From the December 2014 issue of HealthCare Business News magazine
Welcome to the best of 2014! Every year, HCBN provides a rundown of award recipients from top industry associations. If an association you belong to isn’t on display here, let us know and we’ll reach out to them for inclusion in next year’s issue.
The AAMI Foundation’s Laufman-Greatbatch Award
This is AAMI’s most prestigious award. Named after two pioneers in the field — Harold Laufman, MD and Wilson Greatbatch, PhD — this highly regarded award honors an individual or group that has made a unique and significant contribution to the advancement of health care technology and systems, service, patient care, or patient safety.
Candidates must demonstrate a significant, singular, and global impact on the advancement of patient care or patient safety through the advancement, development, enhancement, or creation of a specific medical device, technology, system, or service.
An overwhelming number of tributes poured in for Matthew Weinger, MD, a professor and vice chair at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, TN, praising him for his tireless work in human factors to enhance the safety of medical technology. His work includes co-chairing AAMI’s Human Factors Engineering Committee and making presentations on the topic at various events.
Hospital Quality Institute president and chief executive Julie Morath, who formerly worked with Weinger at Vanderbilt, hailed him for “his fidelity to science, commitment to patient safety systems design and research, and his passion for teaching.” Weinger has participated in a range of AAMI activities, including presenting at the October 2012 AAMI/FDA Interoperability Summit. He also sits on the AAMI Board of Directors.
ACR Gold Medal
The American College of Radiology’s highest honor, the ACR Gold Medal, is awarded annually to radiologists, radiation oncologists, medical physicists and other scientists for their distinguished and extraordinary service to the ACR or to the discipline of radiology.
James H. Thrall, MD, FACR
Thrall is chair of the executive committee of the Harvard Department of Radiology. Thrall is the first physician to hold both the radiologist-in-chief position at Massachusetts General Hospital and the Juan M. Taveras Professorship of Radiology at Harvard Medical School. He is former chair of the ACR Board of Chancellors and has served on numerous editorial boards, including those of the Journal for Nuclear Medicine and the Journal of the American College of Radiology. Thrall is the author of more than 400 publications and has been a guest faculty member and has lectured at courses and universities around the world.
