Patricia Folcarelli

Pat Folcarelli, RN, PhD, is Vice President, Patient Safety. She oversees strategic and operational patient safety solutions for all CRICO members and represents the Harvard medical community and all of its affiliate organizations. This includes advancing CRICO’s patient safety agenda, convening clinical leaders, executing the protected discussions of our AMC PSO, distributing educational programs, as well as supporting advanced clinical data analytics.

Prior to CRICO, Dr. Folcarelli worked at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) for more than 30 years, most recently as Vice President, Health Care Quality. She is a Lecturer of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and a widely published author. Dr. Folcarelli’s research activity includes advancing the practice of respect in healthcare, evaluating the impact of Communication, Apology and Resolution (CARe) Programs, and understanding how we should measure the safety of care. She coordinates the CARe process at BIDMC and has collaborated on work to evaluate the use of OpenNotes, a patient safety reporting tool; working closely with members of CRICO’s Claims and Patient Safety departments on both efforts.

Dr. Folcarelli received her BS in Nursing from Hunter College of the City University of NY and received both her M.A. and Ph.D. from New York University. She serves on the Quality and Safety Board for Mercy, a health system in St. Louis, MO and the Board Subcommittee for Quality and Safety Committee of Baystate Health. Dr. Folcarelli has also served on the Board of the Massachusetts Coalition for the Prevention of Medical Errors and is past President for the Massachusetts Society for Healthcare Risk Management.