Packard Children’s Quality Improvement Expert Named First-Ever Recipient of New National Award

For Release: June 24, 2013

PALO ALTO, Calif. - Pediatrician Paul Sharek, MD, MPH, whose research focuses on improving the quality of care delivered in children’s hospitals, has been named the inaugural Paul V. Miles Fellow in Quality Improvement by the American Board of Pediatrics.

This honor was bestowed upon Sharek on June 10, 2013 because of his dedication to quality improvement and demonstrated accomplishments leading to better healthcare for children. He is chief clinical patient safety officer at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford, and has spent a significant amount of his research career developing practical tools to more accurately identify adverse medical events in hospitalized children, and identifying and implementing best practices to decrease these incidents locally, in California and nationally.

Sharek also serves as medical director of the Packard Children’s Center for Quality and Clinical Effectiveness -- which he was instrumental in establishing -- and is an associate professor of pediatrics at the Stanford University School of Medicine. Over the course of his prestigious career, Sharek has authored 44 peer-reviewed journal articles, including “Effect of a Rapid Response Team on Hospital-Wide Mortality and Code Rates Outside the ICU in a Children’s Hospital,” which helped spur a requirement for U.S. hospitals to have rapid response teams.

“I am humbled and honored,” said Sharek, who is also the director of quality for the California Perinatal Quality Care Collaborative, a statewide collaborative of 133 neonatal intensive care units dedicated to improving the outcomes of premature infants across California. “This award is a recognition not only of the work I have helped lead, but also the work that has been carried out by the numerous dedicated Packard Children’s staff and Stanford School of Medicine faculty I have partnered with for many years. Effective quality improvement is not carried out by one person. It is a team sport.”

“The ABP created the Paul V. Miles Fellowship in Quality Improvement not only to honor Dr. Miles, but also to recognize the individuals who will follow in his footsteps and carry on the mission that he has started,” said David G. Nichols, president and CEO of the American Board of Pediatrics. As the former senior vice president for maintenance of certification for the ABP, Miles championed quality improvement efforts and established methods of improving outcomes in child health. His “enthusiasm and devotion to outcomes-based improvement is mirrored in the works of Dr. Sharek,” according to an ABP release announcing the honor.

“This award is a tribute to Dr. Sharek’s zeal and laser focus on improving the quality of care for all children and expectant mothers who access the healthcare system, at Packard Children’s and beyond,” said Craig Albanese, MD, professor of surgery and vice president of quality and performance improvement. “Paul’s unyielding dedication will forever impact the world of pediatrics.”

Authors

Winter Johnson 
(650) 498-7056
wijohnson@stanfordchildrens.org