Biography
Charles Denham was graduated with a B.M.S. and an M.D. from the University of Alberta. He completed his medical residency in radiation oncology at Baylor College of Medicine. Denham began his career as a radiation oncologist in Austin, Texas. He founded both the HCC Corporation (HCC) and TMIT in 1984. HCC is a commercial technology, service, and product incubator that has developed or supported more than 400 healthcare solutions. It incubates healthcare solutions ranging from individual products and start-up health information technology companies to entire business divisions for global Fortune 10 companies. Through its national research test bed of more than 3 out of 5 U.S. hospitals, TMIT drives acceleration of patient safety practices that target national standards. It has co-funded and co-led the development of the National Quality Forum's 2006, 2009, and 2010 Safe Practices for Better Healthcare. These national standards established a consensus program defined by the U.S. Congress and are now used by U.S. healthcare organizations.
TMIT supports and builds elements of a national pay-for-performance program with The Leapfrog Group, representing more than 180 Fortune 500 companies, which measures adoption of the NQF Safe Practices by more than 1,200 hospitals, representing more than 40% of acute care delivered in the U.S. TMIT's task forces with federal agencies, certifying, and quality organizations include the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), The Joint Commission, the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), The Leapfrog Group, and the National Quality Forum (NQF). Research and collaborative support have been provided to the Institute of Medicine (IOM), Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), NASA, and the Department of Defense.
Dr. Denham is a co-founder of the Global Patient Safety Forum, along with the former Health Minister of the Federal Office of Public Health of Switzerland, Dr. Thomas Zeltner. The Global Patient Safety Forum is a global convener and connector of patient safety organizations and their programs, which was formed to accelerate the adoption of innovations in patient safety. The Global Patient Safety Team, formed in 2013, which applies the principles of the Commercial Airline Safety Team (CAST), will address patient safety challenges and will communicate its results globally through the Global Patient Safety Forum.
Dr. Denham has published more than 100 scientific articles, co-authored books and book chapters, and produced numerous multimedia productions on subjects relating to patient safety, leadership, and technology adoption. He has collaborated with movie actor Dennis Quaid to accelerate the adoption of safety solutions such as bar-code technologies, and has produced the documentaries Chasing Zero: Winning the War on Healthcare Harm and Surfing the Healthcare Tsunami: Bring Your Best Board, both aired on the Discovery Channel.
He is the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Patient Safety and has several highlighted examples of his related work or work with others in References below, including any already mentioned. He is Chairman of the development board of the Center for Patient Safety Research and Practice at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital affiliated with Harvard Medical School. He leads the Greenlight Program, developing national impact calculators in collaboration with the Mayo Clinic, Cleveland Clinic, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Catholic Healthcare Partners, Seton Medical Center, and the Centers for Disease Control. He plays a leadership role with a global team of developers of a Computerized Prescriber Order Entry (CPOE) flight simulator that measures performance improvement of hospital medication management systems, driving patient safety through healthcare information technologies. He founded CareMoms, CareKids, and CareUniversity, which are programs that are focused on helping families survive healthcare harm and waste.
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