Robert L. Wears, MD
Professor, Department of Emergency Medicine
UF College of Medicine - Jacksonville
Patient safety leader receives prestigious RWJ grant
A physician at the University of Florida College of Medicine-Jacksonville has won a prestigious award granted to researchers to make lasting impacts on health care and policy. Robert L. Wears, M.D., a professor and senior scientist in the department of emergency medicine, received the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Investigator Award in Health Policy Research to fund his study on patient safety. Since the investigator award program started 18 years ago, 202 scholars from a wide range of fields have received grants of up to $335,000 to study the country's most challenging health issues.
Wears and Kathleen M. Sutcliffe, M.S.N., Ph.D., associate dean for faculty development and research at the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business, submitted a proposal titled "Medicalizing Patient Safety." The collaborators realize the award comes with an enormous challenge. Starting next September, they will spend two and a half years reviewing the patient safety movement from the 1970s to the present. According to Wears, in addition to a series of academic and policy papers, the initiative will include a book on the history and evolution of the movement, focusing on how it has been reshaped by its gradual acceptance and modification by health care. Sutcliffe's expertise in organizational design will be critical to their study, Wears said.
Although patient safety has been a concern for more than a century, efforts had not been sustainable until the past decade, Wears said. Public awareness significantly increased with the 1999 Institute of Medicine Report "To Err is Human," which revealed that as many as 98,000 people die in U.S. hospitals each year as a result of preventable medical errors. Since then, Wears believes there has been improvement in terms of recognition, attitudes and engagement; however, he acknowledged that changes occur slowly because of the complexity of healthcare. According to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, while there has been a measure of success in identifying and verifying practices that improve safety over the past decade, work is needed to ensure a full commitment to providing the safest care possible.
Wears maintains that concern about patient safety has changed because "doctors embraced it and turned it into something medical." He said the challenge in health care is to recognize that mistakes happen and to adjust the environment to minimize their likelihood. In Wears' opinion, improving patient safety is as much, if not more, of a job for scientists and engineers as it is for physicians and nurses.
Wears believes their proposal is innovative because the few studies of patient safety as a social movement have focused more narrowly on how health care resisted safety, as opposed to joining the quest for lasting solutions. If their study is empirically supported, important policy implications would include building human capital to support safety in health care, a radical redirection of research and educational efforts, and substantial collaborations between clinicians and safety scientists.
"Bob is an absolute star in my mind with respect to understanding not only patient safety and medical care but also the organizational implications of making patients safe," Sutcliffe said. "It's a real honor and pleasure to be able to work with him on these issues." Likewise, Sutcliffe said her nursing background helps her grasp his medical perspective. "That creates a really strong research synergy that enhances what we come up with." The two have collaborated on projects since meeting in 1998 at the Second Annenberg Conference on Enhancing Patient Safety and Reducing Errors in Health Care.
"Dr. Wears is a nationally and internationally recognized expert in medical safety and this award from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation attests to his superb reputation, his innovative approach to analyzing impediments to health safety and his successful history of obtaining foundation and federal funding," said Alan R. Berger, M.D., a professor and chair of the department of neurology and assistant dean for research at the UFCOM-Jacksonville. Peter W. Stacpoole, Ph.D., M.D., Associate Dean for Clinical Research and Training and Director, Clinical and Translational Science Institute adds that "Dr. Wears serves as an excellent role model for researchers who wish to succeed in advancing translational science and associated clinical care."
Wears praised the college of medicine for supporting his research on the frequently controversial subject of patient safety and his submission of the award proposal. "I value the academic freedom to explore different areas," he said. "It reflects well on the organization that it allows people to take risks to see if they can be successful."
He said he is grateful to Robert C. Nuss, M.D., dean of the regional campus, and David J. Vukich, M.D., professor and chair of the department of emergency medicine, for funding his sabbatical in 2004 to study with leading patient safety scientists and engineers in London. "That was a transformative learning experience for me," he said. "I came back with a different set of skills and body of knowledge." Since then, Wears has secured funding from a variety of sources to develop more than 10 patient safety projects.
Recognized worldwide as a clinician, researcher, author and public speaker, Wears received his medical degree from The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and has been at the UFCOM since his residency in emergency medicine at the former Jacksonville Health Education Program in 1976.
In addition to research, Wears has a passion for writing. He has been associate editor of Annals of Emergency Medicine since 1995 and serves on the editorial board of a handful of medical safety journals. He received the 2001 Researcher of the Year Award at the University of Florida Health Center Jacksonville and has been invited to lecture on patient safety in Italy, France, Greece, England, Ireland, Belgium, Brazil, Chile, Canada and throughout the United States. He has published 120 articles and 50 editorials in medical journals and has written 23 book chapters. He is a member of the Emergency Medicine Patient Safety Foundation Board of Directors and has served on national and international emergency medicine and patient safety committees.
Ever the scholar, Wears said for fun he works on his doctorate through the Department of Industrial Safety in France, a project that grew out of his sabbatical. In his rare leisure time, he enjoys bird watching with his wife, Dianne, a former nurse; brewing beer with his son, Matt, a brewer in Orlando; playing with his chocolate lab, Tesco; and relearning how to play his bass guitar. He also has a daughter, Sarah Garcia, a linguist and editor in Manhattan.
Looking ahead a few years, Wears foresees patient safety as a medical priority that has lasting solutions. He is hopeful that the book he will write with Sutcliffe helps to change the character of the patient safety movement to be less focused on quick fixes and have greater involvement and leadership from safety scientists.
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