Sheridan is co-founder and president of Consumers Advancing Patient Safety, a Chicago-based not-for-profit group working to improve patient safety in healthcare. Sheridan, 49, started the organization in 2003, a year after her husband, Pat, died as a result of a missed diagnosis of spinal cancer. Their son, Cal, suffered severe brain damage called kernicterus five days after his birth in 1995 when his neonatal jaundice went untreated. Sheridan is a member of the Steering Committee of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality's Patient Safety Research Coordinating Center.