John Meyer Eisenberg

Advocate of evidence based health care who led moves to reduce medical errors and improve patient safety

The death of John Eisenberg, who was director of the United States Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), leaves a void in the international healthcare research and quality movement. A man of seemingly boundless energy, John died from a brain tumour, first diagnosed over a year ago. Until the last few weeks of his life, he kept up a full workload, while his gracious family, friends, colleagues, coworkers, and people whom he had mentored in the United States and around the world came to see him.

During his tenure (1997-2002) as AHRQ head in what sadly proved the twilight of his life, John's accomplishments were amazingly multifaceted (www.ahrq.gov/news/jme/index.html). He enthusiastically built a rock-solid evidence based practice centre (EPC) programme. The programme got rolling shortly after he assumed his position. At the time of his death, 12 centres in the United States and Canada had generated 56 evidence reports.

As John envisaged these centres, they addressed areas in medicine marked …