Dr. Paul Sharek graduated from Columbia University Medical School in New York, completed residency and chief residency in pediatrics at the University of California, San Francisco, received a Masters of Public Health from University of California, Berkeley and completed a fellowship in health services research (emphasis on quality improvement) at Stanford University.

Paul is presently a Clinical Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Washington, an Emeritus Professor of Pediatrics at Stanford University and a practicing pediatric hospitalist. He is the inaugural Vice President, Chief Quality and Safety Officer at Seattle Children’s, and the architect of the new Seattle Children’s Center for Quality and Patient Safety. Paul was the creator and Medical Director of the Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford Center for Quality and Clinical Effectiveness, the 1st Director of Quality Improvement for the California Perinatal Quality of Care Collaborative (CPQCC), was a founding member of the Solutions for Patient Safety Collaborative, and presently participates in Strategic Planning for Quality for CHA (Children’s Hospital Association). In 2013, Paul was awarded the inaugural Paul V. Miles Fellow in Quality Improvement from the American Board of Pediatrics, an Award bestowed on individuals who have “dedicated themselves to quality improvement and demonstrated accomplishments leading to better healthcare for children”. Most recently, Paul has dedicated his research and administrative efforts to translating the tenets of high reliability organization theory into healthcare, and translating pragmatic local, regional and national quality improvement initiative into the medical literature. Paul has given a substantial number of presentations at national and international academic meetings related to quality of care and patient safety, is a faculty member of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), and is an “Expert” and mentor at the International Society for Quality in Healthcare (ISQua) . Paul has been a visiting professor on quality/patient safety at numerous children’s hospitals across the world including Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children in London, The Hospital for Sick Kids in Toronto, The Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario in Ottawa, and several national children’s hospitals including, Children’s National Hospital in Washington DC, Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital of Columbia University, Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles, Children’s Hospital of Colorado, St Louis Children’s Hospital, Nationwide Children’s Hospital, and St Jude Children’s Research Hospital. Paul has published extensively on the topics of pediatric quality of care and patient safety, including a Nov 2007 study correlating a Rapid Response Team intervention with decreased mortality in JAMA, and a Nov 2010 study on adverse events over time in the New England Journal of Medicine, and is recognized internationally as a thought leader in the area of pediatric quality and patient safety.