Patricia Folcarelli, MA, PhD

Pat Folcarelli, RN, MA, PhD, is the senior vice president for patient care services and the chief nursing officer at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. Pat is the former vice president for patient safety at CRICO, the insurance captive for the 35 Harvard-affiliated institutions. In her CRICO role, Pat assists with strategic and operational patient safety solutions. Pat is a part-time lecturer in Medicine at Harvard Medical School (HMS) and, for the past five years, has co-directed a course on Patient and Family Engagement in Quality and Safety for the master’s in healthcare quality and safety at HMS.  

Prior to joining CRICO in 2020, Dr. Folcarelli worked in various roles at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) for more than 30 years, most recently until the fall of 2020 as the vice president for health care quality. In addition to roles in health care quality, Pat served as the director for professional practice development for patient care services.

Pat received her BS in Nursing from Hunter College of the City University of NY and earned both her MA and PhD from New York University. She serves on the PNQIN (Perinatal Quality Improvement Network) advisory board, the Quality and Safety Board for Mercy, a health system in St. Louis, MO, and the Board Subcommittee for Quality and Safety Committee of Baystate Health. Pat is also the former co-chair of MACRMI (Massachusetts Alliance for Communication and Resolution Following Medical Injury), which recently became a part of the Betsy Lehman Center. She has also served on the Board of the Massachusetts Coalition for the Prevention of Medical Errors, is the past chair of MITTS (Medically Induced Trauma Support Services), and is the past president of the Massachusetts Society for Healthcare Risk Management.