Biography
John A. Fromson, MD is co-director of postgraduate medical education at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and involved in guiding the design, review of data, and articulation of presumed, expressed and documented needs assessments for content development of live and online multimedia educational programs conducted throughout the United States and internationally. Striving for a patient centered approach that contributes to the highest standards of clinical care; he aligns educational material with core areas of physician competency. He also assesses the effectiveness of postgraduate medical education programs through the development, collection, and interpretation of outcome data to measure physician retention, utilization, and integration of specific program learning goals into clinical practice. Evaluation and outcome measures are validated against external standards (evidence-based studies, consensus guidelines and stratified provider bench mark cohorts) to provide aggregate and anonymous performance feedback.
He is also responsible for developing and coordinating the MGH Department of Psychiatry’s Virtual Grand Rounds Series that provides consistent, high-quality, one-hour educational programs on important issues in psychiatry including the latest research and innovative treatment options for a variety of psychiatric disorders. Dr. Fromson also oversees the MGH Department of Psychiatry Patient and Family Educational Programs. These are presented free-of-charge and have benefitted approximately 3,500 patients and their families since 2005. Each patient education program, with an average of 150 participants per program, utilizes innovative and effective public education. Attendees acquire the knowledge they need to partner with healthcare providers to get an accurate psychiatric diagnosis and obtain the best available, evidence-based psychiatric care. In addition to ensuring continuous improvement, data derived from these programs also helps to educate providers.
Published papers focus on the utilization of clinical vignettes with open ended questions and free-form responses to assess clinical management and treatment outcomes derived from psychiatric postgraduate medical education.
He is also editor of Career Resources for Physicians of the New England Journal of Medicine online CareerCenter and his clinical and additional research activities focus on issues relating to physician and medical student health, professional development, and patient safety. He was the founding director, served as president, and is currently on the board of Physician Health Services, a national model in identifying and monitoring physicians and medical students with substance use disorders and mental and physical illness. He is chair of the American Academy of Addiction Psychiatry's Committee on Physician Health, past chair of the American Psychiatric Association's Committee on Physician Health, Illness and Impairment, and past president of the Federation of State Physician Health Programs. In 2010 he was elected Class A Trustee of the General Service Board of Alcoholics Anonymous, Inc. (AA).
Dr. Fromson is also past president of the Mass. Coalition for the Prevention of Medical Errors. During his term the Coalition developed two statewide collaborative projects to support hospitals in implementing safe practices in the areas of reconciling medications and communicating critical test results. These were subsequently adopted by the Joint Commission in its National Patient Safety Goals for 2005 through 2008. Three year funding for these projects was provided by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). He also chaired its Restraint Consensus Group that developed the first statewide best practices for creating restraint-free environments in hospitals, long term care, and psychiatric facilities.
For his work in the areas of patient safety and physician and medical student health, Dr. Fromson is the recipient of the Massachusetts Psychiatric Society's 2008 Outstanding Psychiatrist Award for Advancement of the Profession. He is a Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association and Fellow of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. Dr. Fromson is an Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and received the Harvard Medical School Excellence in Tutoring Award for the academic year 2007 and 2010.