Creating Workforce Joy and Well-Being

Patricia A. McGaffigan, RN, MS, CPPS, Senior Advisor, Patient and Workforce Safety, Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), is IHI’s senior sponsor for the National Steering Committee for Patient Safety and President, Certification Board for Professionals in Patient Safety. She is the former Chief Operating Officer and Senior Vice President of Safety Programs at the National Patient Safety Foundation. Ms. McGaffigan is a Certified Professional in Patient Safety (CPPS), a graduate of the AHA-NPSF Patient Safety Leadership Fellowship Program, and a member of the Joint Commission National Patient Safety Committee, the Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety Editorial Advisory Board, and the Advisory Committee of the Coalition to Improve Diagnosis. She serves as a Board Member of the Massachusetts Coalition for the Prevention of Medical Errors and on Planetree’s Person-Centered Certification Committee. Ms. McGaffigan represents IHI on numerous committees, taskforces, and professional panels and is a frequent speaker at national and regional conferences. A recipient of the Lifetime Member Award from the American Association of Critical Care Nurses, she received her BS in Nursing from Boston College and her MS in Nursing from Boston University.

Randy Peto, MD, is the former Medical Director for Quality Improvement at Baystate Medical Center in Springfield, MA. He has studied and worked in health care quality improvement and patient safety for more than 20 years. He also served as the Medical Director for Quality at MassPRO, focusing on the Medicare population. Currently, Dr. Peto serves as an Adjunct Lecturer of Healthcare Leadership at Brown University. Dr. Peto is particularly interested in the culture of health ​care settings, increasingly at the microculture level. He has participated in the use of the Hospital Survey on Patient Safety Culture. Randy has also helped lead the dissemination of TeamSTEPPS communication skills at Baystate. He has been active in training both "just culture" and apology/disclosure principles. ​Dr. Peto received a BA from Colgate University, an MD from Hahnemann Medical College, and an MPH from Harvard University. He also completed a fellowship in Clinical Decision Analysis at Tufts-New England Medical Center. He is board certified in Preventive Medicine.​

Amar Shah, MD, is Consultant forensic psychiatrist & Chief Quality Officer at East London NHS Foundation Trust (ELFT). He leads at executive and Board level at ELFT on quality, performance, strategy, planning, data and analytics. Amar has led the approach to quality at ELFT for the past 10 years, and has embedded a large-scale quality improvement infrastructure and quality management system, with demonstrable results across key areas of organisational performance.​ Amar is the first National Clinical Director for Improvement at NHS England, leading the application of improvement across England’s health and care system.​ He is the national improvement lead for mental health at the Royal College of Psychiatrists, leading a number of large-scale improvement collaboratives on topics such as restrictive practice, workforce wellbeing and equalities. Amar is chair of the Scientific Advisory Group at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), and also acts as faculty with IHI, teaching and guiding improvers and healthcare systems across the world. He is a member of the Q advisory Board at the Health Foundation and a member of the reference group for the Centre for Sustainable Healthcare. He is on the health advisory board for the UCL global business school for health, and a Council member for the Healthcare Costing for Value Institute. He is honorary visiting professor at City University (London) and the University of Leicester. Amar has completed an executive MBA in healthcare management, a masters in mental health law and a postgraduate certificate in medical education. Amar is a regular national and international keynote speaker at healthcare improvement conferences and has published over 50 peer-review articles in the field of quality management. He was awarded an MBE (Member of the Order of the British Empire) in 2024 for services to healthcare improvement.

Becka DeSmidt is a Project Director at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), where she leads initiatives that convene health system teams to collaborate to achieve shared aims related to care quality, workforce well-being, and environmental sustainability in health care. Becka is certified as an Improvement Coach and has expertise in community organizing – a method grounded in storytelling, building strong relationships, and co-designing change. She has designed and delivered online trainings in improvement science, safety culture, health equity, joy in work, and leadership. She formerly led IHI’s Open School Chapter Network, an interprofessional learning community of thousands of students, residents, and professionals in more than 100 countries around the world working together to lead improvement in their local settings. Becka’s background is in health care strategic planning: at Advisory Board, she worked with health system leaders on clinical technology investment and service line strategy; at MassGeneral Brigham Healthcare (formerly Partners Healthcare), she contributed to the organization’s efforts to test, evaluate, and scale population health management programs. Becka holds a degree in political science from Pomona College and a master’s degree in public health from The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice.