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Dr. Paul Barach presently serves as guest professor at the University of Oslo, and was associate professor at the University of Southern Florida’s College of Public Health and guest professor at the University of Stavanger in Norway. In addition to additional teaching positions, Dr. Paul Barach maintains board certifications in anesthesia and intensive care. Individuals seeking primary certification in anesthesiology need to take a two-part examination administered by the American Board of Anesthesiology. The first part of the exam takes place at a computer-based testing center utilizing the Pearson network and consists of 250 questions, of which 25 are experimental items that do not count toward the overall score. The exam lasts five hours and includes an optional 20-minute break. Topics covered during the first examination include anatomy, mathematics, pharmacology, and various clinical subspecialties. The second part of the examination concerns a physician’s ability to make decisions while managing a patient in a clinical setting. The examination may pertain to any area of anesthesiology. Two examiners oversee the test, which is divided into a pair of 35-minute sessions. Examiners score each test-taker individually and take into account correct answers as well as the physician’s ability to adapt to different scenarios.

A double-board-certified physician, Dr. Paul Barach has more than 20 years of experience as a clinician, researcher, consultant, and educator. In addition to serving as an academic at several academic institutions, Dr. Paul Barach is affiliated with a number of industry groups, including the American Society of Anesthesiology, and the Australasian College of Health Service Management (ACHSM), the lead organization for health management professionals in Australasia. Dr Barach served as Senior Executive Advisor for Strategic planning and development and advisor to CEO, Daryl Sadgrove. In this role he assisted in healthcare leadership and management, advancing implementation safety and quality improvement training, coaching and mentoring of healthcare executives, and developing health policy.

The holder of a master of public health and a doctorate of medicine from Hebrew University, Dr. Paul Barach espouses the importance of a healthcare building's architecture to quality health care. Actively involved with the International Academy for Design and Health, Dr. Paul Barach sat on the steering committee of its 8th International Academy Design Conference and led its research efforts. For nearly 20 years, the International Academy for Design and Health has been at the forefront of designing facilities to optimize the delivery of high-quality health care. Architects, scientists, government representatives, and medical professionals affiliated with this group discuss ways in which aesthetics and functionality influence the quality of life for patients. They also focus on the intersection of design with important current trends, such as chronic disease, a growing aging population, and increased health care costs. Since 1997, the International Academy for Design and Health has hosted a five-day International Academy Design Conference in a different global city. These gatherings welcome professionals from various industries to analyze research reports, case studies, and advancements in the field. The 8th International Academy Design Conference in 2012 took place in Kuala Lampur, Malaysia, due to the increasing importance of Asia in global economics and politics. Speakers covered several Malaysia-centered topics, such as the nation's public facilities design, opportunities to better the country’s health care system, and the patient experience. Nonetheless, they also looked at universal issues, ranging from the future of health promotion to the creation of healing centers for neurology patients.                            

An accomplished medical doctor and educator, Dr. Paul Barach currently holds academic appointments at the University College Cork in Ireland, the University of Stavanger in Norway, and the University of Oslo in Norway. In past he was on faculty at the University of South Florida and Utrecht Medical Center, in the Netherlands. In 2007, Dr. Paul Barach was part of 5 member team earning the team winner of the M Scott Myers Award for Applied Research in the Workplace. Named in memory of the innovative and influential psychologist M Scott Myers, this annual award is presented by the Society for Industrial & Organizational Psychology, Inc. The pool of candidates for the M Scott Myers Award is comprised of individual practitioners or teams of practitioners who have successfully developed, conducted, and applied I-O psychology methodologies in the workplace. In order to be considered for the award, projects and products presented by candidates must be less than 40 years old and cover a time period of no more than eight years. Recipients of the M Scott Myers Award are given a commemorative plaque, a $1,500 cash prize, and an invitation to present at the annual conference of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology.

Oprah Show Interview on Patient Safety and Role of Simulation to help change culture and training of of healthcare providers.

Researcher and academic, Paul Barach strives to spread the word about the importance of fulfilling patient needs and implementing patient-centered care within the health care system. With much of his research focusing on patient safety and patient-centered care, Paul Barach works to improve the way patients are treated.  In recent years, patient-centered care has been recognized as a main component in providing high-quality medical care. Rather than maintaining a system of physician-centered care, many hospitals and health care providers now focus more on the patient. Patient-centered care involves creating a quality relationship between the physician and the patient. This is often accomplished by training physicians to be more empathetic and informative in their roles as doctors. Paul Barach's team have demonstrated a serious breakdown in patient-doctor interactions. Due to many hospitals’ attempts at balancing medical costs with quality care, interactions between care providers and patients may be rushed. When communication breaks down, patients become unsure of what questions to ask. This has caused many patients to feel their doctors do not care about their opinions on the treatment. By adopting a system of patient-centered care, health care providers are able to increase their patient satisfaction, reduce the risk of being sued for malpractice, and increase patient loyalty. When patients do not receive the necessary information and reassurance, they may become confused and require further help. By ensuring patients receive the information and care they need, patients are likely to be satisfied with their care.

