About IPI
Our Mission
The Informed Patient Institute (IPI) is an independent nonprofit organization whose mission is to facilitate access to credible online information about health care quality and patient safety. IPI does not rate individual health facilities or professionals. Instead, we assess the usefulness of the wealth of online report cards – starting with nursing homes. IPI also advocates for making more—and more useful—health care quality information available to consumers.
Our Staff
Carol Cronin – Executive Director
Since 2000, Carol has worked as a consultant and advisor to non-profit organizations, foundations and government agencies including the California Endowment, AARP, Atlantic Philanthropies, the Markle Foundation, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Carol was the first director of the Center for Beneficiary Services at the Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA - now CMS), where she was responsible for the launch of www.medicare.gov, 1-800 MEDICARE and numerous other outreach and education programs. Prior to HCFA, she was Senior Vice President for Health Pages, a New York City-based consumer health information website, and worked in leadership positions at the Washington Business Group on Health. She serves on the Board of Directors of the Citizen Advocacy Center and the Center for Advancing Health, as well as numerous other advisory committees. She holds an A.B. degree from Smith College and two Masters degrees in Social Work and Gerontology from the University of Southern California.
Martin Schneider – Chairman of the Board
Marty previously was the Founder and President of Health Pages, a consumer website devoted to providing consumers with background, experience and quality information about health care providers. He was also the Founder and President of Physician Hospital Alliance, a company that provided out-patient medical services. He currently serves as the Board Chair of Peer Health Exchange and as a Trustee of the International Center for the Disabled and The Washington Institute. He received a BA from Amherst College, a MBA from The University of Chicago and a MSc from The London School of Economics.
Stuart Rohrer – Senior Web Advisor
Stu has been building online information services, many of them health related, for more than 20 years. He is currently vice president for analytics and technology at HealthiNation, a national TV network that produces health literacy TV for websites and cable television. Previously, as new media executive at Rainbow Media, he helped create some of the first video-on-demand channels for cable television. He also produced Internet and online ventures at Health Pages, Prodigy, Ogilvy & Mather and News Corp., and managed early online experiments at The Washington Post and The New York Times.
Steve Squier – Chief Technology Officer
Steve has a BS in Communications from the University of Illinois and began his career in the stock options business on the CBOE floor in Chicago around 1976. A lifelong home computer programmer since early school days in Palo Alto, California, he also earned Computer Programming Certificates at the College of Du Page while starting his own business in web programming. Before coming to IPI in 2007, he developed and maintained baseballracks.com, among other sites.
Monica Sanchez – Editor
Monica has nearly two decades of experience in consumer health education. Most recently, she was the Deputy Director of the Medicare Rights Center, a not-for-profit organization devoted to education and advocacy for older Americans and people with disabilities. Previously, she was Executive Editor of Health Pages, an online health information service devoted to empowering health care consumers to make informed health care choices. A native of Colombia, South America, Monica is Vice President of the Board of Directors of Doctors for Global Health, a private, nonprofit organization promoting health, education, art and other human rights throughout the world.
Our Funding
As a private, 501 © (3) organization, IPI receives funding from foundations and tax-deductible donations from individuals. IPI received funding in 2009 from the California Health Care Foundation to develop material about what patients and family members should do if they have a concern about the quality of their care in a hospital, nursing home or physician's office. IPI’s initial funding was from the Fine Schneider Charitable Fund. IPI also serves as consultant to other organizations interested in providing health information to the public, such as Consumers Union.
Our Board of Directors
Martin Schneider – Chairman of the Board
Marty previously was the Founder and President of Health Pages, a consumer website devoted to providing consumers with background, experience and quality information about health care providers. He was also the Founder and President of Physician Hospital Alliance, a company that provided out-patient medical services. He currently serves as the Board Chair of Peer Health Exchange and as a Trustee of the International Center for the Disabled and The Washington Institute. He received a BA from Amherst College, a MBA from The University of Chicago and a MSc from The London School of Economics.
Janet Corrigan
Janet Corrigan is President and CEO of The National Quality Forum, a private, not-for-profit standard-setting organization established in 1999. The NQF mission includes: setting national priorities and goals for performance improvement; endorsing national consensus standards for measuring and publicly reporting on performance; and promoting the attainment of national goals through education and outreach activities. From 1998 to 2005, Dr. Corrigan was Senior Board Director at the Institute of Medicine (IOM) where she provided leadership for IOM’s Quality Chasm Series which produced ten reports during her tenure. Prior to joining IOM in 1998, Dr. Corrigan was Executive Director of the President’s Advisory Commission on Consumer Protection and Quality in the Health Care Industry. Dr. Corrigan received her doctorate in health services research and master of industrial engineering degrees from the University of Michigan, and masters’ degrees in business administration and community health from the University of Rochester.
Joyce Dubow
Ms. Dubow is Senior Advisor in AARP’s Office of Policy and Strategy where she has responsibility for a broad health portfolio related to AARP’s health care reform initiatives with a special focus on private health plans in the Medicare program and health care quality. Ms. Dubow serves on several multi-stakeholder groups focusing on quality improvement, including serving as the chair of the Consensus Standards Approval Committee (CSAC) of the National Quality Forum. Previously, she was Executive Vice President of the Georgetown University Community Health Plan and Director of Policy and Legislation in the federal Office of Health Maintenance Organizations. Ms. Dubow holds a B.A. in Political Science from the University of Michigan and a Masters in Urban Planning from Hunter College of the University of the City of New York.
Cary Sennett
Cary Sennett is a physician who has long been an advocate for informed patient decision-making. He has held a number of quality leadership roles in healthcare, including senior positions at NCQA (where he led the development of HEDIS, NCQA's standard set of information to guide choices about health plans), and the American Board of Internal Medicine (the organization that certifies internists and subspecialists in internal medicine). Dr. Sennett has served on a number of Committees at the National Quality Forum, and presently serves as Vice Chair of the AMA Physician Consortium for Performance Improvement (AMA-PCPI), where he chairs the Consortium's Purchaser-Consumer Advisory Panel. He is currently Chief Medical Officer at MedAssurant – a medical informatics company based in Bowie, MD. He is a Board Certified internist (MD, Yale; residency at Harvard's Brigham and Women's Hospital) and holds a PhD from MIT in health policy and management.
Our Advisory Board
In formation.
Future Project
To help consumers and their families understand the appropriate steps they should take if they have a concern about the quality of care they are receiving from a health facility or health professional.
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