David Baker

David P. Baker is a senior vice president at AIR. He provides oversight for AIR’s Health Division, which consists of over 200 staff with expertise in health care policy, patient and family engagement, value-based reimbursement, Medicare and Medicaid, program evaluation, and knowledge translation, to name a few.

Dr. Baker is a nationally recognized expert in team performance, training, and measurement, and the critical roles teams play in high-risk industries like health care, the military, and aviation. This work has involved conducting national surveys, developing training programs, designing assessment instruments, evaluating program effectiveness, and identifying best practices. He is known for his work on the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality’s (AHRQ) TeamSTEPPS® program, which has been implemented in health care organizations throughout the world.

Dr. Baker has twenty years of experience working with a wide range of clients including the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, TriCARE Management Activity, Federal Aviation Administration, the U.S. Departments of Defense, Education, and the Navy, and the NASA Ames Research Center. He has also consulted with a number of hospitals within the U.S. and abroad on issues related to teamwork and care delivery. Finally, he has worked extensively with various domestic airlines on teamwork, simulation-based training, and team performance measurement issues.

Prior to leading AIR’s Health Division, Dr. Baker led the Health Program at IMPAQ International. He also has held roles as the director of the Heath Services Research Institute at Carilion Clinic and appointments as an associate professor on the founding faculty of the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine, as a principal research scientist at AIR, and a research psychologist with the U.S. Navy. He is a fellow of Division 14 of the American Psychological Association, and has published and/or presented more than 100 papers on his work.