Behaviors that Undermine a Culture of Safety

Grena Porto

Grena Porto serves as a Client Executive in Marsh USA Inc's  Philadelphia office.  As such, she is responsible for identifying and analyzing her clients’ exposure to risk, monitoring operational changes which affect risk management needs, managing the placement of all insurance coverages and coordinating the deployment of Marsh resources.  Grena also serves as Senior Consultant in Marsh Risk Consulting, helping clients with issues related to patient safety, risk management and quality improvement, and specializes in helping clients implement crew resource management-based teamwork models and other patient safety strategies. She is a licensed producer in the state of Pennsylvania.

Before joining Marsh in March 2007, Ms Porto was founder and principal of QRS Healthcare Consulting, LLC, a firm that specialized in providing customized consulting support to clients in patient safety, risk management and related areas.  From 1994 to 2001, Grena was employed by VHA, Inc., first as Director of Loss Prevention, working with a 14-member group captive on healthcare loss prevention activities and assisting in overall captive management, and later as Sr. Director, responsible for directing large projects for VHA’s healthcare consulting division.  Grena’s prior experience includes positions as regional claims manager for a large surplus lines insurer, director of risk management at a 500-bed academic medical center and claims analyst for a national third-party administrator.  Grena began her career as a registered nurse.

Ms Porto earned her bachelor of science in nursing and a master’s in health administration from the State University of New York at Stony Brook.  She holds the designations of Associate in Risk Management (ARM) and Certified Professional in Healthcare Risk Management (CPHRM). She has held various leadership roles healthcare risk management and patient safety, having served as President of the American Society for Healthcare Risk Management (ASHRM) and a member of the board of directors for the National Patient Safety Foundation (NPSF).  She currently serves on the Joint Commission’s Sentinel Event Advisory Group, which is responsible for developing the National Patient Safety Goals.  Grena has published and lectured extensively in the fields of risk management and patient safety.