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The Safe Use Initiative and Health Literacy: Workshop Summary (2010)

Chapter: Appendix C: Workshop Speaker Biosketches

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Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Workshop Speaker Biosketches." Institute of Medicine. 2010. The Safe Use Initiative and Health Literacy: Workshop Summary. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12975.
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Appendix C
Workshop Speaker Biosketches

Daniel Budnitz, M.D., M.P.H., is the director of the Medication Safety Program with the Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and has worked developing public health data standards and public health responses to disease outbreaks, terrorism, and natural disasters.

Dr. Budnitz received a Bachelors of Arts degree in Government from Harvard University, and an M.D. and M.P.H. in Epidemiology from Emory University. After completing residency training in internal medicine at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, Dr. Budnitz served as an Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS Officer) with CDC’s Injury Center. He is currently a commander in the United States Public Health Service; and, as clinical assistant professor of Internal Medicine at Emory University, he is a practicing, Board-certified internist.


Wm. Ray Bullman, M.A.M., is the executive vice president of the National Council on Patient Information and Education (NCPIE). He joined the staff in 1985, assuming staff leadership in 1995. Under his guidance, NCPIE produced two authoritative resources on prescription medication adherence: Prescription Medicine Adherence: A Review of the Baseline of Knowledge (1996) and Enhancing Prescription Medicine Adherence: A National Action Plan (2007). In 1996, the Council collaborated with the American Medical Association (AMA) on development of AMA’s Guidelines for Physicians for Counseling Patients about Prescription Medications in the

Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Workshop Speaker Biosketches." Institute of Medicine. 2010. The Safe Use Initiative and Health Literacy: Workshop Summary. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12975.
×

Ambulatory Setting. He also coordinated the development of NCPIE’s “Talk About Prescriptions” Month (annually in October), in 1986.

In 2000, Mr. Bullman, representing NCPIE, collaborated with the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research on the organization and implementation of the Cyber-Smart Safety Coalition. In 2005, Mr. Bullman established a partnership agreement with CDER/FDA to enable NCPIE to assist with the development and promotion of FDA’s Medicines in My Home OTC consumer education campaign.

Currently, Mr. Bullman is coordinating NCPIE collaboration with the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) on the development, implementation, and assessment of a national educational workshop,“Maximizing Your Role as a Teen Influencer: What You Can Do to Help Prevent Teen Prescription Drug Abuse,” and the development of an online tool kit for addressing prescription drug abuse prevention and treatment on America’s college campuses.

Prior to joining NCPIE, Mr. Bullman served for five years Community Program Development Specialist with the National High Blood Pressure Education Program, under a contract to Kappa Systems, Inc., from the Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health. He also served for 6 years as Administrator for the Rockville Community Clinic in Rockville, Maryland.

Mr. Bullman received a bachelor’s degree from the University of Maryland in College Park, and a master’s in Association Management (MAM) from George Washington University in Washington, DC.


Sandra Debussey is senior manager of Planning and Operations at GlaxoSmithKline. She has over 25 years of pharmaceutical industry experience spanning clinical development, clinical trials management, health information technology (HIT), disease and care management interventions, patient education, and communications. Ms. Debussey received her B.S. in zoology from Michigan State University.


Jill Griffiths is vice president of Market and Clinical Communications for Aetna, Inc., based in Hartford, Connecticut. She is responsible for all business communications for Aetna’s president and business leaders—including public relations and employee communications, developing thought leadership campaigns to highlight Aetna’s clinical leadership, provider relations programs and activities, and direct to consumer programs. Ms. Griffiths co-leads Aetna’s health literacy initiatives with the company’s chief medical officer, is co-chair of the health literacy task force for America’s Health Insurance Plans, and participates on the oral health literacy advisory group for the American Dental Association.

