quality Colloquium at Harvard Patient Safety Certificate Program; has taught at the IHI Annual forum for last 10 years, and led the graduate training program in safety and quality at the University of Miami.
He has delivered over 400 invited talks, has published over 120 peer review papers and over 150 other scientific publications. His work has been cited 4300 times including in public written and electronic media. He is co-editor of 2 special issues of Pediatric Cardiology devoted to improving the safety and quality of pediatric cardiology, and co-editor of 3 textbooks soon to be published on the role of patients and patient stories in transforming healthcare (Bartlett); the safety and quality of pediatric cardiac care (Springer); and on hospital design and healthcare acoustics (Springer).