Dr. James Honored with Prestigious Lectureship

Salt Lake City — While most people may not consider it an honor to give a university lecture, that’s exactly what it was during March when Brent James, MD, gave the 29th Annual David Packard Lecture at the Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences located on the grounds of the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland.

Dr. James is Intermountain Healthcare’s chief quality officer and executive director of the Institute for Healthcare Leadership in Salt Lake City.

Each year, the university selects a nationally renowned candidate to deliver the David Packard Lecture, which is named in honor of the co-founder of the Hewlett-Packard Company, who also served as the U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense. Other previous Packard lecturers have included former U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop and pioneering heart surgeon Dr. Michael DeBakey.

Dr. James’ presentation shared examples of quality improvements at Intermountain that were achieved by studying clinical variation in the management of different conditions, including acute respiratory distress syndrome, Sepsis, complex diabetes, and others. Dr. James highlighted processes and guidelines that can help reduce variation, produce higher quality results, and frequently reduce healthcare costs.