Based on more than 20 years of research, the TeamSTEPPS teamwork system seeks to provide health care professionals with a new, powerful way to maintain and improve patient safety. Standing for Team Strategies and Tools to Enhance Performance and Patient Safety, TeamSTEPPS helps create medical teams that are highly effective and provide the best patient outcomes. Dr. Paul Barach, who co-developed and launched the TeamSTEPPS program with his team, has several years of research experience behind him. Working with the Department of Defense’s Patient Safety Program, Paul Barach was the sole clinician and his team created a high-quality teamwork training program. The TeamSTEPPS system consists of three phases that are based on current trainer experience, culture change, research on patient safety and quality, and lessons learned. The first phase of the program involves determining the organization’s ability to begin the TeamSTEPPS program. This involves identifying any barriers that may prevent change, determining whether the necessary resources are currently being used, and assessing the readiness of the organization’s leadership.  The second phase involves training, planning, and beginning the program. This includes implementing all the necessary tools within the whole organization and targeting specific departments. Once phase one determines that the opportunities for improvement exist, phase two must look at whether whole training or targeted interventions are best. Phase two also involves ensuring all leaders agree to the plan and communication is open between leaders and all departments. The third phase is sustainment, which seeks to maintain and spread the benefits of the TeamSTEPPS program. This involves keeping training up-to-date and ensuring the opportunity exists to continue practicing and teaching the skills from the program. Regular feedback is required to help maintain the improvements, as are regular updates to the organization’s plan and continued measurements of success. Dr Barach has developed a suite of feedback and training tools for surgical teams in focusing on the non technical skills of reliable healthcare teams. This work has led to numerous peer review papers by Dr Barach's team.

Dr. Paul Barach is a seasoned medical professional, and currently draws upon his vast experience to perform numerous educational and advisory roles. Among his many endeavors, Dr. Paul Barach is a visiting professor at University College in Cork, Ireland. Dr Barach has been a leader in developing healthcare team training and assessment including focusing on assessing and improving non technical skills of surgical teams. In recognition of his efforts in helping to develop and lead the internationally acclaimed healthcare team training program, TeamSTEPPS, he received an M. Scott Meyers Award for Applied Research in the Workplace in 2007. The M. Scott Myers Award for Applied Research in the Workplace is presented annually by the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP), a division of the American Psychological Association. The award is given in recognition of projects or products, which illustrate outstanding use of industrial and organizational (I-O) psychology in the work environment. It is presented to an individual or team whose project was conducted within the workplace during the previous 40 years, during a period of not longer than eight years.  TeamSTEPPS has become the lead healthcare team training program in the world.

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Paul Barach, MD, MPH, serves as a consultant with the Healthcare Quality Improvement Partnership. In 2008, he was recruited to co-chair The Center for Health Design (CHD) Research Coalition. In that capacity, Dr. Paul Barach spearheaded the organization’s expansion and established a national peer-reviewed health care design research initiative.  The CHD Research Coalition is a non-profit organization seeking to improve health care quality via partnerships between research professionals and health care administrators, among others. In 2013, the organization invited new researchers to apply for the New Investigator Research Award, which aims to support quality studies in the designs of health care facilities.  The CHD is the premier national organisation for assessing the impact of the healthcare built environment.

Dr. Paul Barach provides his expertise as a consultant to numerous hospitals and health-care agencies as the principal at J Bara Innovation, Inc. Along with Julie Johnson and Helen Haskell, Dr. Paul Barach developed the concept for the Learning From Our Patients project to improve health care through collecting and filming patient stories and the input of patient perspectives. Learning From Our Patients seeks to listen to patients compassionately to understand why so many preventable errors still occur in the health-care profession today. The project's collected patient interviews are supplemented by interviews with health-care providers and researchers. Using the Harvard Business Review case-based method, a book of case studies is being produced in addition to an interactive website and a documentary film. These products will act as learning tools for students as well as current practitioners in the health-care field so that medical errors will occur less frequently in the future. For more information on the Learning From Our Patients project or to contribute a story about medical harm to the project, visit www.learningfromourpatients.com.