Interim President
John R. Combes, MD, is the President and COO of the Center for Healthcare Governance (CHG), an American Hospital Association (AHA) affiliate organization. CHG is a dynamic community of board members, executives and thought leaders dedicated to advancing excellence, innovation and accountability in healthcare governance through education, tool development and research. Dr. Combes also serves as Senior Fellow at HRET, and in that role focuses on quality and leadership issues in Patient Safety, End of Life Care and Clinical Performance Improvement.
Dr. Combes has held several senior management positions at a variety of healthcare organizations. More recently he serves on several national advisory groups on medical ethics, palliative care and reduction of medication errors. Dr. Combes is the immediate past Chair of the National Coordinating Council on Medication Error Reporting and Prevention (NCC MERP) and serves as a member of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality’s Patient Safety Research Coordinating Center (AHRQ-PSRCC) Steering Committee. He serves as Principal Investigator for an AHRQ Partnership in Quality grant on developing palliative care learning centers and one on hospital acquired infections.
Currently, Dr. Combes serves on the Boards of the Hospital Sisters Health System, a 13 hospital health system in Illinois and Wisconsin and the West Virginia Medical Institute, a multi-state Quality Improvement Organization. He also is a member of the Not-for-Profit Advisory Council of the National Association of Corporate Directors. He lectures frequently on governance and quality. Dr. Combes received his medical degree from Cornell University in New York and received his post-graduate training from Boston City Hospital. He is certified in Internal Medicine by the American Board of Internal Medicine and has Management Certification from the American College of Physician Executives.
Selected Publications
Lee, SD, Alexander JA, Wang V, Margolin FS, Combes JR: An Empirical Taxonomy of Hospital Governing Board Roles. Accepted for publication, Health Services Research, 2007.
Combes JR: Comparing Hospital Performance by Measuring Medication Error Rates: Is It Possible? Focus on Patient Safety, National Patient Safety Foundation 6: 1-3, 2003.
Collins M, Bussard PA, Combes JR: The Worsening Medicaid Fiscal Crisis: Implications for Hospitals. Journal of Ambulatory Care Management 26: 2: 349-354, 2003.
Messenger JC, Rumsfeld JS, Carroll JD, Combes JR, Chen J: Enhancing Patient Safety During Cardiac Catheterization Using Simulation-Based Training. Topics in Health Information Management 23: 82-93, 2002.
Combes JR, Scanlan CF, Priselac TM: Status of Quality Initiatives, Part II. Michigan Health & Hospitals 37:20-22, 2001.
Combes JR, Scanlan CF, Priselac TM: Status of Quality Initiatives: One year after the Institute of Medicine’s report. Michigan Health & Hospitals 37:16-19, 2001.
Combes JR: Living and Dying Well: Strengthening the Patient Role at the End of Life. Michigan Health & Hospitals 36:24-26, 2000.
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