Jefferson Health Hosts 2025 Drs. David & Esther “Es” Nash Quality and Safety Awards

David Nash, MD, MBA, has built his career around a single conviction: healthcare must deliver better outcomes, lower costs, and higher quality — in a word, “value.”

Founding dean emeritus of the nation’s first College of Population Health and the Dr. Raymond C. and Doris N. Grandon Professor of Health Policy at Jefferson, Dr. Nash has been a national voice for education, research, and innovation in quality, safety, and value-based care.

In 2021, Dr. Nash and his wife, Esther Nash, MD, deepened their commitment by creating the Drs. David and Es Nash Safety and Quality Awards — among the only such prizes nationwide that provide direct financial support to healthcare trainees. The awards recognize Jefferson students and trainees whose projects advance patient safety and care quality.

This year, a multidisciplinary committee reviewed dozens of submissions before selecting two winners and two runners-up for the Nash Awards:

• Tyler Wark, DO, Internal Medicine Resident, Lehigh Valley Hospital–Cedar Crest, received the Nash Quality Prize for improving nutrition therapy in patients with alcohol-related hepatitis. His initiative increased appropriate nutrition from 2% to 46%, reducing readmissions and mortality.
• Henry Lam, DO, GI Fellow, Lehigh Valley Hospital–Cedar Crest, earned runner-up honors for eliminating inappropriate hospital use of fecal occult blood testing, cutting utilization by more than 30% without compromising outcomes.
• Michele Sheaffer, RPh, Assistant Director of Pharmacy, Jefferson Abington, and Michelle Stafford, Assistant Director of Pharmacy, Jefferson Lansdale, won the Nash Safety Prize for reducing controlled-substance waste and diversion risk, achieving up to a 92% reduction in high-risk medications.
• Nico Lastauskas, PharmD, M.Eng, Medication History Tech and Pharmacy Intern, Jefferson Einstein Montgomery, was named runner-up for improving pre-surgical medication reconciliation, preventing delays and enhancing patient safety.

Reflecting on the legacy of the awards, Dr. Nash noted: “In one practice lifetime, look at all that we’ve accomplished here, together. Today, Jefferson is a national leader in the scholarship and application of quality and safety. Imagine what we will do next.”