Previously, she was vice president of Business Communications,

Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Workshop Speaker Biosketches." Institute of Medicine. 2010. The Safe Use Initiative and Health Literacy: Workshop Summary. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12975.
×

where she was responsible for public relations and employee communication for Aetna’s businesses. She has been assistant vice president and director of Health Public Relations for Aetna, where she handled media relations for the health business of Aetna, and directed the regional public relations managers.

Ms. Griffiths holds a B.A. in English Literature with a minor concentration in Business Administration from Ursinus College and has completed continuing education courses in advertising and public relations at Villanova University.


Mimi Johnson, M.Phil., is the director of health policy for the National Consumers League. She came to the National Consumers League in August 2008. She is a member of the Health Policy team, where she works on issues ranging from medication safety and adherence to the role of consumers in health reform. Ms. Johnson also represents the League at health-related meetings with U.S. government agencies, consumer, labor, and health organizations, and coalitions.

Ms. Johnson came to the League from the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law, a cross-campus collaborative housed at Georgetown University’s Law Center. She began her career in policy as an intern in Senator Feingold’s Washington office. Ms. Johnson has since worked for Washington-based health and environmental non-profit organizations and with the Press and Cultural Affairs staff at the Royal Norwegian Embassy in Washington, DC.

Ms. Johnson earned a bachelor’s degree from George Washington University and a master’s degree in health policy from Oslo University College in Norway, where she studied pediatric preventive care in the United States and Norway.


Edwin Kuffner, M.D., is the vice president of Medical Affairs and Clinical Research at McNeil Consumer Healthcare. Dr. Kuffner received his undergraduate degree in German Language and Literature from the State University of New York (SUNY) at Binghamton and attended medical school at SUNY Health Sciences Center in Brooklyn. He completed his emergency medicine residency at New York University and Bellevue Hospital Center in NYC and is board certified in emergency medicine. He also completed a medical toxicology fellowship at the University of Colorado and the Rocky Mountain Poison and Drug Center (RMPDC) in Denver and is board certified in medical toxicology.


Gerald K. McEvoy, Pharm.D., is assistant vice president of Drug Information at the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP). In addition, Dr. McEvoy has served as editor-in-chief of AHFS Drug

Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Workshop Speaker Biosketches." Institute of Medicine. 2010. The Safe Use Initiative and Health Literacy: Workshop Summary. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12975.
×

Information (AHFS DI), ASHP’s federally recognized drug compendium, for over 28 years. In his capacities as AVP of Drug Information and editor-in-chief of AHFS DI and AHFS DI Consumer Medication information (AHFS DI CMI), Dr. McEvoy is responsible for a variety of publishing and database management projects within ASHP focusing on dissemination of drug information in both electronic and print formats to various audiences, including health professionals and patients. Through partnership with various health information vendors and other parties, including the National Library of Medicine, Consumer Reports, and Medscape/WebMD, ASHP’s professional and patient drug information is available as both referential and integrated data in a wide variety of services and settings. Dr. McEvoy has spoken widely on evidence-based development of drug prescribing information as well as on patient safety, emergency preparedness, and media-neutral publishing and electronic data interchange through SGML and XML data structuring and document tagging.

Dr. McEvoy currently serves on the BMJ Group North American Advisory Board, National Council on Patient Information and Education Board, USP Safe Medication Use Expert Committee, and USP Providers Advisory Forum for Medicare Part D Model Guidelines. Dr. McEvoy also served on an Institute of Medicine Panel on Changing Prescription Medication Use Container Instructions to Improve Health Literacy and Medication Safety and subsequently was appointed co-chair of USP’s Health Literacy and Prescription Container Labeling Advisory Panel, which he continues to co-chair. In addition, Dr. McEvoy is a recognized authority on consumer medication information, testifying before and advising the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on medication safety communication issues involving consumers, advising the Consumer Reports on medication use issues, and speaking internationally on the provision of safe medication use information to consumers.

Before joining ASHP, Dr. McEvoy obtained both his baccalaureate and doctorate degrees in Pharmacy from Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and completed a hospital residency at Mercy Hospital in Pittsburgh. He recently was awarded the Duquesne University Pharmacy Alumni Achievement Award.


