Deborah Nadzam, RN, MSN, PhD
Director, International Quality and Performance Measurement
Dr. Nadzam has more than 30 years of experience in health care as a practitioner, educator, administrator, and researcher. As Director, International Quality and Performance Measurement, she provides program oversight to the development and implementation of electronic products including quality and performance measures. In addition, she serves as the project director for the AHRQ Knowledge Transfer-Implementation contract awarded to JCR in 2009. In this role, she provides daily oversight to the task assignments associated the AHRQ contract.
Dr. Nadzam joined Joint Commission Resources, Inc. (JCR) and Joint Commission International (JCI) in 2006, as the Consultant Practice Leader for Patient Safety. In this role she provided guidance for development and delivery of JCR/JCI services and products focused on patient safety.
Before joining JCR, Dr. Nadzam served as executive director of The Quality Institute of the Cleveland Clinic health system. In this role she coordinated quality measurement and improvement activities for the 10-hospital health system in northeast Ohio, including standardized collection and reporting of clinical measures and patient experience (satisfaction) in multiple settings. In addition, Dr. Nadzam led the launch of a systemwide patient safety committee and program based on seven strategies associated with preventing harm to the patient. During her tenure at Cleveland Clinic, the accredited network won two Codman awards for demonstrating improvement in heart failure care (2001) and stroke care (2003).
Dr. Nadzam has been active in National Quality Forum (NQF) activities, serving as vice chair of the research and quality council for NQF’s first four years, a member of the Ad Hoc Committee on Improving the Consensus Development Process and of the Steering Committee for additional hospital measures. She currently serves as a member of NQF’s Steering Committee for Hospital Acquired Conditions and Serious Reportable Events (2009-2010). Dr. Nadzam has been a member of the National Coordinating Council for Medication Error Reporting and Prevention since its inception in 1995, and had served as Council chairperson twice.
Dr. Nadzam has held staff nurse positions and served as a mental health consultant and clinical nurse specialist. Faculty positions include those at Kent State University, Case Western Reserve University, University of Illinois and Ursuline College. She has held multiple positions associated with quality measurement and improvement, ranging from the nursing unit, division, hospital and health system levels, to a position of national scope at The Joint Commission, where she was vice president for performance measurement and participated in the development and launch of the ORYX initiative. Dr. Nadzam has also had extensive experience related to health care informatics and implementation of performance measurement systems at the institutional level, as well as at the national level.
Dr. Nadzam has a bachelor of science degree in nursing from the University of Michigan, and a master’s of science in nursing and PhD from Case Western Reserve University, with a minor concentration in applied statistics. She also has a green belt in Six Sigma and has experience with the use of Lean tools. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing.