Who: Dr. Kenneth Anderson, 61
Appointed as: COO of the Health Research & Educational Trust, an American Hospital Association affiliate based in Chicago seeking to transform healthcare by creating new knowledge and tools to improve care delivery. “In a very large way, it's why I went into healthcare administration to begin with.”
Previous positions: An osteopathic physician and chief medical quality officer for NorthShore University HealthSystem, Evanston, Ill., where he led clinical integration, developed performance indicators and helped establish the Center for Biomedical Research Informatics, which seeks to enhance use of health IT in research. He also was VP for quality and safety at Memorial Health System, South Bend, Ind. Anderson practiced nephrology and transplant medicine at Mercy Hospital, Des Moines, Iowa.
Job description: To find ways to expand the patient-care knowledge base, by identifying, sharing and replicating best practices. “The nice part of being here is that we have relationships with 5,000 hospitals and there is important work being done every day at each of them.”
Role of health IT: “With the stimulation of healthcare reform, the information captured by electronic health records can be used to find evidence of previously unidentified best practices. This is part of an evolution from evidence-based practice to practice-based evidence.”
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