Healthcare Consulting Services
PO Box 1230
Grantham, NH 03753
ph: 716-550-1106
btruax
PROFILE: BRADLEY T. TRUAX, M.D.
Dr. Truax is board-certified in both Neurology and Internal Medicine. He is a clinician and educator with 20+ years of experience in medical
administration. He has been involved in patient safety for over 25 years.
Trained at Johns Hopkins Hospital (Internal Medicine) and Massachusetts General Hospital (Neurology), he was a Clinical Associate Professor of Neurology at SUNY Buffalo School of Medicine and coauthor of a major text on Guillain-Barre Syndrome. He has been a leader in SUNYAB School of Medicine affairs, winner of the prestigious Siegel Award for Teaching Excellence and former
President of the Medical School Faculty Council.
After serving in numerous departmental administrative roles at the Medical School and being Clinical Director of Neurology at SUNYAB’s
major teaching affiliate, he entered hospital administration in 1991. He was recruited to overhaul quality at Western New York’s major
public hospital, the Erie County Medical Center, which was under stipulation and order by the NY State Health Department at the time and was a 3-standard deviation outlier in Medicare mortality. The programs he implemented as Medical Director of the Erie County Medical Center successfully restored that facility’s accreditation with the health department and resulted in over a 33% improvement in Medicare mortality rates. In addition, he oversaw development of a nurse case management program and clinical pathway program that helped reduce length-of-stay by 3 days and contributed greatly to the improved quality outcomes as well as patient and family satisfaction.
In addition to his hospital experience in patient safety he was a member for over 10 years of the NYSDOH council that oversees New York State’s hospital incident reporting system (NYPORTS). He has also been an active participant on the NYPORTS subcommittees evaluating root cause analyses on medication errors and other serious events. He also served as the chair of the regional NYPORTS council for Western New York.
Dr. Truax has also served as a member and President of the Board of Directors of Upstate New York Transplant Services. During his
tenure there, UNYTS became New York State’s top organ procurement agency and one of the top OPO’s in the entire country and expanded its services to central New York.
His leadership has been recognized at the regional and state levels. He has been previously elected to the Board of Directors of the WNY Healthcare
Association.
At the state level, he co-authored the New York State’s original guidelines on braindeath determination in 1995 and served as spokesperson for the NYS Department of Health on those guidelines until 2005.
He has managed care experience in both the public and private sectors, having been involved in development of WNY’s first Medicaid PHSP and as medical director for managed care and
quality/utilization management of a large private healthcare system before moving to Independent Health, a regional managed care
organization that has consistently been ranked in the Top 10 in the country. At Independent Health, his role was oversight of healthcare services. That included new technology assessment and
development of medical policies, ensuring that coverage criteria were evidence-based. He also provided the medical oversight of the
company’s disease management initiatives, including direct involvement in diabetes, cardiac, depression, renal, and high-risk pregnancy disease management programs. Dr. Truax also was the catalyst for the regional WNY Chronic Kidney Disease project, a collaborative effort amongst the healthcare plans, nephrologists,
laboratories, and the Niagara Health Quality Coalition and National Kidney Foundation designed to identify patients with chronic kidney
disease early so they get the appropriate interventions to slow or prevent disease progression.
Locally, Dr. Truax has remained very active on the educational side. Until he recently semi-retired to New Hampshire, he regularly lectured on patient safety and medical error to housestaff at the SUNYAB Consortium programs and to both medical and undergraduate students. He was the chairman of the WNY Regional NYPORTS Council (NYPORTS is the Department of Health’s Patient
Occurrence Reporting and Tracking System) where quality improvement personnel from all area hospitals meet to discuss patient safety issues. He was a member of the Evidence-Based
Medicine Committee at the medical school, which designs curriculum to ensure that housestaff get appropriate academic and practical grounding in evidence-based medicine. He also lectured at
the law school on patient safety, managed care, and other issues. Dr. Truax also regularly does talks to employer and employee groups and consumers on the benefits of an active lifestyle.
Outside the office he enjoys golf, cross-country and downhill skiing, tennis, SCUBA diving, and both whitewater and wilderness (flatwater) kayaking.
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE:
2007-present The Truax Group
Healthcare Consulting Sevices
PatientSafetySolutions.com
1998-2006 Senior Associate Medical Director
Independent Health
511 Farber Lakes Drive
Williamsville, New York 14221
1996-1998 Medical Director, Managed Care Org. Associate Medical Director, Medical Management
Millard Fillmore Health System/ Kaleida Health
3 Gates Circle
Buffalo, New York 14209
1993-1996 Medical Director
Erie County Medical Center
462 Grider Street
Buffalo, New York 14215
1992-93 Acting Medical Director, ECMC
1991-92 Associate Medical Director, ECMC
1990-91 Associate Director, SUNYAB Neurology Residency Program
1988-90 Director of Neurology, ECMC
1986-88 Acting Director of Neurology, ECMC
1987-2014 Clinical Assoc. Prof. of Neurology, SUNYAB
1981-87 Assistant Prof. of Neurology, SUNYAB
1979-81 Clinical Instructor, Neurology, SUNYAB
EDUCATIONAL BACKGROUND
B.A. degreee, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland 1970
M.D., SUNY at Buffalo School of Medicine, Buffalo, New York 1974
Internship, Internal Medicine, Johns Hopkins Hospital, 1974-75
Residency, Internal Medicine, Johns Hopkins Hospital, 1975-76
Residency, Neurology, Massachusetts General Hospital, 1976-79
Assistant Chief Resident, Neurology, Massachusetts General
Hospital, 1978-79
Board Certification, Internal Medicine, 1977
Board Certification, Neurology, 1980
Copyright 2012 The Truax Group Healthcare Consulting Patient Safety Solutions Tools Tips & Resources. All rights reserved.
PO Box 1230
Grantham, NH 03753
ph: 716-550-1106
btruax