Rev. Bruce L. Hanson is a retired rural parish pastor who served five rural parishes in Wisconsin, Illinois, Minnesota, and Iowa. He was a caregiver for his late wife (Connie) for more than 47 years. Along with caring for his wife, a diabetic who experienced a kidney transplant, a stroke, breast cancer, and seizures, Pastor Bruce has participated in numerous volunteer opportunities such as being an Emergency Medical Technician for almost thirty years as well as a Hospital, Police and Prison Chaplain.

Pastor Bruce has volunteered and been a representative for various patient-centered organizations, such as the National Patient Advocacy Foundation (NPAF), which provides a patient voice in improving access to and reimbursement for high quality health care through regulatory and legislative reform at the state and federal levels. He has served on the Advisory Panel for Patient Engagement at the Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI), addressing disparities, patient engagement, improving health care systems, and assessment of prevention, diagnosis, and treatment options. Because of his special interest in rural health care issues, Pastor Bruce was a presenter for “The Power of Partnership in Research: Improving Healthcare Outcomes in Rural Settings” for PCORI.

Regionally, Pastor Hanson has been a member of the board at Chicago Partners Patient Engagement Cluster, and is also the Director of the Great River Patient Engagement Cluster (GRPEC), which he founded, and works to develop patient engagement in and through the various clinics and care facilities that are a part of the rural northeast Iowa, rural southwest Minnesota, and rural southwest Wisconsin areas.

On a national level, Pastor Bruce has served as a member with the American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM) Committee on Critical Care sub-group, the Health Services Advisory Group (HSAG), a technical Expert for the 2018 Impact Assessment of CMS Quality and Efficiency Measures on the Technical Expert Panel (TEP), the Federal Assessment Steering Committee (FASC), among other projects. He has also actively participated in several national conferences such as the CareAlign Project for Hartford Medical School, as well as a conference on “Models of Care for High-Need Patients” at the National Academy of Medicine in Washington DC.

At the University of Iowa, Pastor Bruce serves as a member of the University of Iowa Institute for Clinical and Translational Science stakeholder advisory board and the HIT-PFCA that is working on the development of Open Notes and the Patient Portal.