Stephen Pearlman, M.D., Named First Recipient of Jefferson Alumni Impact Award
Stephen Pearlman, M.D., MSHQS, has been selected as the first recipient of the Jefferson College of Population Health (JCPH) Alumni Impact Award, an honor presented by the school’s Alumni Board to graduates whose work has made a meaningful impact in education, research or community service.
Pearlman serves as clinical effectiveness officer for Acute Care at ChristianaCare and as medical director of the Candor Program, ChristianaCare’s approach to communication and resolution when unexpected patient harm occurs. He is also professor of Pediatrics at Sidney Kimmel Medical College at Thomas Jefferson University.
“I am humbled and honored to receive this award from the Jefferson College of Population Health,” Pearlman said. “The instruction I received during my master’s created the foundation that has allowed me, working with others, to make improvements to processes or policies that impact entire groups of patients — the essence of population health.”
A neonatologist by training, Pearlman has been a ChristianaCare faculty member for nearly four decades. He earned his Master of Science in Healthcare Quality and Safety from JCPH in 2012, and quality improvement and patient safety have defined his work ever since.
He has led initiatives recognized by the federal government as exemplars of safer health system care, and he developed a neonatal QI curriculum that the Organization of Neonatal-Perinatal Training Program Directors adopted. At ChristianaCare, he chairs the Zero Harm Council and oversees event management and sentinel event review.
Pearlman was one of the founding members of ChristianaCare’s Candor program, now recognized nationally as a model for transparent, ethical response to patient harm. The health system was one of three early sites that partnered with the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality to develop the model’s educational tools and resources.
He is an associate editor of the Journal of Perinatology and has authored more than 100 papers, chapters and abstracts.
The Jefferson honor comes a year after Pearlman received the American Academy of Pediatrics’ 2024 Avroy Fanaroff Neonatal Education Award.
The virtual award ceremony was held June 10.