David P. Stevens is a board-certified internist and gastroenterologist.  In July 2007, he was appointed founding Director of the Quality Literature Program in the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice. The Program is committed to improving the rigor and utility of the scholarly quality improvement literature. He also serves as Editor-in-Chief of Quality and Safety in Health Care, the BMJ journal dedicated to global healthcare improvement and safety.

From 2003 to 2007, he served as vice president for healthcare improvement and founding director of Association of American Medical Colleges Institute for Improving Clinical Care (IICC).  Examples of successful IICC strategies included the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation-funded Academic Chronic Care Collaborative and Academic Rapid Response Collaborative which were national US networks made up of scores of teams of doctors, nurses, trainees and administrative leaders. These and similar IICC initiatives have provided know-how for hastening improvement in academic care settings that include harnessing the academic culture to facilitate rapid transformation, education change strategies that focus on both educational processes and clinical outcomes of resident training, and policies for building the academic faculty for better, safer care. During Academic Year 2003-2004, he was the George W. Merck Senior Fellow at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement in Boston.


Previously, he served as Vice Dean for Academic Affairs and the Scott R. Inkley Professor of General Internal Medicine at Case Western Reserve School of Medicine in Cleveland, Ohio.


In 1995-1996, Dr. Stevens was a Robert Wood Johnson Health Policy Fellow at the Institute of Medicine, Washington, DC.  As such, he was health policy advisor to Senator Nancy Landon Kassebaum, Chairman of the Senate Labor Committee. Principal responsibilities included preparation of reauthorization legislation for the National Institutes of Health.

From 1996 to 1999, he was Chief, Office of Academic Affiliations at the Department of Veterans Affairs Headquarters in Washington DC. During his tenure, working with Undersecretary Kenneth Kizer, the VA - which supports 9% of graduate medical education in the US through affiliations with 107 US medical schools - launched training initiatives that included fellowship training in healthcare systems improvement, greater emphasis on learning in interdisciplinary care settings, and health professions education to improve care for patients near the end of life.

 

He has served in numerous national advisory roles, and currently chairs the National Advisory Committee for the Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program.

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Competing Interests
Have you in the past five years accepted the following from an organisation that may in any way gain or lose financially from the publication of papers in the BMJ?
a) Reimbursement for attending a symposium?
No
b) A fee for speaking?
No
c) A fee for organising education?
No
d) Funds for research?
No
e) Funds for a member of staff?
No
f) Fees for consulting?
No
Have you in the past five years been employed by any organisation that may in any way gain or lose financially from the publication of papers in the BMJ?
a) Do you hold any stocks or shares in an organisation?
No
b) Do you have any other competing financial interests?
No
c) I have no competing interests/I have the following competing interests?
No