PRESS RELEASE 8/5/2013 Rosemary Gibson Named Senior Advisor to The Hastings Center

The Hastings Center has appointed Rosemary Gibson, author and national authority on patient safety and health care policy, to be a Senior Advisor.
(Garrison, NY) The Hastings Center has appointed Rosemary Gibson, author and national authority on patient safety and health care policy, to be a Senior Advisor.

In this role, Gibson will contribute new perspectives on attaining a fiscally sustainable health care system that serves the public interest. She will work with Hastings Center staff scholars to develop initiatives to promote sustainability while improving safety and quality.

In appointing Gibson, Hastings Center President Mildred Z. Solomon said: “Rosemary Gibson is one of a handful of people who made critical strategic decisions about how best to grow the field of palliative care. Now, she is helping our country look squarely into our problems of overtreatment, inadequate patient safety, and excessive costs. We are delighted to have her on board.”

Gibson, who is also an editor for JAMA Internal Medicine,is the author most recently of Medicare Meltdown, which examines the business of Medicare and its impact on the fiscal challenges facing the federal program for older Americans.

Previously, Gibson led national quality and safety initiatives for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation in Princeton, N.J. She was chief architect of the foundation’s decade-long strategy that successfully established palliative care in more than 1,600 hospitals in the U.S.

Gibson is principal author of the critically acclaimed book, Wall of Silence, which tells the human story behind the Institute of Medicine report, To Err is Human. She wrote The Treatment Trap which puts a human face on overtreatment. The Battle Over Health Care: What Obama’s Health Care Reform Means for America’s Future is a nonpartisan analysis of the future state of health care and its impact on the economy.

Gibson worked with Bill Moyers and Public Affairs Television on the PBS documentary, “On Our Own Terms,” viewed by more than 20 million people, which showed how the U.S. health care system can better care for seriously ill patients and their families. She initiated a series in the Journal of the American Medical Association, “Perspectives on Care at the Close of Life.”

Gibson lectures widely to hospitals and health care systems around the country, as well as to public audiences. She serves as faculty for the annual Dartmouth Summer Symposium on Quality Improvement. She is the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine.

She is a member of the American Board of Medical Specialties Public Policy Committee and the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education Clinical Learning Environment Review (CLER) Evaluation Committee that is assessing quality and patient safety in sponsoring institutions for residency training. She is also a member of Consumers Union Safe Patient Project.

Earlier in her career, Gibson was a research associate at the American Enterprise Institute, Vice President of the Economic and Social Research Institute, a policy think tank, and consultant to the Medical College of Virginia and the Virginia state legislature’s Commission on Health Care. She worked as a volunteer and board member at a free medical clinic in Washington, D.C.

Gibson is a graduate of Georgetown University and has a master’s degree from the London School of Economics.