Speakers

Nicholas Kassebaum, MD, is an Assistant Professor at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington from the Department of Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine at Seattle Children’s Hospital. At IHME,  he works on the landmark Global Burden of Disease (GBD) study and the Cost-Effectiveness research team. Dr. Kassebaum researches the burden and effectiveness of interventions for specific conditions and analyzes hospital data on surgical cost-effectiveness in various health care settings around the world. Within GBD, he has a special interest in maternal and child health issues, including congenital diseases and hemoglobinopathies, anemia, oral and dental health, as well as sexually transmitted infections.

Dr. Kassebaum earned a BA cum laude from Macalester College in St. Paul, MN, and also studied as an undergraduate at Cambridge University in the United Kingdom. He earned his medical degree from Vanderbilt University, did his residency in anesthesiology at the University of Washington, and completed a fellowship in pediatric anesthesiology at the Seattle Children’s Hospital, where he now practices clinically.

Dr. Kassebaum is leading a pilot project between PSM and IHME to help assess data and quantify results of the Patient Safety Movement.

 About IHME

The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) is an independent global health research center at the University of Washington that provides rigorous and comparable measurements of the world’s most important health problems and evaluates the strategies used to address them. Since its founding in 2007, IHME has grown to over 300 faculty and staff members and a global research network of more than 2,500 experts in 124 countries.

The Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors (GBD) is the largest and most comprehensive effort to date to measure epidemiological levels and trends worldwide. The ongoing release of Global Burden of Disease (GBD) results and the annual Financing Global Health reports, and their associated online data visualizations, provide examples of the capacity of IHME to undertake complex data integration and synthesis to yield policy-relevant information for health decision-making. The work is now regularly used by national governments, local policymakers, nonprofits, foundations, and corporations to set priorities and plan for the future. From clean cook stove programs in Rwanda to new teaching curricula in Washington State, the impact of IHME’s work can be seen in a wide range of areas.