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Brenda Shipley - Stony Creek CT

Secretary


Brenda Shipley is a CTCPS Board Member and has served in the capacity of Board Secretary since 2010. Brenda is the Project Director for the Health Disparities Institute at the University of Connecticut. She leads efforts to operationalize the Institute’s strategic plans across four program cores: research, outreach and engagement, capacity building, and policy.

Brenda develops collaborative partnerships in which research programs in service to community can thrive. She launched the Health Disparities Data Collaborative, an anchor program in HDI’s research core that provides data analytics to community based organizations, providers, government, and academic and community researchers working to promote health equity.

Brenda established HDI’s platform for policy action to reduce health disparities. She has convened health equity stakeholders to collectively influence access to health utilization data for health disparities research, program, and policy work and to build awareness of practices in other states. She participates in initiatives to develop metrics of translational value and that imbed health equity in system innovations to narrow the disparities gap.

Most recently, Brenda was involved in health policy work at the State of Connecticut’s Office of the Healthcare Advocate, global access to medicines program work at Public Citizen, and patient advocacy initiatives at the Connecticut Center for Patient Safety. Prior to her work in health advocacy and social justice, Brenda held leadership positions in business development and operations in early stage healthcare technology, data integration, and health insurance companies.

Brenda received her bachelor’s degree in business from The University of Connecticut and her master’s degree in health advocacy from Sarah Lawrence College. Brenda is a 2013-2014 Connecticut Health Foundation Health Leadership Fellow.

Brenda’s dedication to patient safety is fueled by personal experience of medical malpractice during cancer treatment.

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Health Care Blog

Three Vaccines for Fall: What You Need to Know
According to the NY Times, here’s who should get the flu, Covid and R.S.V. vaccines, and when. By Ap…
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How the Inflation Reduction Act Reduces Health Care Costs
CAP American Progress ARTICLE AUG 12, 2022  Nicole Rapfogel & Emily Gee The Inflation Reduction …
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Hospital Visitation Restrictions Are Hurting Patients and Nurses — New protocols and COVID mitigation techniques can enable safe visitation
Medpage Today |  by Karen Cox, PhD, RN, and Tejal K. Gandhi, MD, MPH September 2, 2021 As COVID…
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Becoming a More Empowered Patient

First, we have chosen to share a video by Consumer Health Choices: Talking With Your Doctor. In it you will see how preparing for you appointment can make a difference.

We have chosen a second video by the National Patient Safety Foundation: AskMe3, to share with you. Here, you learn that there are three important questions to ask your doctor whenever you see him or her.

Finally, we are sharing a series of videos by Dartmouth-Hitchcock:
Self-Advocacy: The Empowered Patient,
Self-Advocacy: Preparing for your Visit,
Self-Advocacy: Why It's Important To Share and
Self-Advocacy: Doing Research.

For the complete story, please click here

5 Things to Know

  1. What you need to know in the Hospital
  2. 15 Steps You Can Take To Reduce Your Risk of a Hospital Infection
  3. Selecting Doctors & Hospitals
  4. What to do to avoid medication error
  5. AHRQ Director Helps Consumers Navigate the Health Care System in a New Advice Column on the Web

You've Suffered Medical Harm - Now What Do You Do?

According to a recent article published by ProPublica titled: So You’ve Become a Patient Safety Statistic – Now What? by Marshall Allen there are six things to do….

  1. Get a copy of medical records.
  2. Make sure the incident is reported internally.
  3. If the patient has died, order a forensic autopsy.
  4. Consider calling an attorney.
  5. Meet with the doctor and hospital officials.
  6. Report the incident to regulators, who can investigate.

For greater detail and more important information, please read the full article.