David Newman-Toker Named President-Elect of the Society to Improve Diagnosis in Medicine

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

October 11, 2017 - The Society to Improve Diagnosis in Medicine (SIDM) announced new board leadership at the 10th Annual Diagnostic Error in Medicine (DEM) Conference this week in Boston, Massachusetts. David Newman-Toker, MD, PhD, Professor of Neurology, Ophthalmology and Otolaryngology and Director of the Armstrong Institute Center for Diagnostic Excellence at Johns Hopkins Medicine, has been elected President-Elect of SIDM, effective immediately. Serving a one-year term, Dr. Newman-Toker will become SIDM’s President in November 2018, following Dr. Mark L. Graber, SIDM’s founding President.

“As a member of SIDM’s Board of Directors, Dr. Newman-Toker has consistently asked the difficult questions about strategic priorities and has driven forward a strategy to raise awareness of the problem of diagnostic error among his peers and the policy community,” said Mark L. Graber, MD, President of SIDM.

Dr. Newman-Toker has served on the Board of Directors of SIDM since 2011 when SIDM was formed. In addition to his Board position, he was conference chair for the Diagnostic Error in Medicine conference (2009-2012), initial Chair of the Research Committee (2012-2016), and currently serves as Chair of the Policy Committee. Under his Policy Committee leadership, SIDM worked throughout 2017 to educate policymakers about the importance of diagnostic safety and quality. Those efforts resulted in language in the Senate Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Appropriations report directing the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) to lead the development of a coordinated, multi-agency agenda for research to improve diagnosis, a key recommendation of the 2015 National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (formerly the Institute of Medicine) report – Improving Diagnosis in Health Care. Dr. Newman-Toker also represents Johns Hopkins Medicine as a member of SIDM’s Coalition to Improve Diagnosis. The Coalition includes representatives from 35 organizations in the medical and patient community who have committed to improving diagnostic safety and quality.

Dr. Newman-Toker holds joint appointments in Emergency Medicine and Health Sciences Informatics at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, in Epidemiology and Health Policy & Management at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and in Acute Care Nursing at the Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing. His clinical focus is in diagnosis of acute disorders affecting the brainstem and cranial nerves, particularly stroke. His personal research mission is to achieve better outcomes through better diagnosis, and he has been a pioneer in developing novel methods to diagnose stroke in patients with acute dizziness and vertigo. Dr. Newman-Toker leads the Armstrong Institute Center for Diagnostic Excellence that seeks to catalyze efforts to improve diagnostic performance, develop the science of diagnostic safety, and enhance diagnostic research.

“The Society to Improve Diagnosis in Medicine is a small organization that is making a huge impact on the field of diagnostic safety and quality in pursuit of its vision to eliminate harms from diagnostic error. We are raising awareness of the problem, rallying stakeholders to the cause, and taking concrete actions to enhance research to reduce harms from delayed or missed diagnosis. I am very proud to be part of this critical work needed to solve this major public health problem,” said Dr. Newman-Toker.

Dr. Newman-Toker joined more than 300 researchers, educators, physicians, clinical team members, and patients at SIDM’s annual conference this week to discuss the causes of diagnostic errors and ways to improve the diagnostic process in pursuit of better diagnostic outcomes for patients.

About the Society to Improve Diagnosis in Medicine (SIDM)
SIDM is a nonprofit organization whose members include clinicians and other healthcare professionals, patients and every stakeholder in the diagnostic process. SIDM sponsors the annual Diagnostic Error in Medicine conference being held October 8-10, 2017 in Boston, MA. In 2015, SIDM established the Coalition to Improve Diagnosis, a collaboration of 35 leading healthcare organizations.