Armstrong Institute Leadership

Allen Kachalia, M.D., J.D.

Director, Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality
Senior Vice President for Patient Safety and Quality, Johns Hopkins Medicine

During his nearly 20-year career in medicine, Kachalia has served in a variety of key roles, including leadership positions. As senior vice president, Kachalia oversees patient safety and quality initiatives across Johns Hopkins Medicine aimed at ending preventable harm, improving clinical outcomes and patient experience, and reducing waste in health care delivery. As the director of the Johns Hopkins Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality, Kachalia directs academic and scholarly efforts of the institute, which was formed thanks to a $10 million gift from C. Michael Armstrong — former chairman of the Johns Hopkins Medicine board of trustees — as an infrastructure to lead, coordinate and support Johns Hopkins’ patient safety and quality efforts.

Previously, chief quality officer and vice president for quality and safety at Brigham Health in Boston, Kachalia provided oversight for inpatient and ambulatory quality, safety, patient experience, risk management, clinical compliance and biomedical engineering. In this role, Kachalia built a provider-based electronic mortality review system that other health care systems are modeling, and has led several initiatives to further ambulatory safety and transparency in medicine. He has also helped establish a board quality committee that regularly reports on and drives quality performance.

Kachalia first joined Brigham Health in 2003, and was promoted to associate medical director of Brigham and Women’s Physicians Organization in 2004. He became associate chief quality officer for Brigham and Women’s Hospital in 2011, before being promoted to chief quality officer and vice president for quality and safety in 2014. Kachalia joined the faculty of Harvard Medical School in 2003, where he currently is an associate professor of medicine. He is also an associate professor of health policy and management at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Kachalia is passionate about research on legal issues in medicine, including malpractice system reform and disclosure of medical error, and how these issues relate to the quality and safety of medical care.

Kachalia received a Bachelor of Science degree in biochemistry and business economics from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). He earned his medical degree from Washington University in St. Louis, and he completed an internal medicine residency, including serving one year as chief resident, at the University of Michigan. He also holds a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Pennsylvania Law School.

Allen Kachalia

Robert Elliott, M.H.A.

Administrator for Armstrong Institute
Program Director for Business and Learning Development

Robert Elliott has been with Johns Hopkins for over 20 years serving in leadership roles in the Department of Surgery, Oncology and now with the Armstrong Institute. In these roles he has developed extensive knowledge in HealthCare finance, operations and leadership. He serves as an executive leader, directing the overall administrative, operational and partnership activities as well as provides strategic direction for the Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality.

He also serves as Program Director for the Armstrong Institute Learning and Development team as well as Armstrong Institute’s external consulting arm, Business Development.

Robert Elliott

Lori Paine, Dr.PH., R.N., M.S.

Director of Patient Safety for Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality and Johns Hopkins Hospital

Lori Paine is responsible for the strategic and tactical oversight of the patient safety program for The Johns Hopkins Hospital and Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality. She was responsible for implementing the health system’s online event reporting system and now manages the operations, surveillance and data analysis from this system.

Lori Paine

Laura Winner, R.N., B.S.N., M.B.A.

Senior Director, Lean Sigma Deployment, Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality, Johns Hopkins Medicine

Laura Winner is the Senior Director of Lean Sigma Deployment for the Johns Hopkins Health System and the Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality, Johns Hopkins Medicine. In addition to overseeing the Lean Sigma team operations for the Johns Hopkins Health System under Laura’s leadership the Lean Sigma Prescription for Healthcare® program was developed and the healthcare specific courses delivered to thousands of healthcare professionals across Johns Hopkins Medicine and around the world. She has participated in Lean Sigma projects with the Joint Commission Center for Transforming Healthcare and is an active member of the Catalysis Healthcare Value Network. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Nursing from The Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing, and a Master of Business Administration from Johns Hopkins Carey Business School. Laura worked 13 years clinically as a nurse at The Johns Hopkins Hospital in the Emergency Department (Level 1 Trauma Center) and in the Department of Medicine. She holds a Joint Appointment with the Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing and is currently a doctoral candidate in the Health Policy Management Program at the Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Laura Winner