Susan Pisano, M.A., is the vice president of Communications for America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP). She acts as a spokesperson for AHIP and is responsible for outreach to member companies, the news media, and other major audiences. She is the primary staffer for AHIP’s Health Literacy Task Force.

Ms. Pisano has worked at AHIP since 1987. Before coming to AHIP she was the public relations director at Pacific Medical Center in Seattle, Washington, a local institution affiliated with an HMO since 1985. Ms.

Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Workshop Speaker Biosketches." Institute of Medicine. 2010. The Safe Use Initiative and Health Literacy: Workshop Summary. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12975.
×

Pisano began her career at Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia, and received her bachelor of art degree at Chestnut Hill College in 1971 and her master of art degree in 1975 from Villanova University.


Joanne G. Schwartzberg, M.D., is director of Aging and Community Health at the American Medical Association (AMA) and currently directs AMA projects on older driver safety, medical management of the home care patient, health literacy, and safe communication. She has been working in the field of health literacy and clinician/patient clear communication since 1997. She led the AMA ad hoc committee of experts that developed the Council on Scientific Affairs Report on Health Literacy, organized the physician awareness campaigns based on the Health Literacy Introductory Kit and later developed the Health Literacy: Help Your Patients Understand self-study educational program. She has led the AMA foundation’s Training of Trainers program for the last 6 years, helped develop the 3 module curriculum, and trained teams of physicians from 29 state and medical specialty societies. Since 2007, she has co-chaired the USP Advisory Panel on Health Literacy and Prescription Container Labeling.

Dr. Schwartzberg is also a clinical assistant professor of Preventive Medicine and Community Health at the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine. She is a past-president of the Institute of Medicine of Chicago, the Illinois Geriatrics Society, and the American Academy of Home Care Physicians. She received her B.A. from Harvard University and her M.D. from Northwestern University, and is the 2001 recipient of the Henry P. Russe, MD “Citation for Exemplary Compassion in Healthcare” awarded by the Institute of Medicine of Chicago and the Rush-Presbyterian-St Luke’s Medical Center.


Joshua M. Sharfstein, M.D., is the FDA principal deputy commissioner. He served as Acting Commissioner for Food and Drugs from March 29-May 25, 2009. From December 2005 through March 2009, Dr. Sharfstein was the Commissioner of Health for the City of Baltimore. In this position, he led efforts to expand literacy efforts in pediatric primary care, facilitate the transition to Medicare Part D for disabled adults, engage college students in public health activities, increase influenza vaccination of healthcare workers, and expand access to effective treatment for opioid addiction. Under his leadership, the Baltimore Health Department and its affiliated agencies have won multiple national awards for innovative programs, and in 2008, Dr. Sharfstein was named a Public Official of the Year by Governing Magazine.

From July 2001 to December 2005, Dr. Sharfstein served as minority professional staff of the Government Reform Committee of the U.S. House

Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Workshop Speaker Biosketches." Institute of Medicine. 2010. The Safe Use Initiative and Health Literacy: Workshop Summary. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12975.
×

of Representatives for Congressman Henry A. Waxman. Dr. Sharfstein is a 1991 graduate of Harvard College, a 1996 graduate of Harvard Medical School, a 1999 graduate of the combined residency program in pediatrics at Boston Children’s Hospital and Boston Medical Center, and a 2001 graduate of the fellowship in general pediatrics at the Boston University School of Medicine.


Michael Wolf, Ph.D., M.P.H., is an associate professor of medicine, associate division chief of research, and director of the Center for Communication in Healthcare at the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University. Dr. Wolf is a behavioral scientist and health services researcher with primary interests in adult literacy and learning, cognitive factors, and the management of chronic disease. He was one of the first recipients of the Pfizer Health Literacy Initiative Scholar Award and has received numerous national awards for his work in the field of health literacy and medication safety.

