Tomorrow, I’m really looking forward to heading to Monterey, California to speak on behalf of the Emily Jerry Foundation at the Pacific Coast Patient Safety Conference, hosted by the California Society of Health – System Pharmacists.
But today is even more meaningful, in that its caused me to really reflect on this journey I’ve been on for so many years.
Today we celebrate Emily’s heavenly birthday. She would be 22 years old. Seventeen years ago, when I first established the Emily Jerry Foundation, I never imagined this would become my life’s work. It’s certainly not a conventional career path. Yet I have been given the profound privilege of collaborating with some of the most dedicated clinician caregivers in the world, pharmacists, technicians, nurses, physicians, safety leaders, all united by one shared mission: preventing the preventable.
On Thursday, I’ll be sharing Emily Jerry’s story in my presentation, “From Tragedy to Triumph: Mitigating the Risk of Human Error to Save Lives,” and participating on a regulatory panel discussion examining the role regulations play in advancing patient safety across our healthcare systems.
Human error is inherent in healthcare. It is also at the root cause of virtually every preventable medication error, including the one that took Emily’s life in 2006.
The solution is not perfection from people. The solution is building high reliability systems, processes, and protocols that protect both patients and caregivers.
This work certainly hasn’t been easy. But if there is just one more student, one more pharmacist, one more clinician caregiver who needs to hear Emily’s story and the valuable lessons learned, I will keep showing up. Because this isn’t just another job….It’s a calling!
Last Updated: February 24, 2026 by ejfadmin
Happy Heavenly 22nd Birthday Emily + Upcoming Pacific Coast Patient Safety Conference
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Our Mission
The Emily Jerry Foundation is determined to help make our nation’s, world renowned, medical facilities safer for everyone, beginning with our babies and children. We are accomplishing this very important objective by focusing on increasing public awareness of key patient safety related issues and identifying technology and best practices that are proven to minimize the “human error” component of medicine. Through our ongoing efforts The Emily Jerry Foundation is working hard to save lives every day.
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