Heather Foster, RN
Patient Safety Champion
National Caregiver Advocate

Heather Foster is a practicing nurse in Colorado who has championed the cause of patient and caregiver safety with great courage and faith after her patient died a preventable death.  She receives the Pete Conrad Global Patient Safety Award for her steadfast support of speaking truth to power, for championing patient safety at great personal risk, and for representing the masses of frontline caregivers who feel at personal risk and powerless to stand up for their patients.  She is one of expert advisors to The Healthcare Innocence Project, a program founded on the principles of the Innocence Project which 25 years ago pioneered using a “new technology” of DNA testing to help exonerate the wrongly convicted. The Healthcare Innovation Project uses the currently “new technology” of electronic medical and human resources records that can be used to protect patients, caregivers, and their families from error and administrative fraud.  Heather Foster is developing educational resources to help caregivers deal with preventable adverse events, ethical human resources best practices relating to frontline caregivers, and case studies in healthcare ethics related to governance interactions with frontline caregivers. Working with global educators, she is helping developing programs to help other caregivers like her deal with some of healthcare’s most challenging problems in patient and caregiver safety.