David J. Ballard, M.D., Ph.D., M.S.P.H., F.A.C.P., C.M.M.
Senior Vice President and Chief Quality Officer
Baylor Health and Hospital System

David J. Ballard, M.D., Ph.D., is senior vice president and chief quality officer of the Baylor Health Care System (BHCS) in Dallas, a position he has held since 1999. He is responsible for designing, implementing and evaluating clinical quality improvement initiatives for all Baylor facilities, physicians and employees, and a $3 billion annual operating budget.

Dr. Ballard's professional efforts focus on improving health care quality and efficiency through defining and implementing evidence-based health care.

Under his leadership, Baylor has received several regional and national awards for its health care improvement accomplishments; consistently performed above the 95th percentile performance in the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations' measure implementation among hospitals across the United States; and substantially improved patient safety. Dr. Ballard chairs the Patient Safety Work Group for the Dallas/Fort Worth Business Group on Health and guides the Leapfrog Group roll-out effort in the Dallas/Fort Worth region. In addition, he is executive director and endowed chair in the Baylor Institute for Health Care Research and Improvement.

He has held progressive academic appointments with tenure at the Mayo Medical School and the University of Virginia School of Medicine; was professor of medicine in the Emory University School of Medicine; and professor of epidemiology in the Rollins School of Public Health of Emory University. He serves on the editorial boards of Health Services Research and the International Journal of Quality in Health Care and is the associate editor of the Baylor University Medical Center Proceedings. He has published more than 150 peer-reviewed manuscripts and is a recipient of the Alice S. Hersh New Investigator Award of Academy Health (formerly the Association for Health Services Research).

Among his many accomplishments, Dr. Ballard has served as a study section member and consultant for the National Institutes of Health and the Agency for Health Care Research and Quality. He is currently (2006-2009) chair of AHRQ's Health Care Quality and Effectiveness Research study section and is a member of the National Quality Forum's National Quality Healthcare Award Blue Ribbon Review Panel.

A native of Lexington, Ky., Dr. Ballard is a board-certified internist who trained in internal medicine at the Mayo Graduate School of Medicine following completion of academic degrees in chemistry, economics, epidemiology and medicine at the University of North Carolina, where he was a John Motley Morehead Scholar.