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 doctor, hospital and nursing home report card sites. IPI also advocates for making more—and more useful—health care quality information available to consumers. And we provide Tip Sheets about what to do if you have a concern about quality in a hospital, nursing home or physician's office - starting in California, Maine, New York and Pennsylvania.
Why This Site?
All health care providers are not the same. Quality of health care varies greatly. The internet provides access to hundreds of websites purporting to tell you how well nursing homes, doctors, hospitals and other health professionals and facilities are doing their job. But the sheer volume of information can be overwhelming – and interpreting it can be confusing.
The Informed Patient Institute (IPI) was founded to help you make better use of the internet when searching for the best choices to meet your needs. We know there are many factors you have to consider such as what is available in your community; what your health insurance allows; what your doctor and friends recommend. Think of IPI as your trusted gateway to health care information about quality and patient safety.
We also serve as advocates on your behalf by gathering information and resources to use if you have a concern about quality and by encouraging the organizations who publish quality information to provide more complete, and more easily understandable information about the performance of every health professional and facility in the country.
Our Staff
Carol Cronin – Executive Director
Carol founded the Informed Patient Institute in 2007. Since 2000, she 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 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 (now National) Business Group on Health. She chairs the Joint Commission's Patient and Family Advisory Council, is President of a family foundation and serves on numerous other committees and task groups. 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 is currently Managing Partner at Fine Capital Partners and Chief Prize Officer at the Robin Hood Foundation in New York City. He also serves as the Board Chair of Peer Health Exchange and as a Trustee of the International Center for the Disabled, The Washington Institute and Consumer Reports. 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 builds online publications and digital TV channels, many of them related to health, and has been doing so for more than 20 years. He was most recently Vice President of Multi-platform Publishing at HealthiNation, where he produced and syndicated health and lifestyle videos to millions of consumers on digital cable television, leading web properties, connected devices, in doctors' offices and through employer wellness portals nationwide. Previously, as new media executive at Rainbow Media (now AMC Networks), he helped create some of the first video-on-demand channels for cable television. He also produced a U.S. health resources database for Health Pages, and has managed online ventures at Prodigy, Ogilvy & Mather, News Corp.,The Washington Post and The New York Times. He is a graduate of Yale College and earned an MBA at UCLA's Anderson School of Management.
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.
Our Funding
As a private, 501 © (3) organization, IPI receives funding from foundations and tax-deductible donations from individuals. Our funders include:
- Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (http://www.ahrq.gov/)
- California HealthCare Foundation (http://www.chcf.org/)
- Community Health Foundation of Western & Central New York (http://www.chfwcny.org/)
- Consumer Health Coalition (http://consumerhealthcoalition.org/)
- Fine Schneider Charitable Fund
- Maine Health Management Coalition (http://www.mehmc.org/)
IPI also serves as a consultant to other organizations interested in providing health information to the public, such as AARP, Consumers Union , CMS/L&M Research (work on health insurance exchanges), the Swedish Health Authority and The Leapfrog Group.
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 is currently Managing Partner at Fine Capital Partners and Chief Prize Officer at the Robin Hood Foundation in New York City. He also serves as the Board Chair of Peer Health Exchange and as a Trustee of the International Center for the Disabled, The Washington Institute and Consumer Reports. 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 recently stepped down as President and CEO of the National Quality Forum. 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 Health Care Reform Director 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 currently serves as President of IMPAQ International, based in Columbia, MD. Prior to joining IMPAQ, Dr. Sennett was a Fellow in the Economic Studies Program at the Brookings Institution and Managing Director for Health Care Finance Reform at the Engelberg Center within Brookings. He has held a number of 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), the American Board of Internal Medicine, and the American College of Cardiology. Dr. Sennett has served on a number of Committees at the National Quality Forum, and served as Vice Chair of the AMA Physician Consortium for Performance Improvement (AMA-PCPI) from 2006-2009, where he established and chaired the Consortium's Purchaser-Consumer Advisory Panel. 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.
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