Christine Goeschel
MD, FACC
Christine (Chris) Goeschel ScD, MPA, MPS, RN,FAAN, is a system leader at MedStar Health, as Assistant Vice President in the MedStar Institute for Quality and Safety (MIQS) and inaugural Director of the Center for Improving Healthcare Diagnosis. She is keenly interested in cultivating clinical and administrative leadership to improve the science of health care delivery and in improving the diagnostic process.
A professor in the Georgetown University School of Medicine, Dr. Goeschel also serves as Associate Faculty in the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, where she co-directs a required course in the Master of Hospital Administration program. She mentors’ masters’ degree students in the Georgetown University Health Systems Administration Program, and Georgetown medical students during their summer research experience. She also teaches in the Georgetown Executive Masters’ in Clinical Quality, Safety & Leadership. Dr. Goeschel is a Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing.
Her professional trajectory includes significant and diverse health care leadership experiences: as a critical care nurse, a hospital executive, as founder and first executive for the Keystone Center for Patient Safety and Quality at the Michigan Health & Hospital Association, and as an implementation scientist/quality and patient safety researcher. Dr. Goeschel was the Michigan PI on groundbreaking research to reduce bloodstream infections in intensive care units in Michigan from 2003-2005, (“Keystone ICU”). She left Michigan in 2006 and until 2013 served as an assistant professor in the schools of Medicine, Public Health and Nursing at Johns Hopkins. Appointed an advisor to the World Health Organization Patient Safety Program, she contributed to large scale improvement projects in Spain, England, and Peru and to an AHRQ-funded initiative that spread the bloodstream infection reduction program to every state in the U.S. and Puerto Rico.
In addition to her Doctor of Science in Health System Management, Dr. Goeschel earned two Masters’ degrees: one in Public Administration and another in Pastoral Studies. She has served on the Board of Directors of the Maryland Patient Safety Center, was an examiner for the U.S. National Baldrige Performance Excellence Program for several years. In addition, she was a member of the National Quality Forum (NQF) national steering committee for Hospital Associated Conditions, the NQF expert panel examining linkages between cost and quality of care, and the National Quality Partners Shared Decision Making Action Team.
Dr. Goeschel has published more than 70 articles and several book chapters related to quality and patient safety, and the measurement and evaluation of safety efforts. She was a member of the 2013-2015 Institute of Medicine Committee (new name: National Academies of Medicine, Science and Engineering “NAM”) that released a 364-page report “Improving Health Care Diagnosis” as part of the IOM Crossing the Quality Chasm series.
She currently serves on the board of a multi hospital healthcare system in Michigan, was appointed to the National Advisory Committee for the Coalition to Improve Diagnosis, serves on the Maryland Patient Safety Center Diagnosis Improvement Workgroup, and in 2019 received a 3-year appointment from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to the National Advisory Council for Quality and Safety Research (NAC). Dr Goeschel is also Principle Investigator for the MedStar AHRQ ACTION III contract and PI on three unique multi-year awards focused on building diagnostic capacity and improving the diagnostic process.
Research Interests
Dr. Goeschel’s research interests include
- Healthcare quality and safety
- Healthcare-associated infections
- Patient safety
- Health services research
- Healthcare leadership and accountability
Selected Research
An intervention to decrease catheter-related bloodstream infections in intensive-care units
Dr. Goeschel was the initiator and a site principal investigator on groundbreaking work to reduce catheter-related bloodstream infections in more than 100 intensive-care units in Michigan. Results of this study were published in The New England Journal of Medicine (2006;355:2725-2732).
Quality improvement and patient safety: hospital board and medical staff leadership challenges
In this study of leadership and accountability for quality and safety, Dr. Goeschel identified administrative and medical staff leadership issues. This work was published in Chest (2010;138:171-178).
Research Areas
- Health Services/Quality/Outcomes