Karen Fiumara, PharmD, BCPS, CPPS, Vice President for Patient Safety, Department of Quality and Safety

Karen Fiumara, PharmD, BCPS, CPPS, serves as vice president of Patient Safety. In this role, she directs the Brigham's Patient Safety programs and conducts strategic planning for their operations, with specific attention to our mission of embedding an equity-informed, high-reliability framework across the Brigham to enhance the culture of safety, improve patient satisfaction and ensure equitable care. Fiumara has worked at Brigham and Women's Hospital for more than 20 years and brings extensive experience and institutional knowledge to her current role.

Fiumara also serves as executive director of Quality for Mass General Brigham (MGB) Integrated Care (iCare). In this role, she leads collaborations with the chief medical officer and vice president of Operations for MGB iCare, working to articulate and implement a strategic vision and plan for quality, patient safety and patient experience across MGB iCare.

Fiumara joined the Brigham in 2002 as a pharmacy practice resident and has since taken on a number of leadership positions here, including the roles of medication safety officer, manager of the Anticoagulation Management Service and executive director of Patient Safety and Patient Family Relations.

In keeping with her dedication to quality and patient safety, Fiumara serves as a faculty member of the American Medical Association’s Equity Peer Network, aiding hospitals in addressing inequities in health care delivery. Fiumara has also served as a clinical pharmacy consultant for the New England Journal of Medicine and has authored papers in the fields of medication safety, adverse drug events, anticoagulation management, quality and patient safety. She is a board-certified pharmacotherapy specialist and an associate professor of Pharmacy Practice at Massachusetts College of Pharmacy, where she received her PharmD in 2002 before completing her residency in pharmacy practice at the Brigham in 2003.