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NCC MERP Chairs Re-elected to Lead Council for the 2003–2004 Year August 21, 2003 Rockville, Maryland—The National Coordinating Council for Medication Error Reporting and Prevention (NCC MERP) announced today the re-election of its chair and vice-chair for the 2003–2004 term. This will be a second term for both John R. Combes, M.D., who will serve as council chairperson, and Linda Hanold, M.S.H.A., who will serve as vice chairperson for the term that began on July 1, 2003, and lasts through June 30, 2004. Both have extensive backgrounds in the health care field. Currently, Combes is senior medical advisor at The Hospital and Healthsystem Association of Pennsylvania (HAP) and the American Hospital Association (AHA), and Hanold is the director of the Department of Performance Measurement and Health Informatics at the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO). Under the leadership of Combes and Hanold during the 2002–2003 term, NCC MERP made great contributions in the area of patient safety, including the adoption of recommendations to reduce medication errors in non–health care settings and the advancement of work in probabilistic risk assessment. NCC MERP’s work during the past year also garnered recognition by organizations spanning the Australian Patient Safety Foundation to U.S. national media. Both reappointments will facilitate the completion of initiatives started during their first terms —including further identification of medication-error risk factors and the issuance of recommendations. As Council Chairperson, Combes will continue to guide the NCC MERP’s activities. He has experience in quality management, medical ethics, and medical management. In his work with HAP, he has focused on quality and leadership issues related to patient safety, end-of-life care and clinical variation. Combes serves on committees for several national organizations whose focus is on patient safety, end-of-life care and ethics. He also has been asked as chair of NCC MERP to speak at several engagements, and he has been interviewed by media as an expert on medication errors. Linda Hanold brings to the position of vice chairperson several years of experience with NCC MERP, along with a breadth of experience in the patient safety arena. She has held several positions with the council—most recently as Council Steering Committee member before she was elected to vice chairperson. Hanold’s experience with patient safety committees includes an active role in the development and production of the first three Annenberg Patient Safety Conferences (1996, 1998, and 2000), and the Patient Safety Public Policy Forum (1999). She also leads the planning and production of the Annual John M. Eisenberg Patient Safety Awards. In addition, Hanold served as the executive vice president’s alternate to the board of directors of the National Patient Safety Foundation. # # # # The National Coordinating Council for Medication Error Reporting and Prevention (NCC MERP) was founded in 1995 to promote the reporting, understanding and prevention of medication errors. The Council comprises health-related organizations, societies and agencies, including medicine, pharmacy and nursing groups, consumer groups, standards-setting and federal regulatory bodies, and manufacturers. The Council’s goals are to examine and evaluate the causes of medication errors; increase awareness of medication errors and methods of prevention throughout the health care system; recommend strategies relative to system modifications, practice standards and guidelines; stimulate development and use of medication error reporting and evaluation systems; and stimulate reporting to a national system for review, analysis and development of recommendations to reduce and prevent medication errors. NCC MERP FY0401N © 1998–2008 National Coordinating Council for Medication Error Reporting and Prevention. All Rights Reserved. *Permission is hereby granted to reproduce information contained herein provided that such reproduction shall not modify the text and shall include the copyright notice appearing on the pages from which it was copied.