Alan J. Card, PhD, MPH, DFASHRM, is an Assistant Professor at the San Diego State University School of Public Health. He earned his PhD from the Engineering Design Centre at the University of Cambridge, where he studied in the Healthcare Design research group. He holds an MPH from the University of South Florida, as well as professional certifications in healthcare quality (CPHQ) and healthcare risk management (CPHRM) and is a Distinguished Fellow of the American Society for Healthcare Risk Management. And, like so many, he is the family member of people who have experienced harm because of our broken healthcare system. 

Dr. Card’s research interests include patient safety and wellbeing (including psychosocial patient safety), healthcare worker safety and well-being, and intervention design for healthcare safety and quality improvement. He is particularly interested in working to improve how organizations improve by addressing the frameworks, tools, and techniques that guide system improvement practice. His contributions in this area have included tools and “practical theories” for participatory design such as: The Process for Active Risk Control, The Active Risk Control Toolkit, the Generating Options for Active Risk Control Technique, The Lovebug Diagram, the risk curve approach for risk matrices, and the biopsychosociotechnical model. He is always interested in opportunities to collaborate