Meet Jeff Driver

Meet Jeff Driver, MBA, JD, MSc, CHC, Faculty Associate, Arizona State University Edson College of Nursing and Health Innovation; Principal, Soteria Risk Works, LLC, Phoenix, AZ

This interview was conducted by HCCA Compliance Academies Faculty Dwight Claustre (dwight.claustre@ankura.com), CHC-F, CHRC, CHPC, with Jeff Driver (jeff.driver@soteriariskworks.com) and took place in late October.

DC: Please tell us about your background and education.

JD: In a nutshell, since my early teens, my education and background have pursued two internal burning questions that I have on just about everything that crosses my mind: (1) Why? and (2) But, what if? I just recently had an intentional long think about where I have been over the course of my career and where I am going for my next educational adventure and life’s work chapters. Best described as a practitioner-scholar and principal of the company I founded in 2018, Soteria Risk Works, I am a lifelong student and professional dedicated to continually interrupting the status-quo in a constant quest to increase the effectiveness of risk management, patient safety, and compliance management. I hold a bachelor of science in respiratory technology and practiced clinically as an intensive-care patient life support specialist before becoming a risk manager and receiving my MBA in healthcare administration in the early 1980s.

Then, to further my risk management career (and, at the time, dual compliance role), I earned a juris doctor and became a member of the California Bar. I have held executive leadership roles for three renowned organizations over my career—San Diego Children’s Hospital (now Rady Children’s Hospital), Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (Boston), and The Risk Authority at Stanford (Palo Alto, CA). Recently, I completed my dissertation at the University of Oxford leading to the award of a master of science degree in evidence-based healthcare. I am a faculty associate for Arizona State University Edson College of Nursing and Health Innovation where I teach undergraduate health policy and postgraduate evidence-based practice.

I am a doctor of management student at the Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve University (Cleveland, OH), where I am researching patient and physician reconciliation after medical injury and, more generally, business sustainability of risk and compliance management systems. My friends and family ask me why I am pursuing a doctorate at this stage of my career, and I respond, because I need to know (1) Why? and (2) But, what if? They don’t seem thrilled with this explanation, but I sure am!

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