The Gustav O. Lienhard Award, established in 1986, is presented annually by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) in honor of Gustav O. Lienhard, chairman of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Board of Trustees form 1971 to 1986.

Inspire has published “Experts by Experience 2015: A compilation of patients’ stories,” a special report developed in cooperation with Stanford Medicine.

The Schwartz Center for Compassionate Healthcare, the only national nonprofit dedicated to strengthening the human connection at the heart of healthcare, is accepting nominations for its prestigious Schwartz Center National Compassionate Caregiver of the Year (NCCY) Award.

The healthcare field has made significant effort to accelerate patient safety since publication of To Err Is Human: Building a Safer Health System, the Institute of Medicine’s groundbreaking 1999 report on medical errors.

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) has awarded a $4.8 million grant to the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) to help communities develop capability to improve health and to spread effective community-driven approaches to help build a Culture of Health.

Huron Consulting Group Inc., a provider of business consulting services, has entered into an agreement to acquire Studer Group, a professional services firm that assists healthcare providers achieve cultural transformation to deliver and sustain exceptional improvement in clinical outcomes and financial results.

EngagingPatients.org, an online community dedicated to sharing best practices in patient and family engagement, has opened nominations for the 2015 John Q. Sherman Award for Excellence in Patient Engagement.

The Midwest Alliance for Patient Safety (MAPS) and ECRI Institute, two patient safety organization (PSO) leaders, are combining their synergies to help guide the transformation of patient care in Illinois and beyond.

Is empathy a core component of “evidence-based medicine”? One prominent researcher and author in the area of empathy in patient care argues that the answer is unequivocally “yes” and says that it can and should be evaluated, taught, and sustained, as studies show a high correlation between patient satisfaction and outcomes with empathy scores.