Laura Adams

Laura Adams is the President and CEO of the Rhode Island Quality Institute (RIQI), a center of collaborative innovation that advances health and healthcare transformation. RIQI is the only organization in the nation to win all three of the major HITECH health IT grants which funded CurrentCare (the statewide health information exchange), the RI Regional Extension Center and the RI Beacon Community.

Laura served on the ONC’s HIT Policy Committee’s Governance Panel for the Nationwide Health Information Network. She is a member of the newly-launched HIMSS Center for Patient and Family Centered Care Advisory Group and chaired the Institute of Medicine’s (IOM) Planning Committee for the “Digital Infrastructure for Population Health and a Learning Healthcare System” workshop series.

Laura led the governance consulting for the Improving Performance in Practice (IPIP) Initiative, a RWJF-funded collaboration among the American Board of Medical Specialties, and the Boards and Societies of Internal Medicine, Family Physicians and Pediatrics. She traveled in the U.S. and Europe with W. Edwards Deming in the study of statistical-based quality improvement. She was Founder, President and CEO of Decision Support Systems, a New York-based company specializing in Internet-based healthcare decision support.

Laura has been a faculty member of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) in Boston since its inception. She directed the IHI Idealized Design of the Intensive Care Unit project and served as faculty in the VHA’s ICU improvement collaborative. She was among the first to bring the principles of healthcare QI to the Middle East, in conjunction with Donald Berwick, MD and the Harvard Institute for Social and Economic Policy in the Middle East. She served as IHI faculty at the inaugural IHI Middle East Forum on Quality Improvement in Healthcare in Doha, Qatar in 2013.

RIQI won the 2013 National Council for Community Behavioral Health Excellence Award for Impact in serving those with behavioral health and substance abuse challenges. Laura has received Congressional citations for her visionary leadership and contributions to improving the healthcare system in Rhode Island. She received University of Northern Colorado’s 2010 Distinguished Alumni award.