Page 7 - Program - White Coat September 2024

Dr. Thomas Peterson has been developing and leading HRO safety ef-
forts in healthcare for the past 20 years. Currently, Dr. Peterson is Vice
President, Chief Safety Officer for Trinity Health System headquartered in
Livonia, MI. Trinity Health is one of the largest healthcare systems in the
United States. It is a non-profit health system with annual revenues of
$21.5 billion consisting of 102 hospitals, 135 continuing care sites, over
26,000 providers, 136 urgent care locations, over 120,000 employees, in
28 states. In his role with the new core value of safety at Trinity Health he
is leading the development of their new HRO/Zero Harm journey for the
system called TogetherSafe. He also oversees all patient, colleague, long-term care resident,
provider, and ambulatory safety for Trinity Health System.
Prior to this role Dr. Peterson has led national, statewide, and local HRO program development at
Children’s and adult hospitals, rural and urban health systems, and academic and community-
based hospitals. A key focus of his safety work has been the “one safety” approach of both pa-
tient and employee safety as one effort.
Dr. Peterson has designed or helped lead many safety training programs and collaboratives in
both patient and employee safety as well. These efforts have trained over 2,500 participants in
high reliability and safety. He has designed and taught safety curriculums at medical schools,
nursing schools, and residency programs.
Dr. Peterson has also been active in community health promotion/population health efforts for 30
years receiving state and national recognitions for his efforts in tobacco control, community activ-
ism, wellness programs, and childhood obesity prevention. Over the past 30 years, Dr. Peterson
has spoken to over 135,000 school children on the dangers of tobacco use, vaping, obesity and
healthy lifestyles. He has worked with universities, medical and nursing schools, businesses, city
and state governments, communities, academies, hospitals, leadership organizations, and many
other organizations in community health efforts, tobacco control, population health, and patient
and employee safety.
Dr. Peterson is Clinical Associate Professor at Michigan State University College of Human
Medicine. He is a member of many professional organizations.

“AUC provided me with the opportunity to realize my life-long dream of
being a physician, as well as the many opportunities in my career that
have come from that. My AUC experience was a long time ago, but
the program was then and still is a solid one with accreditation in the
U.S. and the great opportunity to do U.S. based clinical training. Living
internationally is an added experience I will forever be grateful for.”

Tom Peterson, MD, FAAP