John J. Nance, JD has been a dynamic and deeply dedicated member of the medical community for nearly two decades.  A world-class speaker, consultant and best selling author, John brings a rich diversity of professional training and background to the quest of patient safety and medical practice improvement.  His new book, Why Hospitals Should Fly: The Ultimate Flight Plan to Patient Safety and Quality Care (Second River Healthcare Press 2008), is reinventing the cultural foundations of healthcare and bringing clarity to the decade-long patient safety and quality care debate.

One of the founding members of the National Patient Safety Foundation, John was a member of the Executive Committee and served on the Foundation’s board for 9 years.  He is a native Texan from Dallas who earned his Bachelor’s Degree from SMU (Southern Methodist University) and his Juris Doctor Degree from SMU School of Law before admission to the Texas bar.  Installed as a Distinguished Alumni of Southern Methodist University in 2002, he is also a decorated Air Force officer-pilot veteran of Vietnam and Operations Desert Storm/Desert Shield—a Lt. Colonel in the USAF Reserve well known for his pioneering involvement in Air Force human factors flight safety education.  As a professional pilot, John has piloted a wide variety of jet aircraft, including most of Boeing’s line, as well as the Air Force C-141, and has logged over 13,000 hours of flight time in his commercial airline (Braniff and Alaska ) and Air Force careers. 

More important to his leading-edge role in healthcare, John Nance was one of the pioneers of the pivotal safety revolution in professional communication, teamwork, and leadership known in aviation as CRM (crew resource management).  His book about safety in human systems entitled BLIND TRUST, published internationally in 1986, is widely credited with helping to spark not only the universal acceptance of CRM principles in aviation, but the earliest infusion of culture-changing lessons derived from aviation into medical practice.  BLIND TRUST was pivotal in illuminating serious public issues in aviation safety for the American public, and WHY HOSPITALS SHOULD FLY follows in that tradition as a major wakeup call.

Click Here to read: "What Pilots Can Teach Hospitals About Patient Safety."

John has become a trusted and internationally recognized broadcast analyst and advocate for both medical/patient safety and aviation safety.  Before joining ABC World News and Good Morning America in 1994, he had logged countless appearances on national shows such as Oprah, the PBS News Hour, Today, CNN, as well as most Canadian and English-speaking networks worldwide.  In addition, his editorials have been published in newspapers nationwide, inclusive of the Los Angeles Times and USA Today, and he has been listed for more than a decade in Who’s Who in America .John J. Nance is also the internationally-known author of 18 major books, (five non-fiction, 13 fiction), his latest being Orbit (Simon and Schuster) which released to rave reviews in March of 2006 and is in development by Fox 2000 studios as a major motion picture.  Two other of his books, Pandora’s Clock and Medusa’s Child, were both made into major, successful two-part mini-series for NBC and ABC respectively, and still air periodically around the world.

With most of his busy schedule of consulting and speaking dedicated to the urgency of improving healthcare from patient safety to practice satisfaction, John has also emerged as one of the leading thinkers on matters of major change to America 's healthcare system.  A dynamic and vocal advocate of completely removing the tort system from involvement in medical accidents and mistakes, he recently convened and hosted an unprecedented conference on the subject with the sponsorship of AHRQ, a conference of doctors and lawyers that spawned several very surprising and important realizations.

Already one of the nation’s most dynamic and energizing professional speakers, John J. Nance’s messages to medical practitioners have reached new heights of relevance and importance as seen in his presentations to such pace-setting entities as the Institute for Healthcare Improvement and a who’s who of healthcare organizations. 

John’s unique ability to reach every member of the healthcare community comes from his unprecedented background mix of law, safety, aviation and even broadcasting. Physicians in particular resonate deeply with his powerful messages about leadership and the human propensity for mistakes even among the most tenured professionals, and his extensive experience working with hospitals and clinics nationwide has been documented by continuous client praise and the highest effectiveness ratings.

John J. Nance lives in Seattle , Washington , and travels among healthcare organizations nationwide.

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