Chief Quality Offficer
Akron Children's Hospital
Disclosure(s): ForTec Medical: Advisor/Consultant
Dr. Bigham is a Pediatric Critical Care Physician and the first Chief Quality Officer at Akron Children’s Hospital. Though Dr. Bigham still works clinically caring for critically ill and injured infants and children in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit, more of his time is spent setting strategies and supporting key quality initiatives for the Akron Children’s enterprise. Dr. Bigham’s passion and experience in quality is rooted in patient/staff safety, which has been an exemplar model for collaboration, improvement thinking, and high reliability. Dr. Bigham has over 60 peer-reviewed publications on topics ranging from sepsis, critical care transport, and quality. The opportunity to innovate in the quest to reduce the incidence of healthcare acquired infections is a key safety and quality priority for Dr. Bigham. Beyond his clinical and administrative duties at the hospital, Dr. Bigham remains busy with several local and national administrative and leadership roles as well as an expanding portfolio of research and quality improvement activities. Among them, Dr. Bigham serves as the Ohio Region co-lead for Solutions for Patient Safety. and a co-leader on the National SPS Innovation, Technology, and Research workgroup. Dr. Bigham serves on several community boards, including the Akron (Ohio) Urban League. Dr. Bigham’s energy in pursuit of continuous improvement comes from a singular focus - improving the health and healthcare of children.