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AUPHA is pleased to announce that Ronald Wyatt, MD, MHA will be this year’s breakfast keynote speaker at the AUPHA Graduate Program and Practitioners Workshop. Dr. Wyatt is the new Chief Quality Officer for the Cook County Health (CCH), which is one of the largest public health care systems in the country. Speaking about this position, Dr. Wyatt has indicated that one of the most important attraction for him to it was the population being served at Cook County Health and the fact that CCH takes care of everyone, whether they can pay or not.

Dr. Wyatt has practiced internal medicine for nearly 20 years, and developed a passion for patient safety. Pursuing this passion, he completed an Executive Master of Healthcare Administration degree at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and the Merck Fellowship at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement. He later served as the medical director for the Defense Health Agency Patient Safety Center, was an active member of the Food and Drug Administration Drug Safety Oversight Board and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Innovation Advisors Program, and served as the first Patient Safety Officer and Medical Director for The Joint Commission, where he led the development of their Quick Safety publications.

Dr. Wyatt has extensive experience and is a noted expert in healthcare quality and patient safety, having been recognized as one of Becker’s Hospital Review’s “Top 50 Patient Safety Experts in the USA.” He attended the University of Alabama for medical school and completed his internal medicine residency program at the St. Louis University School of Medicine, where he served as the first African-American chief medical resident in his final year.