Improving Cancer Care: Listening to Patients and Clinicians
Dr. Christopher Friese is the Elizabeth Tone Hosmer Professor at the University of Michigan School of Nursing, where he focuses on measuring and improving the quality of cancer care delivery. He directs the Center for Improving Patient and Population Health. In 2020, Dr. Friese was appointed as the Associate Director for Cancer Control and Population Sciences at the University of Michigan Rogel Cancer Center. He is also a faculty investigator at the University’s Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation. Dr. Friese has practiced as a staff nurse at leading cancer centers, including the University of Pennsylvania, Johns Hopkins Hospital, and the Rogel Cancer Center. He is a national expert in the study of cancer care quality through surveys and analyses of large administrative datasets. The author of over 100 publications, his research findings were among the first to establish a significant relationship between favorable nurse practice environments and lower surgical mortality.
As the first nurse scientist to complete a K99/R00 Pathway to Independence award from the National Institute of Nursing Research, Dr. Friese leads an interdisciplinary research program to study the quality of care delivered in understudied ambulatory oncology settings from the perspectives of patients and clinicians. He has led pivotal studies to develop valid and reliable measures of ambulatory nursing work environments. His recent work examines patterns and correlates of hazardous drug exposure in oncology nurses and he is actively exploring patterns, correlates, and intervention targets to improve communication among cancer care teams. Dr. Friese is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine, a Fellow in the American Academy of Nursing, and the 2021 recipient of the Oncology Nursing Society Distinguished Researcher Award.