Patient Advocate and International Speaker Alicia Cole is regarded as one of the most influential voices in Patient Safety, Infection Prevention, and Patient Engagement. Honored by President Barack Obama in a national address, Alicia was subsequently appointed as a Voting Member to the inaugural Presidential Advisory Council for Combating Antibiotic Resistant Bacteria (PACCARB). She served from 2015 until February 2020 under both Presidents Obama and Trump. Most recently Alicia was invited to serve as a member of the National Quality Forum's (NQF) Measure Applications Partnership (MAP) Health Equity Advisory Group for a term of 3 years.

Ironically, Alicia’s “medical career” began as a working actor portraying doctors and nurses on TV.  In a poignant twist of fate, her journey to Patient Advocacy began in 2006, when Alicia’s mother astutely noticed a tiny black dot above her daughter’s surgical incision following routine fibroid removal surgery. It was the first sign of Necrotizing Fasciitis (flesh-eating disease) and the beginning of a two-month fight to survive hospital-acquired MRSA, VRE, Sepsis, and Pseudomonas. Alicia suffered six additional surgeries, nine blood transfusions, nearly had her left leg amputated, endured an open abdominal wound which took three years of wound care to close, and more than a decade of weekly medical treatments and aftercare.

While still bedridden and recovering from her near-fatal ordeal, using a ‘talk-to-type’ program Alicia became an early pioneer of using social media to bring awareness to patient safety.  Her MySpace group quickly grew to nearly 3,000 followers, bringing her to the attention of the traditional healthcare industry.

In 2008, Alicia and her parents Ron & Betty Cole founded Alliance for Safety Awareness for Patients (ASAP), an education-based organization to empower patients, provide resources and medical supplies to families in medical harm crisis and to encourage healthcare providers to make infection prevention a priority. In 2009, Alicia Co-Sponsored and successfully lobbied for passage of two California laws for Patient Safety Education and Public Reporting of hospital infection rates - “Nile’s Law.”

In between doctor appointments, the Ohio State Alum went back to school, earning a Graduate Certificate in Healthcare Management and Leadership from UCLA School of Public Health. She followed that up by consulting on the development of the UCLA Patient Advocate Certificate Program. Simultaneously, Alicia served for nine years as a voting member of the California Department of Public Health’s Hospital-Acquired Infection Prevention Advisory Committee, helping to design the program’s website and public education efforts.

Alicia is also a member of the Patient Safety Action Network (PSAN) and the Society for Participatory Medicine. The CDC, CMS, Partnership for Patients, and the Pew Charitable Trust are just a few of the organizations with whom she collaborates. Alicia proudly serves as a long-time board member for the Patient Safety Movement Foundation and the Advisory Council of the Environmental Services Optimization Playbook Project (ESOP) a multi-disciplinary, cross-industry initiative to support standardization of evidence-based practices for environmental cleaning and disinfection in health care facilities.

Incredibly, while receiving care in 2016, Alicia again suffered a hospital infection requiring two more surgeries, two more blood transfusions, and two more years of intense aftercare.

Alicia’s journey from survivor to change agent has been widely covered in the media: ABC’s 20/20, The Doctors, The Dr. Nandi Show, Telemundo, CBS and Fox News, USA Today, HEALTH Magazine, Consumer Reports, HealthLeaders Media, etc. Her mission is to bring the patient voice into every forum creating important healthcare policies and patient safety decisions, and to make the healthcare system safer for every patient at every encounter.