Dr. Wolf has written 84 peer-reviewed publications, many of which address the problem of limited health literacy. He currently serves on advisory committees for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, U.S. Pharmacopeia, the American Dental Association, and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. He has repeatedly provided consultation to the Institute of Medicine, American College of Physicians Foundation, American Medical Association, American Pharmacists Association, and Centers for Disease Control on health literacy matters.

He is the principal investigator on grants from the National Institute on Aging, National Cancer Institute, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Target Corporation, Foundation for Informed Decision Making, and the Missouri Foundation for Health. Dr. Wolf also led an Institute of Medicine white paper on health literacy and medication safety, and he is the principal investigator of a trial to test enhanced drug labeling and the use of visual aids to improve patient processing and understanding of medication instructions.


H. Shonna Yin, M.D., M.Sc., is an assistant professor of pediatrics at the New York University School of Medicine/Bellevue Hospital Center. Her research interest centers on the issue of parent health literacy and its implications on child health. A large focus of her work involves examining the intersection between health literacy and medication safety, including the development and evaluation of low literacy strategies to improve parent understanding of medication instructions. Some of her recent work is featured in the Joint Commission book “Addressing Patients’ Health Literacy Needs.” Dr. Yin serves on the CDC workgroup “Preventing Unsupervised Medication Ingestions and Overdoses in Children,” co-chairing

Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Workshop Speaker Biosketches." Institute of Medicine. 2010. The Safe Use Initiative and Health Literacy: Workshop Summary. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12975.
×

the subcommittee focused on the standardization of pediatric medication dosing instructions.

Dr. Yin is currently funded as a Robert Wood Johnson Physician Faculty Scholar. She received the 2009 Academic Pediatric Association’s Young Investigator Award as well as the 2007 Pfizer Fellowship in Health Literacy/Clear Health Communication.

Dr. Yin is a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Rochester School of Medicine. She completed residency training in pediatrics at the NYU School of Medicine, and received her Master of Science degree in Clinical Investigation through the CDC-sponsored Medicine and Public Health Research Fellowship Program at the NYU School of Medicine.

Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Workshop Speaker Biosketches." Institute of Medicine. 2010. The Safe Use Initiative and Health Literacy: Workshop Summary. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12975.
×

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Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Workshop Speaker Biosketches." Institute of Medicine. 2010. The Safe Use Initiative and Health Literacy: Workshop Summary. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12975.
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Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Workshop Speaker Biosketches." Institute of Medicine. 2010. The Safe Use Initiative and Health Literacy: Workshop Summary. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12975.
×
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Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Workshop Speaker Biosketches." Institute of Medicine. 2010. The Safe Use Initiative and Health Literacy: Workshop Summary. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12975.
×
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Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Workshop Speaker Biosketches." Institute of Medicine. 2010. The Safe Use Initiative and Health Literacy: Workshop Summary. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12975.
×
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Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Workshop Speaker Biosketches." Institute of Medicine. 2010. The Safe Use Initiative and Health Literacy: Workshop Summary. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12975.
×
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Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Workshop Speaker Biosketches." Institute of Medicine. 2010. The Safe Use Initiative and Health Literacy: Workshop Summary. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12975.
×
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Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Workshop Speaker Biosketches." Institute of Medicine. 2010. The Safe Use Initiative and Health Literacy: Workshop Summary. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12975.
×
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Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Workshop Speaker Biosketches." Institute of Medicine. 2010. The Safe Use Initiative and Health Literacy: Workshop Summary. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12975.
×
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The Safe Use Initiative and Health Literacy: Workshop Summary Get This Book
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Every year at least 1.5 million people suffer adverse effects from medication. These problems occur because people misunderstand labels, are unaware of drug interactions, or otherwise use medication improperly. The Food and Drug Administration's Safe Use Initiative seeks to identify preventable medication risks and develop solutions to them. The IOM held a workshop to discuss the FDA's Safe Use Initiative and other efforts to improve drug labeling and safety.

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