Jeff Brown

Jeff Brown has collaborated with patients, families, and health care professionals in the application of human factors and system design principles to improve the safety, efficacy, and reliability of healthcare systems throughout the United States for three decades. Since 2015 he has focused on rural health care safety, access, and utilization amidst the ongoing collapse of rural health care infrastructure and its devastating effect on rural people. He is currently assisting a rural, multisite safety net health center in developing its ability to better integrate and respond to medical and social determinants of health in the communities it serves.

In 2002 Jeff was a co-recipient of a John M. Eisenberg award for System Innovation, having supported a cardiac care team in its development and implementation of a coproductive interprofessional practice model that halved morbidity and mortality for open heart surgery patients. These gains were maintained for five years, until the parent organization ended the approach by re-imposing a traditional practice model. This experience and many others like it heralded the alarming reduction of patient safety efforts in the United States to ineffectual compliance activities. Jeff is advocating patient and family-driven advocacy to push the healthcare industry toward meaningfully reform.

The first twenty years of Jeff's career were in aviation, as a charter pilot and educator in collegiate aviation programs. His work draws upon experience of collaborative improvement in many safety-critical domains, including border security, public safety, regional electrical transmission, and naval operations, among others. He earned MEd and BS from the University of Maine, USA.