Named in honor of H. Richard Nesson, the visionary force behind the founding of MHQP, the H. Richard Nesson Leadership Award recognizes leaders in the Massachusetts healthcare community whose lifetime achievements have enhanced patient experience, encouraged transparency and improved quality of care.

MHQP is delighted to announce that the recipient of the H. Richard Nesson Leadership Award to be honored at our 25th Anniversary Celebration will be:

Dana Gelb Safran, ScD

Head of Measurement, Haven Healthcare (formerly Senior VP and Chief Performance Measurement & Improvement Officer at BCBSMA)

The theme of the 25th Anniversary Celebration is “Elevating the Patient Voice for 25 Years and Beyond” – a focus that embodies much of Dana’s work throughout her career.

As a researcher, Dana developed new ways to measure the patient experience, and showed the importance of the relational aspects of care, like patient trust, to achieving good outcomes. While Director of The Health Institute (THI) at Tufts New England Medical Center, Dana partnered with MHQP to test the feasibility of deploying the patient experience measures she had developed to statewide assessment of primary care practices. These measures went on to be incorporated into the national standard used by CAHPS to measure patient experiences with physicians and their practices. Then, while she was the Senior VP and Chief Performance Measurement & Improvement Officer at Blue Cross Blue Shield of MA, she elevated the importance of improving patient experience by incorporating it into the Alternative Quality Contract. And most recently she is bringing together innovative organizations and leaders to re-conceive employer based health care in her trailblazing path with Haven Healthcare. Dana’s work has had an enormous positive impact on the quality of patient experiences in Massachusetts.

We appreciate Dana’s support of, and partnership with MHQP over the years, and we consider her part of our organization’s DNA. We look forward to honoring her at our 25th Anniversary Celebration.