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Professor Mary Dixon-Woods

Director

Mary Dixon-Woods is Director of THIS Institute and The Health Foundation Professor of Healthcare Improvement Studies in the Department of Public Health and Primary Care at the University of Cambridge.

A Professorial Fellow at Homerton College, Cambridge, she is also a fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences and the Academy of Medical Sciences, an honorary fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, the Royal College of General Practitioners, and the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. She was an NIHR Senior Investigator 2017-2022.

Mary served on England’s National Advisory Group on the Safety of Patients in England, which produced the Berwick report in 2013. She also served on the review of information technology in the NHS led by Professor Bob Wachter, which reported in 2016. She was a Wellcome Trust Senior Investigator 2012-2019. Mary was the Harveian Orator for the Royal College of Physicians in 2018, the 500th anniversary of the College’s founding. She is a member of the BMJ’s international advisory board.

Research Interests

Mary’s programme of research is concerned with generating a high quality evidence-base to support improvement in the organisation, quality and safety of healthcare. Characteristically using mixed-methods approaches, her work focuses on evaluation of quality and safety improvement interventions and programmes, culture and behaviour in health systems, and regulation and governance of health research and care. She has a special interest in methodological innovation in the study of healthcare improvement.

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