Deb Franzon, MD, MHA, FCCM

Deborah Franzon, MD, MHA, FCCM serves as System Chief Quality & Safety Officer for Texas Children’s, where she is the principal physician leader responsible for advancing quality, safety and clinical performance excellence across the enterprise. In this system-wide role, Dr. Franzon partners with clinical, operational and administrative leaders across inpatient and ambulatory settings to strengthen a culture of high reliability, reduce preventable harm and ensure consistent, evidence-based care for patients and families.

A nationally respected pediatric critical care physician, Dr. Franzon brings more than a decade of progressive leadership experience in quality, safety and clinical operations at leading children’s hospitals, including UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospitals and Stanford Children’s Health, Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital. She is formally trained in Lean Healthcare and Institute for Healthcare Improvement methodologies and is known for her collaborative, data-driven approach to improvement and culture change.

Dr. Franzon earned her Doctor of Medicine degree from the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and completed her pediatrics residency and critical care fellowship at UC San Diego. She holds a Master of Health Care Administration from the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health and a bachelor’s degree in environmental sciences from the University of California, Berkeley. She is a Fellow of the American College of Critical Care Medicine and is actively involved in national quality and safety organizations, including the Children’s Hospital Association and Solutions for Patient Safety.

Personal Statement

I am passionate about bringing teams together to provide high-quality care that keeps our patients and family's experience and outcomes central to our mission. I believe a growth and improvement mindset helps me show up at my best for my colleagues and patients, leading with heart, modeling the way, and enabling and encouraging others to do the same.

Clinical Interests

Quality improvement, high reliability, implementation science, predictive modeling, bronchopulmonary dysplasia

Education

Organizations

Board Certification

Honors and awards

2025

Haile T. Debas Academy of Medical Educators, University of California, San Francisco

2025

Excellence and Innovation in Graduate Medical Education, University of California, San Francisco

2024

Delta Omega Honorary Society in Public Health, Iota Chapter, University of California, Los Angeles

* Texas Children’s Hospital physicians’ licenses and credentials are reviewed prior to practicing at any of our facilities. Sections titled From the Doctor, Professional Organizations and Publications were provided by the physician’s office and were not verified by Texas Children’s Hospital.

Research interests

Leveraging the electronic health record to drive improvement, predictive modeling in critical care, family engagement in quality and safety

Digitale J, Franzon D, Pletcher MJ, McCulloch CE, Gennatas ED. Methods for Addressing Missingness in Electronic Health Record Data for Clinical Prediction Models: Comparative Evaluation. JMIR Medical Informatics, 2025 Nov 14;13:e79307. doi: 10.2196/79307. PMID: 41237368; PMCID: PMC12617989

Digitale J, Franzon D, Ge J, McCulloch C, Pletcher MJ, Gennatas ED. Expert- augmented machine learning for predicting extubation readiness in the pediatric intensive care unit. BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making, 2025 Jul 1;25(1):232. doi: 10.1186/s12911-025-03070-z. PMID: 40597185; PMCID: PMC12220236

Morgan RW, Reeder RW, Carcillo JA, Carpenter TC, Fitzgerald JC, Graham K, Kilbaugh TJ, Meert KL, Nadkarni VM, Palmer CA, Sharron MP, Weiss SL, Wolfe HA, Ahmed T, Bell MJ, Bishop R, Burns C, Diddle JW, Fink EL, Franzon D, Frazier AH, Friess SH, Hehir DA, Horvat CM, Huard LL, Maa T, McQuillen PS, Mourani PM, Naim MY, Pollack MM, Sapru A, Srivastava N, Yates AR, Berg RA, Sutton RM; for the ICU-Resuscitation Project (ICU-RESUS) Investigators and the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Collaborative Pediatric Critical Care Research Network Investigators. Outcomes, Characteristics, and Physiology of In-Hospital Cardiac Arrest in Children With Sepsis. Critical Care Medicine, 2025 Aug 1;53(8):e1529-e1541. doi: 10.1097/CCM.0000000000006739. Epub 2025 Jun 25. PMID: 40558671; PMCID: PMC12286578

Siems A, Naim MY, Berg RA, Reeder RW, Ahmed T, Bell MJ, Bishop R, Bochkoris M, Burns C, Carcillo JA, Carpenter TC, Diddle JW, Federman M, Fernandez R, Fink EL, Franzon D, Frazier AH, Friess SH, Graham K, Hall M, Harding ML, Hehir DA, Horvat CM, Huard LL, Kilbaugh TJ, Maa T, Manga A, McQuillen PS, Meert KL, Mourani PM, Nadkarni VM, Notterman D, Pollack MM, Qunibi DW, Sapru A, Schneiter C, Sharron MP, Srivastava N, Tabbutt S, Tilford B, Viteri S, Wessel D, Wolfe HA, Yates AR, Zuppa AF, Morgan RW, Sutton RM. Association of Early Epinephrine with Hemodynamics and Outcome in Pediatric In-Hospital Cardiac Arrest: A Secondary Analysis of a Multicenter, Cluster-randomized Clinical Trial Intensive Care Unit Resuscitation (ICU-RESUS). Annals of the American Thoracic Society, 2025 Sep;22(9):1361-1371. doi: 10.1513/AnnalsATS.202408-825OC. PMID: 40466056; PMCID: PMC12416153

Yates AR, Hehir DA, Reeder RW, Berger JT, Fernandez R, Frazier AH, Graham K, McQuillen PS, Morgan RW, Nadkarni VM, Naim MY, Palmer CA, Wolfe HA, Berg RA, Sutton RM; ICU-RESUS; Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Collaborative Pediatric Critical Care Research Network Investigator Groups. Resuscitation arterial waveform quantification and outcomes in pediatric bidirectional Glenn and Fontan patients. Pediatric Research, 2025 May;97(6):1989-1996. doi: 10.1038/s41390-024-03564-y. Epub 2024 Sep 16. Erratum in: Pediatr Res. 2025 Apr;97(5):1758. doi: 10.1038/s41390-024-03749-5. PMID: 39284966; PMCID: PMC12122355

Nishisaki A, Reeder RW, McGovern EL, Ahmed T, Bell MJ, Bishop R, Bochkoris M, Burns C, Carcillo JA, Carpenter TC, Diddle W, Federman M, Fink EL, Franzon D, Frazier AH, Friess SH, Graham K, Hall M, Hehir DA, Horvat CM, Huard LL, Maa T, Manga A, McQuillen P, Meert KL, Morgan RW, Mourani PM, Nadkarni VM, Naim MY, Notterman D, Palmer CA, Sapru A, Schneiter C, Sharron MP, Srivastava N, Viteri S, Wessel D, Wolfe HA, Yates AR, Zuppa AF, Sutton RM, Berg RA. Brief report: incidence and outcomes of pediatric tracheal intubation-associated cardiac arrests in the ICU-RESUS clinical trial. Critical Care, 2024 Aug 30;28(1):286. doi: 10.1186/s13054-024-05065-0. PMID: 39215367; PMCID: PMC11365269

Ju M, Bochatay N, Werne A, Essakow J, Tsang L, Nottingham M, Franzon D, Lyndon A, van Schaik S. Changing the conversation: impact of guidelines designed to optimize interprofessional facilitation of simulation-based team training. Advances in Simulation (London), 2024 Oct 12;9(1):43. doi: 10.1186/s41077-024-00313-3. PMID: 39394595; PMCID: PMC11476600