Blair L Sadler, Esq is a Senior Fellow at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement. He is an Associate Clinical Professor of the UCSD School of Medicine and an Executive in Residence at the UCSD Rady School of Management. He served as President and CEO of Rady Children’s Hospital in San Diego from July 1980 until July 2006. Under his leadership, Rady Children’s was the first pediatric hospital in the United States to win the Ernest A. Codman Award for its work in developing clinical pathways. He gave the Commencement Address at the 2005 UCSD Medical School graduation on the health care quality revolution and the implications for hospitals and academic medical education. He speaks widely to healthcare Boards of Trustees about their new role in patient safety and quality.

As a longstanding member of the Board of the Center for Health Design, he has been heavily involved in developing the business case for building better hospitals through evidence - based design. He was the founder of the Center’s Pebble program – a collaborative effort to identify, support and disseminate the work of pioneering organizations throughout the world in evidence - based design.

He has consulted with several health systems throughout the world regarding building optimally safe and low stress hospitals through evidence - based design. These include Australia, Norway, Canada and the United Kingdom. He has written several comprehensive articles on the newest business case for evidence based design (both adult and pediatric) that appeared in several journals and books in July 2008. He is a frequent speaker on the topic at major meetings including the Annual Forum of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement. He is the founder of the Blair L. Sadler International Healing Arts Awards Competition in partnership with the Society of the Arts in Health Care.

Previously, he served as a medical-legal specialist for the National Institutes of Health, on the faculty at Yale University, as a senior officer at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and as a senior executive at the Scripps Clinic and Research Foundation. He received the Award of Merit from the California Hospital Association for Distinguished Lifetime Service and Achievement.