Immediate

Parkland physician appointed to the National Quality Forum

DALLAS (Nov. 5, 2009) - Ruben Amarasingham, M.D., associate chief of medicine for Parkland Health & Hospital System, was recently selected by the National Quality Forum to serve on its steering committee for the National Voluntary Consensus Standards for Patient Outcomes. In this role, his responsibility will be to help identify, evaluate and endorse measures suitable for public reporting and quality improvement that address outcomes of health care. Dr. Amarasingham attended his first meeting in October in Washington, D.C. "Given the discussion and debate around national health care reform and the importance of carefully selected patient outcome measures, I am thrilled to be able to represent the views of institutions like Parkland and other academic medical centers," said Dr. Amarasingham. "The decisions will no doubt be heavily scrutinized and it's an honor to be part of such a distinguished panel." At Parkland, Dr. Amarasingham leads the Center for Knowledge Translation and Clinical Innovation. He and his team study electronic data and determine how it can improve medical care and how it can help develop more cost effective ways to operate. The National Quality Forum is a unique public-private collaborative seeking to improve the quality of health care by standardizing the measurement and reporting of quality-related information and by promoting quality improvement.

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For Further Information Contact: Candace White 214.590.8054