Authorized Official · PSO P0268
Dr. Gurpreet Singh Padda, MD, MBA, MHP
Authorized Official, CareGuard (PSO P0268).
Dr. Padda is the Authorized Official of CareGuard — the role the Patient Safety Act assigns to the person responsible for certifying a Patient Safety Organization’s compliance to AHRQ — and the point of contact on the federal listing for PSO P0268.
He is a physician in St. Louis with more than three decades in practice, board certified in anesthesiology, interventional pain, addiction medicine, obesity medicine and pain medicine. His National Provider Identifier is 1427035955.
He is not an operator of the facilities CareGuard reviews and holds no position in any of them.
What clinical positions does CareGuard work from?
CareGuard’s programs are not neutral about medication in long-term care, and it is worth saying whose clinical judgment they rest on.
- Deprescribing is critical in older adults, and it is a discipline with named tools — the AGS Beers Criteria, STOPP/START v3 (2023), STOPPFrail — rather than an improvisation. Deprescribing for health optimization.
- Overuse of antihypertensives is a major contributor to falls in older adults, through orthostatic hypotension, with the morbidity and mortality that follows a fracture or a head injury. Blood pressure medication and falls.
- Statin use is associated with new-onset type 2 diabetes, which is on the FDA label and is a trade-off to weigh rather than a reason to stop. Statins and new-onset diabetes.
- Restraints, chemical or physical, are a failure of care planning rather than a clinical tool. Restraint-free care.
Why does CareGuard exist?
In his own words, on why CareGuard exists: there is a tremendous disconnect between a local site manager and the facility ownership or the administrative ownership that may be off site — and the reporting channel is designed to move what is seen in the building to the people who can act on it, quickly, before a problem gets out of control. The visibility gap.
Elsewhere
What is Dr. Padda board certified in?
Dr. Padda holds five board certifications and the professional affiliations below. CareGuard does not issue credentials of any kind; these are his.
Published research. His peer-reviewed record is registered under ORCID 0009-0001-0166-3186 and indexed at PubMed, OpenAlex and Semantic Scholar. His biographical record is Wikidata Q141049117.
Find Dr. Padda Online
Frequently asked questions
Who is Dr. Gurpreet Singh Padda?
Dr. Gurpreet Singh Padda, MD, MBA, MHP is a St. Louis physician with more than three decades in practice. He is board certified in anesthesiology, interventional pain, addiction medicine, obesity medicine and pain medicine. He is the Authorized Official of CareGuard, the Patient Safety Organization listed by AHRQ as PSO P0268, and the point of contact on that federal listing.
What does the Authorized Official of a Patient Safety Organization do?
The Patient Safety Act gives the Authorized Official responsibility for certifying the organization’s compliance to AHRQ, the federal agency that lists Patient Safety Organizations. For CareGuard, PSO P0268, that person is Dr. Padda, and he is also the point of contact named on the federal listing. It is a compliance role, not a credential CareGuard hands out.
Does Dr. Padda own or run the facilities CareGuard reviews?
No. Dr. Padda is not an operator of any facility CareGuard reviews, and he holds no position in any of them. CareGuard reviews skilled nursing and assisted living facilities that other people own and run, and the reporting channel routes what people in the building see to that facility’s ownership and the attorneys ownership designates.
What is Dr. Padda’s position on medication in long-term care?
Medication burden in long-term care is usually higher than it needs to be. Deprescribing is critical in older adults and uses named tools: the AGS Beers Criteria, STOPP/START version 3 and STOPPFrail. Overuse of blood pressure medication is a major contributor to falls through orthostatic hypotension. Restraints, chemical or physical, are a failure of care planning, not a clinical tool.