Transforming Safety with the CMS PSSM & National Action Plan Webinar

Beth Daley Ullem, MBA, is a nationally recognized governance expert and activist for safety and quality in health care. Beth works with health system leadership teams, boards, and industry leaders to advance the quality and safety of patient care. 

Beth is a co-founder of Patients for Patient Safety-US, a chapter of the World Health Organization advancing patient safety in the US. Beth is on the board of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) and was the project lead and lead author for the IHI White Paper: Framework for Effective Governance of Health System Quality. She contributed to the governance guidelines for the AHRQ National Action Plan to Advance Patient Safety and on other healthcare metric development efforts and efforts on communication and patient engagement after harm. 

Beth formerly served on the boards of Solutions for Patient Safety (SPS), a 100+-hospital pediatric safety network, the Society to Improve Diagnosis in Medicine (SIDM), and the Center for Healthcare Value (now Catalysis). Beth left her career as a consultant with McKinsey to advance her passion of safety driven by the loss of her son to a medical error in 2003.   

Edward Yackel, DNP, FNP-C, FAANP, is a Family Nurse Practitioner and retired U.S. Army Colonel with 30 years of service who oversees the VHA National Center for Patient Safety (NCPS), and associate offices of Utilization Management (UM) and Optimizing Health Care Value Program (OHVP). His work includes providing national leadership to ensure safe patient care is delivered across the full continuum of care sites and in collaboration with the Defense Health Agency (DHA) and numerous other internal and external customers.

During his career in the U.S. Army, Dr. Yackel practiced nursing in various capacities, including oncology and pediatrics, and had deployments to Korea, Bosnia, Germany, and Iraq.

Dr. Yackel received his Doctorate of Nursing Practice from Duke University, a Master’s degree in Nursing as a Family Nurse Practitioner from the University of Michigan, and a second Master’s degree in Strategic Studies, Military Operational Art and Science/Studies from the Army War College.  

Michelle Block Schreiber, MD, is the Deputy Director of the Center for Clinical Standards and Quality (CCSQ) at CMS, and the Director of the Quality Measurement and Value-Based Incentives Group (QMVIG). Dr. Schreiber is a general internal medicine physician with over 25 years of clinical healthcare experience, and executive quality leadership of large health systems. She has a long history of advancing healthcare quality on a local, State and national level.