David Thompson, DNSc, MS, RN

David Thompson, DNSc, MS, RN is an assistant professor, clinical and health outcomes researcher. Dr Thompson is the Director of Patient Safety Education in the Department of Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine. His clinical background is in critical care nursing, with over 16 years’ experience, both as a nurse and researcher. He has spent 8 years teaching Adult Physical Health, a clinical rotation for undergraduate nurses. His research concentration is in ICU patient outcomes, patient safety and quality improvement initiatives, adverse event reporting, and multidisciplinary teamwork and safety curriculum development. As a clinician and researcher, he trains and collaborates directly with frontline caregivers in our statewide quality and safety evidence-based improvement initiatives.

Dr. Thompson is a recent recipient of a Robert wood Johnson Foundation Grant from the Interdisciplinary Nursing Quality Research Initiative (INQRI) program. He was principle investigator of this nursing driven intervention ” Linking Care and Context of Care to Blood Stream Infection Reduction” This two year collaborative to reduce central line associated blood stream infections (CLABSI) involved Co-investigators in Social Psychology and Health Services Research. The collaborative involved 45 ICUs from 33 Hospitals in 12 states. This was a phased in Randomized Controlled trial where the intervention group (23 ICUS) received the evidence based practice bundle and Comprehensive Unit Safety Program (CUSP) while the other half of the ICUs served as controls for 8 months then adopted the intervention. This study was unique to nursing as it linked nursing care delivery to patient outcomes. Dr. Thompson served as primary clinical educator during this grant implementation and addressed all clinical questions during the duration of the study.

Dr. Thompson is currently a co- investigator serving as an expert in patient safety in a case- control retrospective analysis of adverse events in the Severely Mentally Ill (SMI) patient when hospitalized for somatic illness. Dr. Thompson is also serving as project director for an Interdisciplinary observational study assessing team process measures and their effectiveness in cardiac operating rooms.