Christopher Jerry's two-year-old daughter, Emily, tragically died from a medication error shortly after she had overcome cancer in March 2006. Subsequently, he decided to retire from a very successful business career in medical imaging to become a patient safety advocate and to establish The Emily Jerry Foundation. He now devotes all of his time to patient safety advocacy and to the foundation's efforts to improve overall patient safety in our nation's hospitals and pharmacies. In January 2009, Mr. Jerry was able to help get Emily's Law passed in the state of Ohio, which provides basic training requirements and oversight by the Ohio Pharmacy Board for pharmacy technicians. Prior to Emily's Law there were no requirements whatsoever for pharmacy technicians in Ohio.
When Mr. Jerry first joined the patient safety movement, shortly after his daughter's death, he was simply advocating for the patient. In the past five years he has learned much about patient safety and the "human error" component of medicine. Over time he has discovered that all of these issues relating to patient safety are systemic, and that in order to effectively make our nation's medical facilities safer for everyone, we all need to join together to positively change the underlying "culture" of medicine in the United States. With that being said, he is now finding himself advocating just as passionately for the caregiver as well.
