Steve Burrows is a comedic storyteller – a writer, director and performer who has been entertaining audiences in film, television, commercials, and theatre for 25 years. In 2009, in an abrupt career change, Burrows dropped out of show business to take care of his mother, Judie, who had gone in for a routine partial hip replacement and came out in a coma with permanent brain damage. The difficult years that followed – fighting for his Mom’s life and for medical and legal justice – became Burrows latest feature, the award-winning, critically acclaimed HBO documentary film: BLEED OUT.

Currently, Burrows is working on several feature film and television projects. In honor of his Mom, he has also become a fierce patient safety activist.

L. Bradley Schwartz is a Chicago medical malpractice attorney who almost died after a series of communication breakdowns in a hospital emergency room. Brad entered the hospital feeling slightly lethargic with a worsening headache. Almost twelve hours later, he was comatose and on life support. He woke up a month later to learn his limbs needed to be amputated because his entire medical team had missed all the early warning signs of sepsis.

It soon became Brad’s personal mission to make sure every patient’s voice is heard, because in his case, it wasn’t. He founded Greater National Advocates, a national network of Independent Patient Advocates who have the experience and ability to step in and help prevent medical errors before they happen. GNANOW.ORG is an expansive national online directory of patient and health care advocates who offer immediate support for patients and loved ones struggling to manage a healthcare crisis.

Carol Coven Grannick is a poet, children’s author, and former clinical social worker in healthcare and private practice. Her non-writing life includes a commitment to becoming an informed consumer of healthcare and a patient advocate. In November of 2013, she had to use her knowledge and a strength she didn’t realize she had, to save her husband’s life when a simple aortic valve replacement went haywire. For 7-1/2 weeks, Grannick advocated in multiple areas of patient safety—including lack of communication, infection control, lab results, need for consultation, erratic personal care, and an overall assumption that the patient would die. Her husband ended up fighting for his life during a four-month recovery, which might not have occurred if it wasn’t for the family’s vigilant monitoring of unsafe practices. In rehab, Carol’s husband relearned how to walk, speak, and write. Carol will talk about the role she and her sister played as his advocates and protectors during months of preventable medical errors.

Marty Hatlie, President and CEO for Project Patient Care, a safety and quality improvement coalition, has spent over twenty years dedicated to patient safety using the voice of the patient to improve care. The Project Patient Care mission is to mobilize the diverse healthcare stakeholders in metropolitan Chicago to provide the best possible care to every patient by eliminating preventable harm and implementing systemic change to ensure consistent excellence.

Hatlie also serves as Co-Director of the MedStar Institute for Quality & Safety, which integrates open and honest communication strategies along with patient and family engagement. Hatlie is a founding member of Patients for Patient Safety US, the World Health Organization’s consumer led network of patient safety advocates in the United States. He has been active for over 25 years in health system transformation work on projects funded by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Agency for Healthcare Research & Quality and Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute.