2015 ANNUAL QUALITY CONGRESS PLENARY SESSION FACULTY
Atul Butte MD, PhD
Director
Institute for Computational
Health Sciences
Professor of Pediatrics
University of California
San Francisco, CA
Dr. Atul Butte is the Director of the new Institute for Computational Health Sciences (ICHS) at the University of
California, San Francisco, and a Professor of Pediatrics. Dr. Butte trained in Computer Science at Brown University,
worked as a software engineer at Apple and Microsoft, received his MD at Brown University, trained in Pediatrics
and Pediatric Endocrinology at Children's Hospital Boston, then received his PhD from Harvard Medical School and
MIT. Dr. Butte has authored nearly 200 publications, with research repeatedly featured in Wired Magazine, the
New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. Dr. Butte is also the principal investigator of ImmPort, the archival
and dissemination repository for clinical and molecular datasets funded by the National Institute of Allergy and
Infectious Diseases. In 2013, Dr. Butte was recognized by the White House as an Open Science Champion of
Change for promoting science through publicly available data. Other recent awards include the 2014 E. Mead
Johnson Award for Research in Pediatrics, 2013 induction into the American Society for Clinical Investigation, the
2012 FierceBiotech IT “Top 10 Biotech Techies”, and the 2011 National Human Genome Research Institute
Genomic Advance of the Month. Dr. Butte is also a founder of three investor-backed data-driven companies:
Personalis, providing clinical interpretation of whole genome sequences; Carmenta, discovering diagnostics for
pregnancy complications; and, NuMedii, finding new uses for drugs through open molecular data.
Gorm Ole Greisen DrMedSci
Professor and Consultant Neonatologist
Department of Neonatology
Rigshospitalet and Copenhagen University
Copenhagen, Denmark
Dr. Gorm Greisen is a Clinical Professor of Pediatrics at the Institute for Klinisk Medicine and
consultant neonatologist at the Department of Neonatology at the Juliane Marie Centre,
Rigshospitalet. Dr. Greisen’s program of research focuses on the causes of brain injury in preterm infants, cerebral
blood flow and cerebral oxygenation as well as neurodevelopmental outcomes in preterm infants for thirty years.
Recent publications have focused on the impact of vasopressors on cerebral oxygenation in the piglet model. He is
currently engaged in an A phase II randomized clinical trial on cerebral near-infrared spectroscopy plus a treatment
guideline versus treatment as usual, for extremely preterm infants during the first three days of life (SafeBoosC).
James I. Hagadorn MD, MSc
Assistant Professor of Pediatrics
UCONN School of Medicine
Attending Neonatologist
Connecticut Children’s Medical Center
Hartford, CT
Dr. Hagadorn graduated from the School of Medicine at the University of North Carolina at
Chapel Hill, trained in Pediatrics at the University of Virginia and in Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine
at Stanford University. He was on the faculty of the Dartmouth Medical School and at the Tufts University School
of Medicine before taking his current position in the Division of Neonatology at the University of
Connecticut/Connecticut Children's Medical Center. Dr. Hagadorn has served as principal investigator or senior
investigator on multicenter studies examining maintenance of desired oxygen saturation range in extremely low
birth weight infants, mathematical modeling of risk for development or progression of retinopathy of prematurity,
trends in treatment and mortality for congenital diaphragmatic hernia, and use of Vr human breast milk. He has
taught study design, database programming, data management, statistical analysis and ethics of human subjects
research to undergraduates, medical students, and physicians at all levels of training.
Jeffrey D. Horbar MD
Chief Executive and Scientific Officer
Vermont Oxford Network
Jerold F. Lucey Professor of Neonatal Medicine
University of Vermont
Burlington, VT
Dr. Jeffrey Horbar is a board-certified neonatologist and clinical scientist with extensive
experience in clinical research and its application to the improvement of neonatal care. He is
currently the Jerold F. Lucey Professor of Neonatal Medicine at the University of Vermont College of Medicine,
Chief Executive and Scientific Officer of Vermont Oxford Network and Co-Editor of the Neonatal Review Group of
the Cochrane Collaboration. Dr. Horbar has been responsible for the development of the Vermont Oxford
Network Database which is used by over 950 NICUs around the world to monitor and improve outcomes for high
risk infants and their families.
Stephen F. Kingsmore MB, ChB, BAO, DSc, FRCPath
Executive Director
Center for Pediatric Genomic Medicine
Children's Mercy Hospital
Kansas City, MO
Dr. Stephen F. Kingsmore is the Dee Lyons/Missouri Endowed Chair in Genomic Medicine at
the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Medicine, and Executive Director of Medical
Panomics at Children’s Mercy – Kansas City, where he is building scalable methods for pediatric genomic/precision
medicine. Previously Dr. Kingsmore was the founding Director of the Center for Pediatric Genomic Medicine at
CM-KC, CEO of the National Center for Genome Resources, COO of Molecular Staging Inc., Vice President of
Research at CuraGen Corporation, founder of GatorGen, and Assistant Professor at the University of Florida’s
School of Medicine. Dr. Kingsmore received MB ChB BAO and DSc degrees from the Queen’s University of Belfast.
He trained in clinical immunology in Northern Ireland and did residency in internal medicine and fellowship at
Duke University Medical Center. He is a fellow of the Royal College of Pathologists. He was a MedScape Physician
of the year in 2012, and received the 2013 Scripps Genomic Medicine award and 2013 ILCHUN prize of the Korean
Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. TIME magazine ranked his rapid genome diagnosis method one of
the top 10 medical breakthroughs of 2012.
Christopher P. Landrigan MD, MPH
Research Director
Boston Children's Hospital Inpatient
Pediatrics Service
Director, Sleep and Patient Safety Program
Brigham and Women's Hospital
Associate Professor of Pediatrics and Medicine
Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA
Christopher P. Landrigan, MD, MPH is Research Director of the Inpatient Pediatrics Service at Boston Children’s
Hospital, Director of the Sleep and Patient Safety Program at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and Associate
Professor of Pediatrics and Medicine at Harvard Medical School. Chris did his internship, residency, and fellowship
at Boston Children’s from 1995-2000, and has been working at Boston Children’s Hospital ever since, as a pediatric
hospitalist and patient safety researcher. In addition, Chris was the founding chair and is currently an Executive
Council Member of the Pediatric Research in Inpatient Settings (PRIS) Network, a collaboration of over 100
pediatric hospitals, which has conducted a series of major multi-center research and improvement projects in
pediatric hospitals.
Chris has led numerous landmark studies on the epidemiology of medical errors and adverse events, and
interventions designed to reduce their incidence. His most important work has been focused on developing
reliable patient safety measurement tools, and improving the organization of residency programs and academic
medical centers. His work on the relationship between resident work hours, sleep, and patient safety contributed
to national changes in resident work hour standards. More recently, concerned with improving communication in
hospitals, he led the development of I-PASS, a multi-faceted teamwork and handoff improvement program. He
has authored over 100 publications in the medical literature, including more than a dozen in the New England
Journal of Medicine and JAMA. He has received numerous awards for his research, teaching, leadership, and
innovation.
Amir Lahav ScD
Assistant Professor of Pediatrics
Harvard Medical School
Boston, MA
Visiting Professor/Scientist
Women & Infants Hospital
Providence, RI
Amir Lahav is an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School with faculty
appointments at Mass General Hospital for Children and Harvard School of Public Health. He
is currently a Visiting Professor in the Department of Pediatrics at Women & Infants Hospital at Brown University.
Dr. Lahav received his Doctor of Science degree in Health & Rehabilitation Sciences from Boston University. Dr.
Lahav’s work is focused on the effects of hospital noise and womb-like sounds on the developing brain, with a
special interest in the acoustic design of the neonatal intensive care unit. Dr. Lahav’s research aims to determine
the impact of early exposure to mother’s voice on brain mechanisms that support stress, language, cognition, and
attention.
Carolyn Lund RN, MS, FAAN
Neonatal Clinical Nurse Specialist
Children’s Hospital, Oakland
Associate Clinical Professor, UCSF
San Francisco, CA
Carolyn Lund has been a Neonatal Clinical Specialist in the NICU at Children's Hospital Oakland
for over 30 years, and is also an Associate Clinical Professor at the University of California, San
Francisco. As the science team leader for the evidence-based practice project on neonatal skin care for the
Association of Women’s Health, Obstetrics and Neonatal Nurses and the National Association of Neonatal Nurses,
the Neonatal Skin Care Guideline was first developed and then evaluated in 51 nurseries in the US in 2001. She
also served as team leader on the revision of guidelines in 2007, and the current revision which is due for
completion. She has contributed to knowledge of neonatal skin care through original research in the areas of skin
maturation, skin integrity and adhesive damage, and how bathing affects the newborn’s skin barrier function and
the skin microbiome.
Carolyn McGregor AM, PhD, SMIEEE
Canada Research Chair
Health Informatics
Professor Faculty of Business and IT
University of Ontario Institute of Technology
Oshawa, Ontario, Canada
Professor Carolyn McGregor is the Canada Research Chair in Health Informatics at the
University of Ontario Institute of Technology, Canada. Dr McGregor has led pioneering
research in Big Data, analytics, event stream processing, temporal data stream data mining, business process
modelling, patient journey modelling and cloud computing. In the 1990s she led two of the earliest business
analytics implementations in Australia for one of the largest banks and the largest retailer. In 1999 she
commenced research with a neonatologist from a neonatal ICU in Australia and has continued to propose new and
innovative approaches for the use of information technology in neonatal intensive care and specifically the
application of Big Data techniques to neonatal intensive care. She established and leads the Artemis Project, a Big
Data solution for neonatal intensive care to demonstrate new data intensive solutions for conditions such as late
onset neonatal sepsis, neonatal apnea and spells, retinopathy of prematurity and anemia of prematurity. Her new
work also uses Big Data techniques to assess the impact of morphine on the premature neonate. She now
progresses her research within the context of critical care medicine, mental health, astronaut health and military
and civilian tactical training. She has been awarded over $10 million in research, consultancy and infrastructure
funding. She has led the establishment of two IT start-up companies internationally and has published over 130
research publications and 7 patents internationally. She has extensive collaborative relationships with healthcare
organizations, researchers and industry in several countries around the world including Canada, Australia, USA,
China and Ireland. In 2013 her Artemis project was awarded the Information Technology Association of Canada
(ITAC) Ingenious Award in the Not for Profit Category. In 2014 she was awarded membership in the Order of
Australia, general division, for significant service to science and innovation through health care information
systems. She is regularly called upon by the media as an international specialist in health informatics and Big Data.
Biren P. Modi MD
Instructor in Surgery
Associate Surgical Director, Center for Advanced Intestinal Rehabilitation
Department of Surgery, Boston Children's Hospital
Harvard Medical School
Boston, MA
Biren Modi MD is an Instructor in Surgery and Associate Surgical Director at Boston
Children’s Hospital, Center for Advanced Intestinal Rehabilitation. He is intermittently involved in weekly
Department of Surgery teaching conferences and has been a speaker for continuing education lectures on
pediatric surgery and retinopathy.
Dr. Modi is a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics, Section on Surgery, Publications Committee and is
an ad-hoc reviewer for the Journal of Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition, the Journal of Pediatric Surgery, and the
Journal of Surgical Education and holds several department and hospital administrative roles at Boston Children’s
Hospital.
Sarroj Saigal MD, FRCP (C)
Professor Emerita Pediatrics
McMaster University
Pediatrician
Neonatal Follow-up Program
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Dr. Saroj Saigal obtained her medical degree and pediatric training in India. She did her neonatal
fellowship at the Universities of Edinburgh, McGill, and McMaster, and joined the pediatric faculty at McMaster
University, Division of Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine, as a neonatologist in 1973, and was the Director of the
Neonatal Follow-up Program for high-risk infants (1973 -2013). Dr. Saigal has been Professor of Pediatrics since
1984, and is currently Professor Emerita at McMaster, and continues to run the follow-up clinic as well as her
ongoing research. Dr. Saigal and her colleagues have followed one of the few population-based cohorts of
extremely low birthweight infants longitudinally from infancy to adulthood, and she has published extensively on
the same. She and her collaborators have now completed a further follow-up study on their mental health and
cardiovascular and metabolic sequelae at a mean age of 32 years. Dr. Saigal has been involved as a collaborator in
several perinatal clinical trials. She is also the co-founder of ‘Adults born Preterm International Collaboration’
(APIC), a network that facilitates collaboration and sharing of data with investigators interested in the long-term
health and disease of this vulnerable population. Dr Saigal has held several leadership positions in the Canadian
Pediatric Society. She is the recipient of many awards, among them: the Senior Scientist Career Award from the
Canadian Institutes of Health Research (2000-2005); the Canadian Pediatric Society’s prestigious Distinguished
Neonatologist Award, the Society’s highest award for neonatology (2005); the Landmark Award from the Section
of Perinatal Pediatrics of the American Academy of Pediatrics (2009); and the Douglas K. Richardson Award from
the American Society for Pediatric Research (2011), for her lifetime achievement as a clinical investigator who has
made substantive contributions to Perinatal and Pediatric Healthcare Research. Dr. Saigal is internationally
recognized for her studies that focus on the quality of life and consequences of having been born extremely
prematurely. She has recently published a book for a general audience, “Preemie Voices,” a collection of letters
that provides a description of life from the perspectives of adults who were born very prematurely (Friesen Press,
November 2014).
Barbara K. Schmidt MD, FRCP. MSc
Professor of Pediatrics
Kristine Sandberg Knisely Chair
In Neonatology
Senior Scholar, Center for Clinical
Epidemiology and Biostatistics
University of Pennsylvania
Perelman School of Medicine
Staff Neonatologist
Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia
Philadelphia, PA
Barbara K. Schmidt MD, FRCP. MSc is a Professor of Pediatrics and Kristine Sandberg Knisely Chair in Neonatology,
Senior Scholar, Center for Clinical Epidemiology & Biostatistics, University of Pennsylvania, Perelman School of
Medicine, Philadelphia, PA and Staff Neonatologist, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. She is the PI of the
Canadian Oxygen Trial, which examined the efficacy and safety of targeting lower arterial oxygen saturations to
reduce oxygen toxicity and oxidative stress in 1200 extremely preterm infants.
David W. Sink MD
Assistant Professor of Pediatrics
U Conn School of Medicine
Attending Neonatologist
Connecticut Children’s Medical Center
Hartford, CT
David Sink MD is an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at the U Conn School of Medicine and
Connecticut Children’s Medical Center where he serves as Medical Director of the U Conn
Health Center NICU. He is board certified in Neonatal Perinatal Medicine and General
Pediatrics by the American Board of Pediatrics. His interests include clinical research and quality improvement. He
has conducted single and multicenter studies using continuous electronic oximetry data to examine the
relationships between oxygen saturation targeting success and modifiable clinical practices, such as nurse staffing
and clinical alarm management. He has also led quality improvement initiatives in multiple NICUs using alarm audit
data and electronic oximetry data from a variety of clinical monitors. He is currently serving on the Alarm Fatigue
Committee at Connecticut Children’s, working with nurses, respiratory therapists, pharmacists, biomedical
engineers, and information technologists to improve clinical alarm management throughout the medical center.
Rosemary White-Traut RN, PhD, FAAN
Director of Nursing Research
Children's Hospital of Wisconsin
Professor Emerita
Department of Women,
Children and Family Health Science
University of Illinois at Chicago College of Nursing
Chicago, IL
Rosemary C. White-Traut, PhD, RN, FAAN, is the director of Nursing Research at Children's Hospital of Wisconsin
Research Institute. Prior to coming to the Research Institute, she served as department head of Women, Children
and Family Health Science at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Dr. White-Traut and her research team have
developed and tested autonomic, neuro-hormonal, and behavioral responses of premature and full term infants to
developmental intervention. The ATVV intervention, provides auditory stimuli via female human voice; tactile
stimuli via moderate touch stroking; visual stimuli in the form of eye-to-eye contact; and vestibular stimuli via
rocking. She has documented more optimal patterns of maternal-infant interaction, improved feeding progression,
enhanced behavioral states, and reduced hospital stay, and reduced stress levels (measured by salivary cortisol)
after infants received the ATVV intervention. Dr. White-Traut has also evaluated maternal and infant responses to
the H-HOPE intervention which integrates the ATVV intervention with maternal participatory guidance where
mothers learn how to read and respond to their infant's behavioral cues while administering the ATVV
intervention. Responses to the H-HOPE intervention include an increased frequency of orally directed behaviors
and alert behavioral states, improved sucking organization and oral feeding, improved growth (weight gain and
length); improved infant behavior during feeding and play, improved maternal confidence in caring for her infant
and maternal knowledge of preterm infant behaviors, and reduced post-discharge illnesses.
2015 ANNUAL QUALITY CONGRESS SUNRISE SESSION SPEAKERS
Keith J. Barrington MB, ChB
Neonatologist and Clinical Researcher
Sainte Justine University Health Centre
Professor of Pediatrics
University of Montreal
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Keith J. Barrington is a neonatologist and clinical researcher at Sainte Justine University Health
Center in Montréal. He is Professor of Paediatrics at the University of Montréal. He was formerly chair of the
Society of Neonatologists of Québec. His particular research interests are in cardiovascular support, in apnea and
its treatment, in the ethics of decision making for high risk newborns, and in anything in clinical care that might
affect outcomes.
Dmitry Dukhovny MD, MPH
Assistant Professor of Pediatrics
Oregon Health and Science University
Portland, OR
Dr. Dukhovny is a board-certified Pediatrician and Neonatologist and a Pediatric Health
Services Researcher. His academic focus involves applying cost-effectiveness analysis and
decision science to help optimize resource utilization and allocation in perinatal care, a critical
issue given the current constraints on the health care system. Dr. Dukhovny also has a strong interest and focus in
medical education and leadership. His local activities include teaching a pre-clinical course at Harvard Medical
School for the 1st year medical students, as well as serving as faculty for clinical discussion groups for pediatric
residents and journal club sessions for neonatology fellows. Recently, he started a junior faculty mentorship
program for the neonatology fellows, helping them transition from residency into fellowship. His role as a Chief
Neonatology Fellow provided a strong foundation for organization and leadership, and led to a national position as
the District I Fellow Representative to the Section on Perinatal Pediatrics in the American Academy of Pediatrics,
including the role as the representative to the Organization of Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine Training Program
Directors for 2010-2011, and currently serving as the membership Chair. Lastly, he has served as the co-director of
the Harvard Newborn Epidemiology & Clinical Research Seminar (CME approved course) for the last 2 years, as
well as presented and organized at workshops at national conferences, including Pediatric Academic Societies,
Vermont Oxford Network Annual Quality Congress, and Perinatal Workshop.
Erika M. Edwards PhD, MPH
Director of Data Systems and Analytics
Vermont Oxford Network
Research Assistant Professor Mathematics and Statistics
University of Vermont
As Director of Data Systems and Analytics at Vermont Oxford Network, Erika Edwards has
developed content for and presented training programs on data and reporting resources for
quality improvement. She oversees all member reporting and database research, and participates in development
of data collection tools. In addition, she is a Research Assistant Professor of Mathematics and Statistics at the
University of Vermont. Prior to joining Vermont Oxford Network she was a statistical analyst at the Vermont
Department of Health, Boston University School of Public Health, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Erika
has a M.P.H. and a Ph.D., both in Epidemiology, from Boston University.
Kristi L. Gilreath ASQ, CQIA
Manager
MOC External Activities
American Board of Pediatrics
Chapel Hill, NC
Kristi L.Gilreath is the Manager, Maintenance of Certification (MOC) External Activities at the
American Board of Pediatrics. In this role, she manages the application and approval processes for externally
developed Improvement in Practice (Part 4) activities. Kristi received her Bachelor of Arts from Furman University
in 1990; completed the Intermediate Improvement Science Series (I2S2) course at Cincinnati Children's Hospital in
2014; and is an American Society for Quality (ASQ) Certified Quality Improvement Associate.
Joe Kaempf MD
Neonatologist
Chair, Evidence Based Medicine
and Clinical Research
NICU and Women and Children’s Program
Providence St. Vincent Medical Center
Portland, OR
Joe Kaempf MD trained in Pediatrics at the Johns Hopkins Hospital and in Neonatal Perinatal Medicine at the
University of Colorado Health Sciences Center. He is currently a member of Northwest Newborn Specialists, and
the chair of Evidence Based Medicine and Clinical Research for NNS and the Providence St. Vincent Medical Center
NICU and Women and Children’s Program in Portland, OR. Joe has been a co-investigator in several collaborative
RCTs, and dozens of NICU CQI projects over the past 25 years, and particularly has enjoyed working with his many
excellent Vermont Oxford Network colleagues; friendships that are particularly important. Joe’s special interest is
periviability dialogue, composite CQI metrics and outcomes analysis, with a particular passion for cognition,
philosophy, and writing.
Matthew A. Rysavy MD, PhD
Resident in Pediatrics
University of Wisconsin
Madison, WI
Dr. Rysavy received his MD and PhD in epidemiology at the University of Iowa in 2015. His
thesis was on prognosis in perinatal medicine. Dr. Rysavy is a previous recipient of the New
York Academy of Medicine David E. Rogers Fellowship and headed the development of the
Evidence-based Medicine curriculum for medical students at the University of Iowa. He is first author of the recent
paper "Between-hospital variation in treatment and outcomes in extremely preterm infants" in the New England
Journal of Medicine. He is currently a resident in pediatrics at the University of Wisconsin in Madison.
Renate D. Savich MD
Professor of Pediatrics
Chief, Division of Neonatology and
Newborn Services at the
University of Mississippi Medical Center
Jackson, Mississippi
Dr. Renate Savich, Professor of Pediatrics, is the Chief, Division of Neonatology and Newborn
Services at the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson, Mississippi. She is the Division Chief of the
state’s only Level IV NICU with over 100 patients and a 15-bed Level II nursery. Her Division has 12 neonatologists,
3 neonatal hospitalists and 4 PhD research faculty. She is also on the Steering Committee of the newly organized
Mississippi Perinatal Quality Collaborative, a joint effort of neonatologists and obstetricians in Mississippi to
improve perinatal and neonatal morbidity and mortality.
She was previously at the University of New Mexico School of Medicine, Albuquerque, NM. She received an M.D.
degree at the Northwestern University School of Medicine in 1982 and completed pediatrics residency at
Children’s Memorial Hospital (Northwestern University) before her fellowship training in neonatal/perinatal
medicine from 1985-88 at the University of California, San Francisco. A fellow in the American Academy of
Pediatrics, Savich is currently the Chair of the American Academy of Pediatrics Section on Perinatal Pediatrics,
representing over 6000 neonatologists in the US. She is also a member of the editorial board of NeoReviews. She
has extensive involvement in neonatal Global Health and is on the AAP Steering Committee for Helping Babies
Breathe. She has recently been appointed as the AAP Liaison to Ethiopia for the Saving 100,000 Newborns
Initiative.
Roger F. Soll MD
President, Vermont Oxford Network
H. Wallace Professor of Neonatology
University of Vermont
Burlington, VT
Dr. Soll is the H. Wallace Professor of Neonatology at the University of Vermont College of
Medicine, the President of Vermont Oxford Network, and Director of Network Clinical Trials.
Dr. Soll is an authority in evidence-based medicine and randomized clinical trials. He is the
coordinating editor of the Cochrane Neonatal Review Group of the Cochrane Collaboration and author or coauthor of the Cochrane Reviews of surfactant therapy. He is the author of numerous peer reviewed articles and
book chapters on the subject of surfactant replacement therapy and evidence-based medicine. A native of New
York City, Dr. Soll graduated from Cornell University with a degree in Genetics and History of Science in 1975. He
received his MD degree from the University of Health Sciences/Chicago Medical School in 1978. He returned to
New York City to complete his residency training in Pediatrics at Bellevue Hospital/New York University Medical
Center in 1981. After 2 years with the Public Health Service, Dr. Soll returned to academic training. He completed
the post graduate fellowship in Neonatal Perinatal Medicine at the University of Vermont in 1983 and has
remained in Vermont ever since.
2015 ANNUAL QUALITY CONGRESS BREAKOUT SESSIONS FACULTY
Irfan Ahmad MD, FAAP
Associate Clinical Professor of Pediatrics, UCI
Director, Surgical NICU
CHOC Children’s Hospital
Orange, CA
An expert in neonatology medicine, Dr. Ahmad is dedicated to providing the highest quality of
care for infants. He works on several projects with California Perinatal Quality Care
Improvement Collaborative and serves as the co-director of quality improvement for the CHOC Children’s
Specialists network of NICUs. His expertise is in taking care of infants who require surgeries in the newborn period
and is involved in projects to decrease intra-operative hypothermia and standardize postoperative management
including pain control.
Dr. Ahmad has worked in close collaboration with the pediatric surgeons in establishing a Surgical NICU at CHOC
and serves as its medical director. He is involved in training pediatric residents in the combined UCI-CHOC Pediatric
Residency Program and serves as the education director for the CHOC NICU.
Dr. Irfan Ahmad is board certified in pediatrics and neonatal-perinatal medicine. He attended medical school at the
Aga Khan University, Karachi, Pakistan. He completed his residency training program in pediatrics at University of
Oklahoma. He served as a pediatrician in Tahlequah, Oklahoma before resuming his training and completed his
fellowship in perinatal-neonatal medicine at the University of California, Irvine.
Dr. Ahmad teaches at UC Irvine and holds the academic appointment of clinical associate professor of pediatrics.
Dr. Ahmad has authored several publications and continues to be involved in clinical research in collaboration with
UCI. He is a co-investigator in NIH supported research on infant exercise.
Amy Atwater RN, BSN
Quality Improvement Specialist
Helen DeVos Children’s Hospital NICU
Grand Rapids, MI
Amy Atwater is a Quality Improvement Specialist at Helen DeVos Children’s Hospital in Grand
Rapids, Michigan. She works closely with the Neonatal and Pediatric Intensive Care Units
leading quality improvement projects with multidisciplinary teams. As an active participant
in Vermont Oxford Network Quality Improvement Collaboratives since 2002, she uses her skills as a facilitator to
plan and promote the implementation of best practices to improve outcomes and standardize care. She is
currently seeking a master’s degree in Public Administration and Health Care with an emphasis in quality and
safety and becoming a Bronze certified facilitator. She had an opportunity to be on the planning committee for the
new children’s hospital and was responsible for identifying, developing, and coordinating work teams needed for
the transition to a single rooms design. Prior to becoming involved in quality improvement activities, Amy worked
as a bedside clinician and eventually assumed a supervisory role for 12 years in Labor and Delivery and Neonatal
Intensive Care.
Heather Austin RN, BSN
Staff Nurse
Salem Hospital
Salem, OR
Heather Austin RN, BSN obtained a BS from George Fox University in 2001 and a BSN from
Oregon Health and Science University in 2004. She is a NICU Staff Nurse at Salem Hospital. As a
team member she is involved in the NICQ Next Safety homeroom, NICQ Next QI projects
include “Improving Our NICU Culture of Safety” and “Family Integrated Care Implementation”.
Andrea Bell, RNC, BSN, MBA
NICU Nurse Manager
Salem Hospital
Salem, OR
Andrea Bell, RNC, BSN, MBA has 7 years of experience beside staff nursing in Pediatrics and
NICU and 8 years of management. She obtained her BSN in Nursing from the Oregon Health
Sciences University 1999 and MBA in Healthcare from the Marylhurst University in 2012.
Jesse Bender MD
Assistant Professor of Pediatrics
Warren Alpert Medical School
Brown University
Providence, RI
Jesse Bender, MD, FAAP, Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at Warren Alpert Medical School of
Brown University, is an industrial engineer, neonatologist, and founding Co-Director of the
Care New England Simulation Program. Following St. Louis University Medical School, he
completed residency at Hasbro Children’s Hospital then neonatal-perinatal medicine fellowship and chief fellow at
Women & Infants Hospital, RI. Under his direction, simulation has intercalated into the local operational culture,
becoming a vibrant force of patient safety, quality and risk management. He developed TESTPILOT-NICU
(Transportable Enhanced Simulation Technologies for Pre-Implementation Limited Operations Testing), which
models a functional intensive care unit for in situ clinical systems testing. With implementations at multiple
institutions, Dr. Bender is now the principal investigator for AHRQ R18 “Generalizing TESTPILOT”. His other
academic interests include evidence-based quality improvement, teamwork training, debriefing faculty
development, difficult conversations, transport simulation, census modeling and clinical documentation. He is a
Certified Healthcare Simulation Educator by the International Society Simulation Healthcare and co-chairs the
Technology and Standards Committee for the International Pediatric Simulation Society.
Brandy Bernard PhD
Senior Research Scientist
Institute for Systems Biology
Seattle, WA
Dr. Bernard’s research interests are in cancer drug discovery and clinical genomics. He is
currently a part of the ISB Genome Data Analysis Center (GDAC) within The Cancer Genome
Atlas (TCGA) network. During this time, he has developed novel computational methods and
analyses in support of TCGA network research and publications, and has provided scientific guidance for the data
exploration tools and algorithms developed by the team. Dr. Bernard has led the group’s research efforts and
contributions to several TCGA Analysis Working Groups, particularly in the area of heterogeneous data integration
and graph analysis. In collaboration with experts in functional genomics he has integrated TCGA and RNAi
screening data to prioritize novel targets and tumor types for drug discovery and repurposing. His research in the
area of cancer genomics has resulted in several proffered presentations at TCGA symposia and AACR meetings on
distinct topics, a First Prize in the YarcData Graph Analytics Challenge, and a Life Science Discovery Fund grant to
further the development of our cancer genomics web portals.
In the area of clinical genomics, Dr. Bernard co-leads a collaboration with Inova Translational Medicine Institute
(ITMI) to provide analytic support and develop scalable infrastructure for the integration of clinical data with whole
genome sequences and molecular data from thousands of patients. Related to this effort, Dr. Bernard has worked
with the PRE-EMPT Global Pregnancy Collaboration (CoLab) as well as the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation of
America (CCFA) to advise in the study design and infrastructure of large-scale clinical genomics programs.
Kacy Bradshaw BSN, MN, NNP-BC
Neonatal Nurse Practitioner
Salem Hospital
Salem, OR
Kacy Bradshaw BSN, MN, NNP-BC obtained her BSN in Nursing from the Oregon Health
Sciences University 1999 and Masters in Nursing as a Neonatal Nurse Practitioner from the
University of Washington in 2010. She worked for 11 years as a NICU RN in multiple unites
prior to becoming a Neonatal Nurse Practitioner.
Brandi Brewer BS, BSN, RNC-NIC
Staff Educator, Gerber Neonatal Center
Helen Devos Children’s Hospital
Grand Rapids, MI
Brandi Brewer is a nurse educator at Helen DeVos Children’s Hospital in Grand Rapids
Michigan. She oversees the educational needs for over 300 neonatal staff. As the project lead
for the small baby unit she has been responsible for leading a multidisciplinary team in the
planning, development, and implementation of all education and ongoing support for the SBU. Her innovative
educational approach for adult learners in this project was highly successful and gained attention from the highest
leadership levels at Spectrum Health and within Helen DeVos Children’s Hospital. Brandi has been a participant in
the Vermont Oxford Network Quality Improvement Collaborative since 2005. She has also worked extensively on
quality improvement in the NICU using LEAN methodology to promote best practice while eliminating waste and
improving family experience. Her nursing career has transitioned from bedside nurse and neonatal transport
nurse, to more formal leadership roles.
Beverly S. Brozanski MD
Professor of Pediatrics
Medical Director NICU
Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh, PA
Beverly S. Brozanski MD is a board certified pediatric specialist (1978 Neonatal-Perinatal
Medicine) and a 2012 graduate of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement Advisor Professor
Development Program (IA). She coordinated multiple single center and multi-center clinical
research studies both as an investigator and site IP. As the Medical Director of the NICU Children’s Hospital of
Pittsburg (CHP), she has been responsible for programmatic development which included integration of the
neonates with both medical and surgical problems into one neonatal care team, development of a neonatal ECMO
program, Neuro-NICU care and Outreach via Telemedicine. As a quality improvement advisor, she is directly
involved in the design and implementation of improvement projects in the NICU and throughout CHP.
Madge E. Buus-Frank DNP, APRN-BC, FAAN
Director of Quality Improvement and Education
Executive Vice President, Vermont Oxford Network
Faculty, Geisel School of Medicine, Dartmouth College
and University of Vermont
Burlington, VT
Madge E. Buus-Frank DNP, APRN-BC, FAAN serves as Director of Quality Improvement and Education at Vermont
Oxford Network and has been actively engaged in neonatal care for over 3 decades. Madge is an honors graduate
from Boston College and the University of Connecticut where she recently earned her Doctorate in nursing. Her
doctoral dissertation focused on evaluating the effectiveness and stability of Helping Babies Breathe in Zambia.
Madge is an internationally recognized educator and consultant. Prior to her role at VON, she collaborated on the
design, development and execution of innovative educational and clinical solutions for newborn intensive care
units and health systems nationally and internationally. Madge was the Founding Editor-in-Chief for Advances in
Neonatal Care: The Official Journal of the National Association of Neonatal Nurses, a peer-reviewed publication
dedicated to advancing the art and science of neonatal care, serving for 5 years in this capacity. Madge was
recently inducted as a Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing (FAAN) for her pioneering work in the field of
neonatal care.
Wally A. Carlo MD
Edwin M. Dixon Professor of Pediatrics
University of Alabama at Birmingham
Director, Division of Neonatology
Birmingham, AL
Dr. Carlo has a long-standing interest in respiratory disorders in neonates, including minimizing
lung injury. He has done research to optimize ventilatory strategies to reduce chronic lung
disease and was involved in a multidisciplinary multicenter QI project to reduce chronic lung disease in neonates.
Dr. Carlo has published over 280 articles in peer-reviewed journals on respiratory topics over the past 2 decades,
all while being actively involved in clinical trials and teaching Pediatrics at the University of Alabama. He is
currently the Director of Newborns at the University of Alabama Medical Center and Children's Hospital of
Alabama.
Howard Cohen MD
Medical Director, NICU
Salem Hospital
Portland and Salem, OR
Dr. Howard Cohen has long contributed to the VON Community of Practice. He has thirty-six
years practicing neonatology, faculty positions at University of Illinois College of Medicine and
Oregon Health Sciences University. Twenty years actively participating in multiple quality
improvement collaborative and projects as well as having hospital based administrative positions as Clinical
Director of Quality Improvement and Patient Safety Officer.
Julie H. Cox RN
NICU Charge Nurse
Salem Hospital
Salem, OR
Julie H. Cox RN has over 23 year of experience in a level III NICU and I has been a charge nurse
for over 15 years. I have also held various positions in the NICU such as, Manager, Assistant
Manager, Charge nurse, Preceptor and staff nurse. My passion is helping families deal with
stressful unexpected situations and help them learn and care for their baby. I believe as they
are the sole caregivers they will develop a stronger bond for their baby.
Rita Dadiz DO, FAAP, CHSE
Associate Professor of Pediatrics - Neonatology
Director, Simulation-Based Emergency and Patient Safety Program
University of Rochester Medical Center
Rochester, NY
Rita Dadiz DO, Associate Professor of Pediatrics, is a neonatologist at the University of
Rochester Medical Center who conducts research on educational and clinical applications of
simulation-based methodologies. She directs the Simulation-Based Emergency and Patient
Safety Program in the Division of Neonatology. She recently led an interprofessional team of medical and nursing
providers in the development and implementation of an in situ simulation program to identify latent safety threats
in preparation for transition into a new healthcare facility.
Michael S. Dunn MD, FRCPC
Neonatologist
Department of Newborn and Developmental Paediatrics
Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre
Associate Professor
Department of Paediatrics, University of Toronto
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Dr. Michael Dunn is a Senior Neonatologist working in the Women and Babies Program at
Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto, and an Associate Professor in the Department of Paediatrics at the
University of Toronto. He is an established researcher who has spearheaded several large randomized trials
examining the effect of neonatal therapies. He has been very involved in VON activities since 1992. He is, or has
been, on the Steering Committees of several VON sponsored clinical trials including: Early Surfactant Replacement
Trial, DR Management Trial, HeLP trial and the Extremely Low Birth Weight Follow up Project. He and the team
from Sunnybrook have been active participants in three NICQ Collaboratives, including NICQ 2002 (Family
Matters), NICQ 2005 (Senses and Sensibilities) and NICQ 2007 (Staffing for Quality and Safety). Dr. Dunn was also
the Clinical Leader for the “Resuscitation and Stabilization” group of NICQ 2009 and has been a regular contributor
to the Neonates Journal Club as an editor.
Dr. Dunn serves on several local, national, and international bodies committed to improving the quality of
neonatal-perinatal care. He is a member of the Ontario Provincial Maternal-Newborn Advisory Committee, the
Maternal and Perinatal Death Review Committee to the Chief Coroner for the Province of Ontario, and the
Canadian Neonatal Network. He is the past President of the Neonatal-Perinatal Section of the Canadian Paediatric
Society (CPS) and was a liaison member of the Fetus and Newborn Committee of the CPS. He serves as a Member
of the Consensus Committee to Establish Recommended Standards for Newborn ICU Design. Dr. Dunn is
committed to the provision of quality care to NICU patients and their families, and believes that we, as health care
providers, need to do everything in our power to give our newest citizens the best possible start in life.
James E. Gray MD, MS
Associate Professor of Pediatrics
Harvard Medical School
Neonatologist
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
Boston, MA
Dr. Gray, Associate Professor of Pediatrics, Harvard Medical School, is a board-certified
neonatologist as well as a faculty member of Harvard’s Division of Clinical Informatics and Division of Newborn
Medicine. He is Associate Director of the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center as
well as the Director of Patient Safety Research within the Division of Clinical Informatics. Dr. Gray has extensive
experience with the evaluation of neonatal care and the integration of evolving information technologies into the
assessment and provision of care. He has developed methods for performing cross-institutional comparisons of
NICU outcomes, as well as for performing large-scale evaluations of public health programs. He has developed
cutting edge uses of information technologies to be used in neonatal intensive care. He developed and evaluated
Baby CareLink, a multi-faceted telemedicine program designed to provide individualized information and support
to high-risk newborns and their families. Dr. Gray’s current research focuses on the use of computer based
methods to study complex operational systems within healthcare. He has developed methods to assess
deployment strategies for new technologies and is the architect of the technologies used in StaffLynx, a new
computer-based approach to creating and maintaining clinician assignments.
Timmy Ho MD
Neonatal Fellow
Harvard Neonatal and Perinatal Fellowship Program Boston Children’s Hospital
Boston, MA
Timmy Ho is a third year neonatology fellow at Boston Children’s Hospital and is the first joint
research fellow between the Harvard Pediatric Health Services Research Fellowship and the
Institute for Healthcare Improvement. He explores mechanisms of improving the efficiency,
workflow, and patient experience of healthcare delivery by applying fundamental skills in
implementation science. An innovator, he has both participated in and mentored hackathons sponsored by the
groups at MIT and Harvard, developed a mobile application to improve resident workflow, and hopes to lead
multidisciplinary teams to transform how health care workers care for patients.
Heather Kaplan MD, MSCE
Assistant Professor of Pediatrics
Perinatal Institute and The James M. Anderson Center for Health Systems Excellence
Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center
Cincinnati, OH
Heather Kaplan MD, MSCE is an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics in the Perinatal Institute and
the James M. Anderson Center for Health Systems Excellence at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital
Medical Center (CCHMC). Heather is a neonatologist and health services researcher interested in enhancing care
delivery and studying how systems of care can be improved using innovative approaches. She completed her
neonatal-perinatal fellowship training, including earning a Master’s degree of science in clinical epidemiology, at
The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia/University of Pennsylvania. She joined the faculty at CCHMC in August
2007.
Heather’s early research focused on understanding variation in adoption of evidence-based practices in neonatal
care and quality improvement as a strategy for implementing evidence in practice. With funding from the Robert
Wood Johnson Foundation, she studied the role of context in the success of quality improvement initiatives and
developed a model, the Model for Understanding Success in Quality (MUSIQ). MUSIQ is a tool for developing
theories about which aspects of context help or hinder a specific project, and designing and implementing tests of
changes to modify those aspects of context. Her current work examines the way research and improvement
networks (“learning networks”) can be used to improve care delivery and outcomes. She is specifically interested
in scaling improvement to reach entire populations of patients and the ways technology, quality improvement
methods, and N-of-1 trial methods can be combined to create a personalized learning healthcare system for the
individual. Heather also has extensive experience with front-line quality improvement in perinatal care. Dr. Kaplan
serves as the Improvement Advisor for the Ohio Perinatal Quality Collaborative (OPQC) neonatal improvement
work. She also serves as a faculty expert for Vermont Oxford Network quality collaboratives and has been working
with teams to improve their system of improvement by using MUSIQ to identify and modify key aspects of context
that are affecting the success of the quality improvement projects and to help them engage with senior leadership
around their improvement work.
Bobbi Kurronen BSN, MHA, MN, NNP-BC
Neonatal Nurse Practitioner
Salem Hospital
Salem, OR
Bobbi Kurronen BSN, MHA, MN, NNP-BC spent the last 22 years working in various NICU’s.
She was a bedside RN/Charge RN for most of her career until she decided to fulfill her
original goal of obtaining a Master’s degree. She received a Master in Health Administration
and took a position as a Nurse Manager. When she decided that position was too far away
from the bedside, she went back to school to obtain her NNP.
Wannasiri Lapcharoensap MD
Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine Fellow, PGY-6
Lucile Packard Children's Hospital
Stanford University
Palo Alto, CA
Wannasiri (Awe) Lapcharoensap is currently a third year Neonatology Fellow at Lucile
Packard Children's Hospital at Stanford University. She completed her BS in Neuroscience at
Wellesley College in 2004 and received a MD from University of California San Diego in 2010. She finished her
Pediatric Residency at Loma Linda University Children's Hospital in 2013 and is a board certified in Pediatrics. She
began her fellowship at Stanford in 2013 and she is now in her final year. Her main area of research during
fellowship has been with the California Perinatal Quality Care Collaborative (CPQCC) specifically looking at
variations in hospital rates of BPD, delivery room interventions, and associations between BPD with other
morbidities. In the past year, she has developed an interest in delivery room interventions, studying the
ergonomics of delayed cord clamping, and participated in activities with Henry Lee's AHRQ research grant.
Henry C. Lee MD
Assistant Professor of Pediatrics
Stanford School of Medicine
Director of Research, California
Perinatal Quality Care Collaborative
Palo Alto, CA
Dr. Henry C. Lee is Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at Stanford University and attending
neonatologist at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital. He grew up in the Chicagoland area and attended the
University of Illinois for college and medical school. He completed his residency and fellowship training at Stanford
and has worked in a variety of academic and community NICUs of various levels of care in California. His primary
mentor during fellowship was Dr. Jeffrey Gould, Principal Investigator of the California Perinatal Quality Care
Collaborative (CPQCC). Dr. Lee now serves as Director of Research for CPQCC, which currently encompasses 132
NICUs.
Dr. Lee, along with Dr. Lou Halamek at the Center for Advanced Perinatal & Pediatric Education at Stanford, is
leading a study funded by the Agency for Healthcare Research & Quality called “Optimizing safety of mother and
neonate in a mixed methods learning laboratory.” In this project, a multi-disciplinary group of clinicians, patient
representatives, engineers, and design experts are working on designing the optimal delivery room for patient
safety and quality of care.
David Loren MD
Assistant Director of Pediatrics
Division of Neonatology
University of Washington
Medical Director, NNP Program
Seattle Children’s Hospital
Seattle, WA
Dr. Loren is an assistant professor and clinician-educator at all of our clinical practice sites where he teaches and
supports medical students, residents and fellows. His scholarly work intersects practical medical ethics, quality
improvement and communication. He is a principle investigator and co-investigator on several projects studying
communication of unanticipated outcomes and disclosure of medical errors.
Teresa Mingrone RN, MSN, CCRN
Programmatic Nurse Specialist
Children’s Hospital of Pittsburg of UPMC
Pittsburg, PA
Teresa Mingrone RN, MSN, CCRN is a Programmatic Nurse Specialist with 29 years of NICU
nursing experience, 15 at the bedside, 8 years as NICU educator and close to 5 years as a nurse
specialist in the NICU. Obtained BSN from the University of Pittsburgh in 1986 and MSN from
Waynesburg University in 2008. She is collaborating on quality improvement topics for several years and served as
project team member, faculty advisor, and improvement advisor.
Michelle Nemshak MSN, RNC-NIC
Clinical Nurse Specialist
Brandon Newborn ICU
C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital
University of Michigan Health System
Ann Arbor, MI
Michelle Nemshak MSN, RNC-NIC is a Clinical Nurse Specialist in the Brandon Newborn ICU at
C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital, University of Michigan Health System. Ms. Nemshak received her BSN from
Nazareth College in Kalamazoo, MI and MSN from the University of Michigan. Ms. Nemshak has held a variety of
leadership roles within the NICU and spent three years as a clinical project manager for a replacement hospital
project. Ms. Nemshak oversees the clinical nursing practice, education, and quality improvement for the Newborn
ICU. Her professional interests include process improvement, family centered care and neuro-protective care.
Eugenia K. Pallotto MD, MSCE
Associate Professor of Pediatrics,
Medical Director, Intensive Care Nursery
Medical Director, Neonatal ECMO
Children’s Mercy Hospital
University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Medicine
Kansas City, MO
Eugenia K. Pallotto MD, MSCE is an Associate Professor of Pediatrics in the Department of
Pediatrics and the Division of Neonatology at Children’s Mercy Kansas City and the University of Missouri Kansas
City School of Medicine. She completed her medical training at the Northwestern University Medical School in
Chicago, Illinois in 1990. She completed a Categorical Residency in Pediatrics at Children’s Memorial Hospital,
Northwestern University Medical Center in 1997 and a clinical research fellowship in Neonatology at the Children’s
Hospital of Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in 2001. The most recent project is focused
on systems and processes to improve peri-operative care for the neonatal patient. As a neonatologist and medical
director she has a broad clinical experience caring for this population of critically ill neonates and the systems
needed to care for these patients.
Stephen W. Patrick MD, MPH, MS
Assistant Professor of Pediatrics
Division of Neonatology
Vanderbilt University
Nashville, TN
Stephen W. Patrick MD, MPH, MS, is an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics in the Division of
Neonatology and a Scholar within the Center for Health Services Research at Vanderbilt
University. Dr. Patrick is focused on improving public health systems to optimize maternal and child health. He is a
health services researcher with focus in Medicaid policy, eliminating healthcare-associated infections and
improving the quality of care delivered to substance-exposed newborns including those having drug withdrawal
(neonatal abstinence syndrome). His neonatal abstinence syndrome research focuses on 1) understanding national
trends in healthcare utilization patterns, 2) understanding variation in hospital care, 3) understanding readmission
risk following initial birth hospitalization and 4) understanding the impact of different antenatal exposures on
development of the syndrome. He serves as Senior Science Policy Advisor to the White House Office of National
Drug Control Policy. He is a member of the scientific advisory committee and is co-author of the improvement
toolkit for an international effort to improve care delivered to infants with neonatal abstinence syndrome and
their families through Vermont Oxford Network. Dr. Patrick’s awards include the American Medical Association
Foundation Excellence in Medicine Leadership Award and the Academic Pediatric Association Fellow Research
Award. He is a graduate of the University of Florida, Florida State University College of Medicine, Harvard School of
Public Health, University of Michigan and is a former Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholar.
Anthony Piazza MD
Associate Professor
Emory University Atlanta, GA
Attending Neonatologist
Medical Director of Neonatal
Services at Children’s Healthcare
Atlanta at Egleston Hospital
Atlanta, GA
Anthony Piazza MD is currently the medical director of neonatal services for Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta at
Egleston Hospital. He is an associate professor at Emory University in the division of Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine.
His clinical interests are related to tertiary care of the surgical neonates and the ongoing education of care
providers and the training of residents and fellows. He actively mentored several fellows and residents clinically
throughout his 15 year tenure at Emory. He is an active member of several educational committees for the
residency and fellowship programs.
Academic research includes site PI for the SUPPORT Trial. As the Medical Director of Children’s Healthcare of
Atlanta at Egleston Neonatal Services, he continues to be involved in the application of new research projects in
the unit. As CHNC/CHND has grown, he became a member of the extended executive board and one of the leaders
in its quality improvement mission. The database’s purpose is to gather information and best practices as well as
outcome data on rare disease specifics from Children’s Hospital Tertiary NICUs. The current project includes over
20 participating hospitals focusing on improvement of transfer of care and euthermia as related to peri-opertive
care.
Jochen Profit MD, MPH
Assistant Professor of Pediatrics
Director of Perinatal Health Systems Research, Perinatal Epidemiology and Health Outcomes
Research Unit
Division of Neonatal and Developmental Medicine
Stanford University
Palo Alto, CA
Dr. Jochen Profit received his medical degree from the Albert Ludwigs University, Freiburg, Germany. He
completed pediatric residency training at Tufts University, and fellowships in neonatal-perinatal medicine and
health services research at Harvard. From 2005 to 2013, Dr. Profit served as Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at
Baylor College of Medicine. In 2013, he joined the faculty at Stanford University School of Medicine, where he
continues his research.
Dr. Profit’s primary research interests are measuring and improving the quality of neonatal and pediatric health
care delivery, with a focus on enhancing organizational effectiveness. He has received federal and intramural
support for his research. Dr. Profit has served as a member of the National Quality Forum’s Steering Committee on
National Voluntary Consensus Standards for Perinatal Care and on the National Priorities Partnership Action
Team. He has also been a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics Section on Perinatal Pediatrics
Technical Committee on Neonatal Quality Improvement. Dr. Profit has published in the areas of quality
measurement and improvement, financial incentives, and cost-effectiveness, and has also given workshops,
symposia, and other scientific presentations on his work.
Beverley Robin MD
Assistant Professor, Pediatrics
Director Simulation Education and Research
Rush University Medical Center
Chicago, IL
Beverley Robin MD is an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics and the Director of Simulation
Education and Research at Rush University Medical Center. As such she develops and
implements inter-professional faculty development programs, based on education
principles and methodologies, aimed at preparing faculty for leading simulation-based education programs. In
addition to these responsibilities she has served as adjunct faculty in the Graham Clinical Performance Center at
the UIC College of Medicine since 2010.
Alyssa Scheler BSN, RN
NICU Registered Nurse
Salem Hospital
Salem, OR
Alyssa Scheler BSN, RN obtained her BSN in Nursing from the Eastern Mennonite University
in 2006 and AA from the Hesston College in 2003. She is a NICU RN since 2006.
Claire L Smith BSc med sci, MBChB, MD, MRCPCH
Consultant Neonatologist
Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh
Edinburgh, Scotland, UK
Claire graduated with a Bsc(med sci) first class honors degree in medical microbiology in
1996 and with a medical degree (MBChB) in 1999, both from the University of Edinburgh.
After her MBChB Claire focused on progressing her clinical career, soon proceeding into
paediatric training. Since 2003 Claire has been involved in collaborative work with the
University of Edinburgh, firstly validating robust methods for collecting and extracting high
quality RNA from small volume human neonatal whole blood samples and then working as
part of the team using these methods to examine neonatal host response to infection. In 2010, Claire graduated
with a doctorate of medicine (MD) from the University of Edinburgh, with her thesis entitled “Towards Microarray
Diagnosis of Infection in the Newborn”. Claire is currently responsible for her neonatal unit’s infection surveillance
programme and has played a significant part in introducing an infection reduction programme to the neonatal unit.
Claire is currently a consultant neonatologist based in the neonatal unit of the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh having
taken up post in 2013. She also works at the special care baby unit at St John’s Hospital in Livingston. Claire was
elected to fellowship of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health in Nov 2014 (FRCPCH). She retains a keen
interest in neonatal infection and has ongoing involvement in studies in this area. She is passionate about
continually improving care for newborn babies and their families and is local clinical lead on the Scottish Patient
Safety Programme clinical reference group. She is a founding member of her neonatal unit’s Newborn Care
Collaborative, the aim of which is “getting is right for every baby and family every time”.
Bharath Srivatsa MD
Neonatologist
Northside Hospital
Atlanta, GA
Bharath Srivatsa MD completed his medical school training in JIPMER, Pondicherry, India in
1989 and then completed Pediatric residencies in Bombay and Brooklyn, NY. Subsequently
he received a Neonatology fellowship training at Tufts, New England Medical Center in
Boston and at Emory University and its affiliated hospitals in Atlanta. In addition to providing clinical care at
Northside Hospital which is one of the busiest Level III NICUs in the country, his interests include achieving
improvements in clinical outcomes by practicing evidence based medicine and participating in collaboratives by
organizations such as VON. His areas of special interest include noninvasive ventilatory support and oxygen
saturation monitoring in NICU babies.
Joan R. Smith PhD, RN, NNP-BC
Advanced Practice Clinical Nurse Scientist
St. Louis Children's Hospital
Goldfarb School of Nursing
Barnes-Jewish College
St Louis, MO
Dr. Smith received associate’s and bachelor's degrees in nursing from Maryville University in
St. Louis, MO in 1986 and 1992, respectively. Master's and PhD in nursing degrees from the University of Missouri
in Kansas City, MO in 1994 and 2013, respectively. For 29 years she has cared for sick and preterm infants and
their families in the capacity of a neonatal nurse and neonatal nurse practitioner. In 2014 she received a joint
appointment faculty position at Goldfarb School of Nursing at Barnes-Jewish College and St. Louis Children's
Hospital as an Advanced Practice Clinical Nurse Scientist with a focus on implementation science. Dr. Smith spent
the last 7 years partnering with national neonatal providers/experts in building the infrastructure for an
interdisciplinary Children's Hospital Neonatal Consortium/Database (CHNC/D) Collaborative Initiatives for Quality
Improvement (CIQI) for neonates with rare and complex medical conditions referred to tertiary care NICUs. Dr.
Smith served as a faculty advisor and steering committee member for both the CHND SLUG Bug and STEPP-IN
projects. As a principal investigator, she led multiple interdisciplinary teams with a focus on implementation
science and patient quality and safety. Currently their neonatal investigative team is examining the effects of an
electronic clinical decision support and simulation education aimed at standardizing care to reduce practice
variation and inappropriate use of therapeutic hypothermia treatment in infants born with hypoxic ischemic
encephalopathy (HIE). Dr. Smith is a principal investigator of an interdisciplinary research project aimed at
defining appropriate timed sensory exposures to optimize neurodevelopmental outcomes in infants born very
preterm in the NICU with a focus on development of a detailed implementation plan. Dr. Smith has recently been
selected to participate in the 2015 Training Institute for Dissemination and Implementation Research in Health
(TIDIRH) supported by the National Institutes of Health and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
Gautham Suresh MD, DM, MS, FAAP
Chief Medical Officer and Service Chief
The Newborn Center
Texas Children’s Hospital
Houston, TX
Gautham Suresh MD, DM, MS, FAAP is a neonatologist at Texas Children’s Hospital and a
Professor of Pediatrics at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, TX. He is the Medical Director
of the Newborn Center at Texas Children’s Hospital, chair of the American Academy of
Pediatrics EQIPP program, and an Associate Editor for the Neonatal Review Group of the Cochrane Collaboration.
He has been teaching, conducting research and implementing quality improvement, patient safety and evidencebased medicine both in his own unit and through his work with national organizations such as Vermont Oxford
Network and the American Academy of Pediatrics. He has published several papers and book chapters in these
areas, and given numerous invited talks and workshops.
Alisha Tichenor MSM, NNP-BC
Lead Neonatal Nurse Practitioner
Helen DeVos Children’s Hospital
Grand Rapids, MI
Alisha Tichenor MSM, NNP-BC is the Lead Neonatal Nurse Practitioner at the Helen DeVos
Children’s Hospital Neonatal Center. She serves as a provider as well as in leadership role on
the unit. She has worked as a NNP in a large level IV NICU for 11 years and manages a team of
15 NNP’s. In her role she routinely cares for critically ill babies from the delivery room to discharge. Her NNP group
also leads the transport team in the regional transport of babies to children’s hospitals. In her role she provides
guidance and mentoring to residents and novice nurse practitioners. In 2011 she became actively involved in
collaborative quality improvement and was an influential leader in the training and implementation of Neonatal
Abstinence Syndrome management at HDVCH. Her passion is delivery room management and the care of
extremely premature infants. She has been a key team member in the development, implementation, and ongoing
leadership of the small baby unit.
Rebecca J. Vartanian MD
Assistant Professor
Division of Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine
Department of Pediatrics and
Communicable Diseases
University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, MI
Rebecca Jane Vartanian MD is an Assistant Professor in the Division of Neonatal-Perinatal
Medicine within the Department of Pediatrics and Communicable Diseases at the University of Michigan. She
received her medical degree from Wayne State University School of Medicine and completed her Pediatrics and
Neonatology training at the University of Michigan. Dr. Vartanian joined the faculty in 2010. Dr. Vartanian
oversees and facilitates the quality improvement initiatives in the Newborn Intensive Care Unit, including multicenter collaborations within Vermont Oxford Network and the State of Michigan Quality Initiative. Her clinical
interests include oxygen management in premature infants, optimization of neonatal nutrition, and the care of
extremely low birth weight infants.
Bonny Whalen MD
Newborn Nursery Medical Director
Pediatric Hospital
Children’s Hospital at Dartmouth
Assistant Professor
Department of Pediatrics
Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth
Lebanon, NH
Bonny Whalen MD is an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth. Dr.
Whalen received her MD degree from the University Of Vermont College Of Medicine and completed her
Pediatrics Residency at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, MA. She then spent six years as a general
pediatrician and newborn hospitalist at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, WI before moving back to New
England in 2005. She has spent the last 10 years as a general pediatrician specializing in newborn care, working as
a newborn / pediatric hospitalist and Newborn Nursery Medical Director at the Children’s Hospital at Dartmouth /
Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center. Dr. Whalen is co-leading quality improvement efforts in her hospital and
region to improve care for newborns at risk for and/or with Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome. Her work focuses on
increasing baby- and family-centered care, improving staff consistency in NAS scoring, empowering families to best
care for their newborns through prenatal education and in-hospital support, and increasing breastfeeding rates in
this vulnerable population through encouraging abstinence prenatally and communicating with a mother’s
outpatient treatment provider and the baby’s medical home to ensure safe breastfeeding after discharge. Dr.
Whalen co-led a qualitative study on the hospital experience of families as it relates to a mother’s opiate exposure
in pregnancy and care of her newborn postnatal.
John A. F. Zupancic MD
Associate Professor of Pediatrics,
Harvard Medical School
Neonatologist
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
Boston, MA
Dr. Zupancic is an Associate Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School and Associate
Chief of Neonatology at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. Following medical
and pediatrics training at McMaster University, he completed a fellowship in Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine at
Harvard Medical School and received his Doctorate in Health Policy from the Harvard School of Public Health. Dr.
Zupancic’s research seeks to improve the efficiency with which scarce resources are used in improving the health
of children, and in particular, newborns. His work has focused on performing and improving the validity of
economic evaluations alongside neonatal clinical trials, and on the use of computer modeling to determine best
practice when evidence is currently lacking or where empirical studies are infeasible. In addition to his research
work, Dr. Zupancic is the Chair-elect of the American Academy of Pediatrics Section on Perinatal Pediatrics and
served as leader of the Value Initiative for Vermont Oxford Network’s Neonatal Intensive Care Quality
Improvement Collaborative. Dr. Zupancic is a recipient of the Merton R. Bernfield Award for Excellence in
Mentoring from the Harvard Medical School Division of Newborn Medicine and the John M. Eisenberg Award for
Excellence in Mentorship from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.
NICQ SYMPOSIUM FACULTY
Lisa M Audette RN
Nurse Manager NICU
UMass Memorial Medical Center
Worcester, MA
Lisa M Audette RN graduated from Becker College with Associates in Nursing in 1999. She is
currently pursuing her Masters in Health Administration through Regis College in Weston, MA.
Since becoming a nurse she has preliminary worked in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit marking her 15th year this
summer. She worked several years as a staff nurse and was a member in various committees, councils and task
forces in the NICU. In September 2013 she took the position of an Assistant Nurse Manager which allowed her to
work just away from the bedside to improve quality and function of patient care in the NICU. In March 2015 she
was awarded the permanent Nurse Manager in the NICU.
Marybeth Fry MEd
Lead Family Advisor
VON NICQ Next: Innovations
in Newborn Care
NICU Family Care Coordinator
Akron Children’s Hospital
Akron, OH
The 2004 birth of Marybeth’s daughter at 28 weeks gestation and subsequent three month
NICQ stay introduced her to a world she never knew existed and she wanted other NICU families to know they
weren’t alone. In January of 2008, Marybeth became an Akron Children’s Hospital Parent Mentor and Volunteer
and began visiting NICU families each week as a graduate parent. She also became involved in NICU FACT (Family
Action Collaborative Team), a group of NICU graduate families and staff working together to support NICU families
and promote family-centered care in the unit. Marybeth attended her first VON Conference with the Akron
Children’s Team in spring of 2010 and has been fortunate enough to attend every meeting with the team. In the
fall of 2010, she became co-chair of NICU FACT and began working more closely with hospital staff on our group’s
initiatives. She began attending QuIP (Quality Improvement Council) meetings monthly and participated on NICQ8
conference calls weekly.
In January 2013, Marybeth secured a paid parent position at Akron Children’s Hospital as the NICU Family Care
Coordinator. This amazing opportunity has allowed her to be even more actively involved in furthering familycentered care and to see many of her volunteer projects come to fruition.
Cathy Jewell MS
Chief Nursing Officer
Vice President of Acute Care Services
UMass Memorial Medical Center
Worcester, MA
Cathy Jewell MS has been a nurse for 43 years. She began her career as a staff nurse at
Eastern Maine Medical Center in 1972. In 1075 she returned to Worcester and became a
staff nurse as the former Memorial Hospital SICU. In 1979 she transferred to the Emergency Department as the
Assistant Nurse Manager. From 1984-2002 she was the Emergency Department Nurse Manager. From 2002-2006
she was Director of Acute Care, ICU, Nursing Supervisors, and Bed Management Coordinator. She is currently the
Interim Chief Nursing Officer for U Mass Memorial Medical Center.
Cordelia Jewell RNC-NIC
NICQ Quality Operations Manager
Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital
Palo Alto, CA
Cordelia Jewell RNC-NIC works as the operations manager for the Level 4 NICU at Lucile
Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford in Palo Alto, California. She has 33 years of experience
as a nurse, with 21 of those years in the NICU. She is certified in Neonatal Intensive Care and
a member of the National Association of Neonatal Nurses and the America Association of Critical-Care Nurses. She
is very focused on using her extensive leadership training along with her passion for quality improvement to
support and lead the work of quality improvement within the NICU. For the past 3 years, she has been the RN lead
in an MD/RN leadership dyad for the NICU’s Local Improvement Team.
Lauren A. Johnson-Robbins, MD
Associate in Neonatology S
Director of Quality
Pediatric Service Line
Geisinger Health System
Danville, PA
Dr. Johnson is a board-certified neonatologist who has been with Geisinger Health System
since 1999. A graduate of Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons she completed her pediatric training at
Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and neonatal fellowship at DC Chidlren’s. She currently practices within the
NICU at Geisinger Helath System and also serves as Director of Quality for the Pediatric Service Line.
Patrick L. Muldoon FACHE
President
UMass Memorial Medical Center
Worcester, MA
Patrick L. Muldoon is President of UMass Memorial Medical Center, the academic partner of
the University of Massachusetts Medical School. Mr. Muldoon, who was appointed president
in August 2013, is responsible for the four campuses of the Medical Center located in
Worcester, Massachusetts. With $1.6B in revenue and more than 7,000 employees, the Medical Center is the
largest member of UMass Memorial Health Care. Prior to this role, Mr. Muldoon served as the President and Chief
Executive Officer of HealthAlliance Hospitals, Inc. and Central New England HealthAlliance, Inc., serving the
residents of North Central Massachusetts and Southern New Hampshire. He earned his undergraduate degree in
Health Services Administration from Providence College (RI) and a master’s degree in Business Administration from
Loyola University of Chicago. He is currently a Fellow of the American College of Health Care Executives.
Mr. Muldoon currently serves on the Board of Trustees of the Massachusetts Hospital Association and was elected
in 2013 to serve as Chair of the Board after serving in several leadership positions. He has also served in several
leadership roles with the American Hospital Association and The Joint Commission.
At the start of Mr. Muldoon’s tenure at UMass Memorial Medical Center, he initiated a year-long financial
turnaround at the organization in collaboration with his senior management team, physicians, employees and the
system’s president and CEO. The goal was to reach breakeven financial status by June 2014. In September, the
health care system and Medical Center financial statements were in the black, with the system as a whole
reporting a $110 million turnaround. Today, Mr. Muldoon leads an academic medical center community of
caregivers dedicated to providing patients and families the best possible experience as the leading provider of
tertiary and quaternary health care services in Central Massachusetts.
Kate Robson Med
Parent Coordinator, NICU
Sunnybrook Health Sciences Center
Director, Canadian Premature
Babies Foundation
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Kate Robson’s first daughter was born in 2005 at 25 weeks, weighing 500 grams. Her second daughter was a
slightly more robust 32-weeker born in 2007. She has spent time as a patient and as a parent in four different
hospitals and three different NICUs. She now works in one of those NICUs as a Parent Coordinator, offering
support to families and helping the unit deliver family centered care. Her background in Adult Education (MEd
OISE/UT 1999) and Community Mediation (Diploma in Alternative Dispute Resolution, York University, 2003), when
combined with her personal experiences, helps her bring families and staff together as collaborators. She is cochair of the Canadian Family Advisory Network, is one of the Directors of the Canadian Premature Babies
Foundation, and has had the opportunity to present at conferences such as the Canadian Association of Neonatal
Nurses Annual Conference, the Gravens Conference on the Physical and Developmental Environment of the High
Risk Infant, the Advanced Practice Nursing Forum, and the Annual Conference of the Australian College of
Neonatal Nurses. She is also a family faculty resource for the Vermont Oxford Network.
Jonathan Seigel MD
Neonatologist
WakeMed Health and Hospitals
Raleigh, NC
Dr. Jonathan Seigel is a board-certified Neonatologist who serves as a neonatologist for
WakeMed Health and Hospitals in Raleigh, North Carolina. He received his medical degree
from the University of Missouri - Columbia School of Medicine, completed his pediatric internship and residency at
the University of North Carolina Hospitals, and completed his neonatal-perinatal fellowship at Duke University. Dr.
Seigel also holds a master's degree in clinical informatics from Duke University's Fuqua School of Business. He
completed his undergraduate education at Denison University in Granville, Ohio earning a bachelor's degree in
biology as well as a bachelor's degree in economics. Dr. Seigel is a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics,
the North Carolina Medical Society and the International Society for Research in Human Milk and Lactation. His
interests outside of clinical medicine include the use and benefits of human milk in the preterm population,
medical informatics and health information technology, and quality improvement research.
Debra Sims RNC-NIC, BSN
Staff Registered Nurse
Providence Alaska Medical Center
The Children's Hospital at Providence
Eagle River, AK
Debra Sims RNC-NIC, BSN is a certified neonatal nurse with 29 years of experience. She is
he NICU's VON quality improvement collaborative coordinator. Debra Sims RNC-NIC, BSN
holds a Bachelor of Science in Nursing and she is part-way through a PhD in Nursing Research.
Nikki Wiggins RN
Assistant Nurse Manager
Doernbecher Neonatal Care Center
Oregon Health and Science University
Portland, OR
Nikki has her Bachelor's Degree of Science in Nursing with a NICU specialty certification. She
has been a nurse in the Doernbecher Neonatal Care Center at OHSU for fifteen years and
has served on numerous committees and quality improvement projects. She is a STABLE
instructor with specialized training in simulation and debriefing.
Denise Zayack RN, BA, MPH
Collaboratives Coordinator and Coach
Division of Quality Improvement & Education
Vermont Oxford Network
Burlington, VT
Denise Zayack RN, BA, MPH is a Collaboratives Coordinator and Coach, Division of Quality
Improvement and Education in Vermont Oxford Network (VON). Denise has a long history
with VON, collecting and submitting data in the early years of the Network, co-leading NICQ teams and as a
research project steering team member.
As Operations Director of a Canadian NICU she advanced excellence in innovation, patient and family-centered,
developmentally appropriate care and safety best practices. Denise mentored and coached interdisciplinary team
members through collaborative quality improvement, effective team building, communication and professional
development. Denise also worked as a Health Care Consultant to improve health outcomes for those with chronic
illness. Denise’s academic preparation includes Nursing, a BA in Bioethics and an MPH with a concentration in
quality improvement science from The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy & Clinical Practice, Dartmouth
College, NH.
INICQ
COLLABORATIVES
NAS HOMEROOM
Janice Ancona MSN, RN
Clinical Nurse Specialist, NICU
Wheaton Franciscan - St. Joseph Campus
Milwaukee, WI
Janice Ancona MSN, RN is a clinical Nurse Specialist – Neonatal Intensive Care Unit,
Wheaton Franciscan – St. Joseph Campus. She influences the direct and indirect care of
patients and families, leads the improvement of quality of care and outcomes for patient
populations and community health. Janice also contributes to the growth and development of nurses and the
nursing profession through research, education, and coaching.
Lily J. Lou MD, FAAP
Chapter President
Alaska Chapter of the American
Academy of Pediatrics
Anchorage, AK
Dr. Lily Lou is a neonatologist in Anchorage, Alaska and is affiliated with multiple hospitals
in the area, including Alaska Native Medical Center and Alaska Regional Hospital. She
received her medical degree from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of
Medicine and has been in practice for 29 years. She is one of 7 doctors at Alaska Native Medical Center and one of
7 at Alaska Regional Hospital who specialize in Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine.
Padmani Karna MD
Professor/Neonatologist
Michigan State University College of Medicine
Department of Pediatrics & Human Development
Division of Neonatology
Sparrow Hospital
Lansing, MI
Dr. Padmani Karna MD is a board certified neonatologist in Lansing, Michigan. She is
currently licensed to practice medicine in Michigan. She is affiliated with Sparrow Hospital. Dr. Karna is a Professor
of Pediatrics and Human Development at the Michigan State University College of Medicine.
Robert E. Schumacher MD
Professor of Pediatrics
University of Michigan
Medical Director
C. S. Mott Children’s Hospital
Brandon NICU
Ann Arbor, MI
As a clinical investigator Dr. Schumacher has participated in multiple studies ranging from
the use of ECMO in full term infants to artificial surfactant therapy in VLBW infants. He leads multiple quality
improvement projects including standardizing the treatment of narcotic-exposed infants, and has presented
results at an international conference. He and his coauthor, Dr Stephen Patrick collaborated on a recent paper
“Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome and Associated Health Care Expenditures: United States, 2000-2009″ JAMA online
first April 30 2012. His interests include the role of anecdotes in medicine, evidence-based medicine, and medical
decision-making.
INICQ ALARM SAFETY HOMEROOM
Christian F. Poets MD
Professor and Chief
Department of Neonatology
Tuebingen University Hospital
Prof. Poets graduated from Hannover Medical School in June 1986. He received his medical
training first at the Dept. of Pediatrics, Salzgitter City Hospital, and then, from December
1986 to August 1989, at the Dept. of Pediatric Pulmonology & Neonatoloy, Hannover
Medical School, Hannover, Germany. He did a 2-year research fellowship at the Dept. of
Pediatric Respiratory Physiology, Brompton Hospital&National Heart & Lung Institute, London, where we worked
as a Honorary Pediatric Registrar. After his return to Hannover in August 1991, he completed his medical training
and then started to work there as a consultant pediatrician in charge of the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit and the
Paediatric Sleep Lab in 1994. In the same year, he finished his professorial thesis and was appointed lecturer and,
in 1999, extracurricular professor at the Department of Paediatric Pulmonology & Neonatoloy, Hannover Medical
School.
In 2002, he was appointed Professor and Chief, Department of Neonatology, University Hospital, Tuebingen,
Germany. The department includes a Pediatric sleep lab. In 2008, he also became chairman of the newly
established Interdisciplinary Center for Craniofacial Malformations at Tuebingen University Hospital. He is also
chairman of the Clinical Ethics Committee of Tuebingen University Hospital, and a member of this institution’s
scientific review board (IRB). Prof. Poets has co-authored over 260 articles cited in PubMed and has contributed to
over 120 review articles. He is a member of the Neonatal Society and the European Society for Pediatric Research,
and was president of the (German speaking) Society for Neonatology and Paediatric Intensive Care in 2005 - 2009.
His main research interests include the control of breathing, obstructive sleep apnea, Sudden Infant Death
Syndrome, perinatal epidemiology and outcome research, surfactant research, innate immunity, and the conduct
of multicenter clinical trials including neurodevelopmental follow-up. With regard to the latter, he is currently PI of
NEuroSIS, a large EU-funded multicenter study on the effectiveness of inhaled steroids in the prevention of BPD,
and steering committee member of COT (Canadian Oxygen Trial) and ETTNO (Effects of transfusion thresholds on
neurocognitive outcome).
NICQ NEXT COLLABORATIVE:
Micro-premature Infant Care Homeroom
Arvelle Balon-Lyon RN, BN
Director, Health Innovation Consultants
Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada
Arvelle Balon-Lyon has worked exclusively in leading health care improvement for the past 13
years. She has led multiple health innovation initiatives from the ground up, including writing
proposals totaling over 20 million of successfully funded initiatives. She has planned,
implemented and delivered local and provincial improvement initiatives with measureable
and published impact. Arvelle supported the introduction of practice facilitation in Alberta,
Canada in 2004 and has collaboratively developed and implemented a provincial improvement facilitation training
program. Arvelle has been faculty in over 20 access improvement collaboratives across Canada.
Her current position as Assistant Program Director of the Alberta Toward Optimized Practice Program focuses on
assisting over 8,000 Alberta physicians and their teams to implement evidence-based practices to enhance the
care of their patients. The program balances the use of evidence and innovation to influence change. This is
highlighted in the development and release of clinical practice guidelines within Alberta. TOP partners with
government, provincial health care delivery organizations (AHS), physician organizations and researchers (at the
University of Alberta and University of Calgary) to develop, deliver and study initiatives based on priority health
system and clinical care issues.
Arvelle was the initiative lead of The Alberta Screening and Prevention Initiative (ASaP) with the goal to engage
2000 primary care physicians in improving screening and prevention practices to their patient population.
Arvelle is the Director of Health Innovation Consultants, and part of Mark Murray and Associates team of faculty,
advising physicians, teams and senior leaders across Canada on the principles that will reduce wait times and
improve the delivery of health care.
Arvelle completed a Bachelor of Nursing Degree from the University of Lethbridge in 1987, studied abroad in
Edinburgh, Scotland on maternal child health and community midwifery and has over 25 years of experience in the
delivery of clinical care in hospital, primary care and ambulatory care settings including labor and delivery and care
of the newborn infant.
Breton C. Freitag MD
Medical Director, NICU
Legacy Salmon Creek
Portland, OR
Bret Freitag is Medical Director, Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, Legacy Salmon Creek Medical
Center.
Board certified neonatologist actively involved in NICQ Next Quality Improvement Initiatives
at Legacy Salmon Creek Medical Center.
Sharyn Gibbins NP-Pediatrics PhD
Director of Professional Practice
Trillium Health Partners
Mississauga, Ontario, Canada
Sharyn Gibbins has been a neonatal nurse practitioner for over 20 years. Most recently, she
has taken on the responsibility of Director of Professional Practice, accountable for the scopes
of practice for all health care professionals in a 1200 bed academic facility. Sharyn’s interests
are with respect to the management of care for extremely low birth weight infants and introducing strategies to
sustain change. Sharyn has worked with the Micro-premature Infant Care Homeroom to develop the NICQ Next
ONSITE program and was responsible for facilitating components of the 2 day session in the spring of 2014.
Leanna Jones BSN, MN, NNP-BC
Neonatal Nurse Practitioner, NICU
Randall Children’s Hospital
Legacy Emanuel
Portland, OR
Leanna is a Nurse Practitioner caring for patients within a level IIIC NICU with spectrum of care
of surgical, premature and infants with congenital malformations. Work in conjuncture with
neonatologist and provide coverage for high-risk deliveries. Provide clear and concise communication between
staff nurses, physicians and on a continual basis.
Robert Ursprung MD, MMSc
Neonatologist
Cook Children’s Medical Center
Associate Director CQI
Pediatrix Medical Group
Fort Worth, TX
Dr. Ursprung completed his medical school & pediatric residency training at the University
of Southwestern Medical School & his neonatology fellowship at the Harvard combined program.
Dr. Ursprung works for Pediatrix Medical Group as a neonatologist with clinical responsibilities at tertiary and
quaternary centers in Fort Worth, TX including Cook Children’s Medical Center.
Dr. Ursprung also serves as the Associate Director of Continuous Quality Improvement for Pediatrix Medical
Group, a multi-specialty physician group that employs more than 1000 physicians, who cover more than 300
NICUs. In this role he assists in coordinating all activities of the Quality Improvement Department including
maturing their Clinical Data Warehouse, the creation of clinical improvement toolkits, directing a ten NICU
regional quality improvement collaborative as well as co-directing three National “Quality Summit” meetings
per year. In addition to his work with Pediatrix, Dr. Ursprung learned from and participated with the Vermont
Oxford Network in a variety of roles since 2002.
Lelis Vernon BA
Chair, NICU Parent Advisory Council
Baptist Children’s Hospital
Miami, FL
In 2008, Lelis became the first volunteer NICU parent to work with the NICU team. Since then
she has worked to create, grow and coordinate all activities of the Parent Advisory Council
(PAC). She provides leadership and support, from a parent’s perspective, in the educational
and programmatic activities that promote and implement family-centered care in the NICU. Lelis formally
coordinates ways in which PAC family members can contribute to the improvement of health care quality provided
in the NICU. She actively participates and collaborates in specific study groups and unit committees of the NICU
(Baptist Children’s NICU FCC Committee, Vermont Oxford Network Team, QI teams).
Minimizing Brain Injury Homeroom
Betsi Anderson BSN, RN, CPHO
Director of Professional Services
Neonatology, Infectious Diseases
Clinical Genetics and Bioethics
Children’s Mercy Hospital
Kansas City, MO
Betsi Anderson BSN, RN, CPHO is part of the planning committee for the On-Site Vermont Oxford Network
Conference.
Sonia L. Bonifacio MD
Director, Neuro-Intensive Care Nursery
Assistant Professor of Pediatrics
Benioff Children’s Hospital
University of California San Francisco
San Francisco, CA
Dr. Sonia Lomeli Bonifacio joined the UCSF faculty in July 2009. Sonia is a native San Franciscan
and completed all of her medical training, medical school through fellowship, at the University of California in San
Francisco.
Dr. Bonifacio is an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics and Co-Director of the Neuro-Intensive Care Nursery at UCSF.
Her primary research interests are the neurodevelopmental outcomes of preterm and sick term newborns. During
her fellowship, she worked under the mentorship of Drs. Donna Ferriero, Jim Barkovich, and Steven Miller. She
plans to continue her work regarding the use of Magnetic Resonance Imaging as a predictor of outcome in these at
risk patient populations. In particular, she is interested in the neuro-intensive care nursery program and its effects
on neurodevelopmental outcome. Her recent work includes studying the effect of hypothermia therapy on
magnetic resonance imaging findings.
Teesha Miller BS
Parent to Parent Program Manager
March of Dimes NICU Family Support Specialist
Children’s Mercy Hospital
Kansas City, MO
Teesha holds an undergraduate degree in management and is currently pursuing a graduate
degree in public health. She has served in various roles with a local health system before
assuming her current role as the Intensive Care Nursery Parent to Parent Manager at Children’s Mercy Hospital.
The most interesting dynamic of this role is merging her trainer/educator expertise with compassionate memories
of her personal experience as the ‘deer caught in the headlights’ when she felt as if her education and professional
experience flew out the window during her NICU experience. Teesha’s goal is to bring patient and family-centered
care alive in every interaction. Additionally, she would love to assist staff to be able to relate to every family by
meeting them where they are. A person’s emotional state and ability to reason can change from moment to
moment during a crisis. The basic human desire to be heard and understood never changes.
Nesha Park RN, BSN
Coordinator
NICU Quality Improvement
Children’s Mercy Hospital
Kansas City, MO
Nesha is a 13 year NICU nurse veteran with bedside, discharge coordination, and quality
improvement management positions held. I attained a BSN in 2007.
Jan Schriefer MBA, MSN, DrPH
Assistant Professor Pediatrics
Director of Pediatric Quality Improvement
University of Rochester Medical Center
Rochester, NY
Dr. Schriefer has taught numerous continuing medical education courses and programs. She
has been on the meeting planning committees for Institute for Health Care Improvement, HRSA,
JCAHO and NICHQ. She has presented on quality improvement topics more than 100 times. She has completed
peer review as a guest editor for numerous journals. She has been an administrator and investigator on many
grants.
Dr. Schriefer is an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Pediatric Hospital Medicine at the University
of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry and Director of Quality Improvement for the Golisano Children’s
Hospital at University of Rochester Medical Center. She is the lead author of Quality Improvement: An Overview in
Pediatrics In Review, August 2012. She just completed a HRSA funded grant for quality improvement of epilepsy
care in children as a subcontractor to John Snow Incorporated. She is also involved in the perinatal simulation lab
on a grant funded by HRSA and also NYS Department of Health. Dr. Schriefer is on a grant from NYS DOH related
to obesity prevention.
She is part of the NICU team responsible for maintaining the Vermont Oxford Network (VON) database at
University of Rochester. She has been a quality improvement facilitator for VON since 2001. Previously, she was
the Director of Outcomes Management at Spectrum Health/Helen Devos Children's Hospital. Before that, Dr.
Schriefer worked at Fletcher Allen Health Care in Burlington, VT as a critical care nurse, cost accountant and quality
improvement facilitator of the SICU early extubation QI project that won the USA Today and Mosby Quality
Awards. At University of Michigan, her doctoral research focused on asthma quality of life surveys to predict
resource utilization.
Minimizing Lung Injury Homeroom
Chris Chambers RRT
Supervisor, Respiratory Therapy
Fletcher Allen Health Care
Burlington, VT
Chris has been a registered respiratory therapist for nineteen years. He is currently the
supervisor of respiratory therapy at Fletcher Allen Health Care in alliance with Vermont
Children’s Hospital. He has worked in the NICU at Vermont Children’s Hospital in all aspects of
care. From 2008 to 2010 Chris worked primarily on Fletcher Allen’s EHR implementation team as
a Respiratory Consultant and Subject Matter Expert. He was an active member of the NICQ 2009 collaborative. He
was most recently a faculty and Advisory Board Member for NICQ7 and NICQ8 collaboratives, and has facilitated
many of its initiatives and educational responsibilities.
Hannah King MPH
Director, National Service Quality
Kaiser Permanente
Oakland, CA
Hannah King is Director, National Service Quality, at Kaiser Permanente. She works with unit
based teams (Microsystems) to improve or redesign processes to be patient and familycentered. In addition, she is a faculty member of Kaiser Permanente’s Improvement Institute.
Hannah has held positions in hospital administration, consulting, and teaching. She has been a member of the
Vermont Oxford Network NICQ faculty since 1999 where she has facilitated the FBI (Fight Bacterial Infections)
focus group, the Bug Off! group, the SMERPs (Stopping Medication Errors from Reaching Patients), and the
Discharge Management topic group. She has also contributed to the collaborative’s work by co-authoring the
Safety Culture Workbook and presenting on "holding the gains” and other related topics. Hannah has a MPH from
the University of California, Berkeley.
Allan P. Picarillo MD, FAAP
Chief
Division of Neonatology
UMass Memorial Healthcare
Assistant Professor in Pediatrics
UMass Medical School
Worcester, MA
Alan Picarillo received his medical degree from the University of Massachusetts in 1998 and completed his
pediatric residency at the UMass Memorial in Worcester, MA. He completed a fellowship in neonatal-perinatal
medicine at UMass Memorial in 2001. He is board certified in pediatrics and neonatal-perinatal medicine. Dr.
Picarillo become the NICU quality officer in 2005, the medical director of the UMass memorial NICU in 2012 and
the Chief of Neonatology in 2013. He has been involved in several quality improvement projects in both the NICU
and the well infant nursery. He also is the hospital-based coordinator for Vermont Oxford Network and past
resident of New England Association of Neonatologists. In addition, he is the co-director of the Massachusetts
Neonatal Quality Improvement Collaborative (MassNeoQIC), a collaborative on the nice level 3 NICUs in the state
and is involved in many projects and multi-site studies.
Optimizing Nutrition / Minimizing Necrotizing Enterocolitis Homeroom
Jen Clark
Family Advisory Council Member
Meriter Hospital
Madison, WI
Jen is a parent of a NICU graduate who is 4 years old now. She has been involved with Meriter
Hospital’s Family Advisory Committee since its inception in 2010 and has also been involved in
NICQ7 & 8 as the parent representative for Meriter. Jen has enjoyed getting to learn more
about the NICU and looks forward to continuing to learn more as a parent representative in the
NICQ Next collaborative, helping to facilitate great work in our Maximizing Nutrition Homeroom.
Richard Ehrenkranz MD
Interim Chief
Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine
Department of Pediatrics
Yale Medical School
Interim Director
Yale-New Haven Children’s Hospital Neonatal ICU
New Haven, CT
Dr. Richard Ehrenkranz is currently a Professor of Pediatrics, and of Obstetrics, Gynecology &
Reproductive Sciences, at Yale University School of Medicine. He is the Interim Director of the Section of
Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine, Yale University School of Medicine, as well as the Interim Director of the Neonatal
Intensive Care Unit (NICU), Yale-New Haven Children’s Hospital. m
Dr. Ehrenkranz is a strong advocate of clinical research, especially randomized controlled trials. In the neonatal ICU
setting, his research has focused on interventions that improve the clinical and neurodevelopmental outcomes of
infants managed in the NICU. The relationship between in-hospital nutritional support and growth and
neurodevelopmental outcomes in extremely preterm infants is one of his specific research interests. Other
research interests include bronchopulmonary dysplasia/chronic lung disease, intraventricular hemorrhage,
retinopathy of prematurity, neuroprotection for hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy, and neurodevelopmental
outcomes of extremely preterm infants. He was the principal investigator representing Yale’s NICU in the National
Institute of Child Health and Human Development Neonatal Research Network from 1991 to 2011. He is the
author or co-author of over 200 papers, chapters and proceedings, and is a member of the American Academy of
Pediatrics, the Society for Pediatric Research, the American Pediatric Society, and the American Society for
Nutrition.
Pat Heinrich RN, MSN
Quality Improvement Consultant
Heinrich LLC
Waltham, MA
Patricia Heinrich, RN, MSN, is an independent quality improvement consultant with over
fifteen years’ experience providing organizational and programmatic leadership and expertise
in the science and methods of health care quality improvement and system change. Prior to
her improvement work, Pat spent over 20 years as a Maternal Child Health Nurse in various patient care,
education, and leadership and management positions. While employed at the National Initiative for Children’s
Healthcare Quality (NICHQ) from 1997-2009, Pat served as Nurse Planner and presenter for nearly all of NICHQ’s
CME/CEU programs. Pat’s additional experience includes working as a planning team member developing
curriculum and presenting for both CME/CUE and MOC certified programs for Cincinnati Children’s Hospital and
NICHQ as a consultant. Pat has also served as a peer-reviewer for quality improvement related articles/publications
over the last 10 years of her career.
Brenda Maschmeyer RN, BSN
Research Nurse
Baptist Memorial Hospital
For Women
Memphis, TN
Brenda Maschmeyer RN, BSN served as an Onsite Host Faculty for the Nutrition/NEC
collaborative in 2015. My degree is a BSN awarded in December 1984.
Paula Meier RN, PhD, FAAN
Director for Clinical Research and Lactation, NICU
Professor of Women, Children & Family Nursing
Professor of Pediatrics
Rush University Medical Center
Chicago, IL
Paula Meier, PhD, RN, FAAN, is the director for clinical research and lactation in the Neonatal
Intensive Care Unit and is a professor of women, children and family nursing and a professor of pediatrics at Rush
University Medical Center in Chicago. She has worked as a practitioner and researcher in the area of human milk,
lactation and breastfeeding for premature infants and their mothers since 1975. Meier has conducted numerous
externally-funded research and demonstration projects, and currently serves as the principal investigator for a 5year, $2.76 million, NIH-funded study, "Health Outcomes and Cost of Human Milk Feedings for Very Low
Birthweight Infants." Her other external funding includes grants from the Agency for Healthcare Research and
Quality (AHRQ) in collaboration with Duke University, and philanthropic gifts from the Kenneth and Anne Griffin
Foundation, the Rossman Family Foundation and the Rush Woman's Board. She is a past recipient of philanthropic
gifts from the McNeil Foundation and the Illinois Health Care Foundation. Dr. Meier has published over 80 peerreviewed manuscripts, and serves as the President of the International Society for Research in Human Milk and
Lactation and is a member of the Health Advisory Council for La Leche League, International. She was the recipient
of the 2005 Distinguished Alumna Award from the University of Illinois, and the 2012 Faculty Research Award from
Rush University.
Kelley Smith RN, BSN
Nurse Manager
Sheldon B. Korones Newborn Center
Regional Medical Center
Memphis, TN
Active NICQ Next team member and host/planner of the ONSITE meeting
POD Micro-premature Infant Care Homeroom
June Austin RN
Faculty and Project Lead
Mark Murray & Associates
Alberta AIM
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
June Austin has had a 26 year career in healthcare as an RN and consultant in healthcare
process improvement. She has been a facilitator and faculty member for Albert Aim for over 7
years and most recently left the position of Provincial Lead Faculty where she provided leadership for
measurement, and measurement tool development in addition to content and curriculum development. June
continues to teach and provide consultation in the area of content and models of delivery to this CME credited
program that works in the area of access, efficiency improvement and process redesign in Alberta.
Through her role as faculty and facilitator at Mark Murray and Associates, she works with large and small health
care organizations across the United States and Canada to improve access and clinical care at all parts of the
system from primary and specialty care programs to hospital based care.
June has worked as a consultant and project lead for Toward Optimized Practice (TOP)- an Alberta based program
whose mission is to foster a culture of continuous quality improvement among physicians and the teams with
whom they work. She provided project leadership consultation and education for quality improvement initiatives
ranging from screening and prevention to multidisciplinary integration over a 78 year period.
June is a certified instructor for Health Care Effectiveness. This evidence-based program is specifically designed for
healthcare teams to improve team functioning and leadership skills. June is currently facilitating the works of the
POD Micro-premature Infant Care Homeroom of the NICQ Next Collaborative: Innovations in Newborn Care.
Before becoming involved in quality improvement work, June was a Clinical Nurse Educator for the Northern
Alberta Nutrition Support Program and specialized in the delivery and education in the area of Home Total
Parenteral Nutrition. She was a founding member of the Canadian Nutrition Society. June was also a clinical home
specialist and research coordinator for the Hepatitis Support Program for the former Capital Health in Edmonton
and was instrumental in the early development of this program for the treatment of Hepatitis C.
June recently was a featured speaker at the Accelerating Primary Care Conference in Alberta in December 2013
and spoke on the topic of Panel Management in Primary Care.
Mindy Morris DNP, NNP-BC, CNS
Neonatal Nurse Practitioner
Extremely Low Birth Weight Program Coordinator
CHOC Children's Hospital
Orange, CA
Mindy Morris DNP, NNP-BC, CNS is the coordinator of the Extremely Low Birth Weight
Program at CHOC Children’s Hospital in Orange, California. She has worked in the NICU for
over 25 years as a nurse, a CNS, and a NNP where she has developed a passion and expertise
in caring for the ELBW infant. She partnered with a neonatologist to develop a program and specialty unit within
the NICU to care for this unique and most at-risk population via standardized care practices. Mindy graduated
from the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, Texas with her BSN, obtained her MS degree from
California State University, Long Beach, her neonatal nurse practitioner certification from Loma Linda University,
and her DNP from Brandman University. Mindy participated with the team from CHOC Children’s, Orange in three
NICQ Collaboratives (2002-2010). She is on the editorial board and regular reviewer for the NeoNotes Journal
Club. Mindy’s dissertation project on a new protocol to reduce the rate of false-positive newborn screening results
was published in Genetics in Medicine.
Amy Nyberg BS
March of Dimes NICU Family Support Specialist
Helen DeVos Children’s Hospital
Grand Rapids, MI
Amy Nyberg is the parent advisor and March of Dimes NICU Family Support Specialist at Helen
DeVos Children’s Hospital in Grand Rapids, MI. She started her work in quality improvement
after her 2 oldest boys were born at 24 weeks gestation and spent 120 days in the NICU in
1999. She was involved with the neonatal unit as a volunteer for 6 years before becoming the March of Dimes
NICU Family Support Specialist in 2006. She has presented at multiple national meetings in regards to improving
family-centered care in neonatology. She was awarded the 2013 March of Dimes National Award for NICU Family
Support Project of the Year in recognition of exemplary work ensuring high quality, innovative programming,
volunteer leadership, and overall impact as it informs and comforts NICU families. She currently serves as VON cofamily leader for the POD and is a member of the VON NICQ Next Collaborative Advisory Board.
Ginny Shaffer
Parent Navigator
The Children’s Hospital at Providence
Anchorage, AK
Ginny has been in the role of Parent Navigator for The Children’s Hospital at Providence since
2006. During this time they have been able to begin to re-energize their parent volunteer
groups, increase parent support offerings every month as well as provide monthly meals. Ginny
was privileged to be included in the NICQ collaborative Design team for the design and building of their new singlefamily room NICU. They have also been able to increase their family-centered care training for new staff from a
30-minute block of time to a 10-hour day.
Eileen Steffen RNC-NIC
NICU Quality and Research Coordinator
Saint Barnabas Medical Center
Livingston, NJ
Eileen has worked in the NICU at Saint Barnabas Medical Center, Livingston NJ for the past 31
years. During this time, she has had clinical experiences at various levels including working as
a staff nurse, Patient Care Coordinator, Clinical Instructor and now as NICU Quality and
Research Coordinator. Eileen has participated in VON NICQ collaboratives since 2001. In 2005, her unit
participated in the “Your Ideal NICU (YIN)” Project and Eileen functioned as the coordinator and was instrumental
in implementing a NICU Family Advisory Council. She continues to work closely with these dedicated volunteers to
improve the NICU experience for current and future NICU babies and their families.
Currently, Eileen coordinates and leads staff at all levels to facilitate quality improvement and safety of care to the
neonates they care for. She coordinates the NICQ efforts by working collaboratively with her team to plan,
organize, implement, standardize and audit process improvements while identifying new areas to improve the
quality and safety of care provided to the patients. She was honored to act as Clinical Leader for the “Milky
Weigh” Nutrition group in NICQ 2009, for the POD Homeroom in NICQ 7 and NICQ 8. She is currently acting as
ONSITE leader for the POD Micro-Premature Infant Homeroom as part of the NICQ Next: Innovations in Newborn
Care.
Since 2009, Eileen has been instrumental in helping to lead, plan, and educate during the early stages of the
formation of the NJ NICU State Collaborative. She has worked as a member of the Planning Committee while
working closely with the other state Collaborative leaders to help coordinate and implement quality improvement
initiatives to improve the care provided to all neonates and their families. In addition, since 2012, Eileen has
coordinated the NCABSI project at her site.
Safety is Job # 1 Homeroom
Jennifer Gallegos RN, MSM, NNP
Neonatal Nurse Practitioner
Houston, TX
Jennifer Gallegos RN, MSM, NNP has been a nurse for 14 years in Level 3, level 4 NICUs. With 5
years’ experience in quality improvement work and has presented at conferences on the
results of QI work and how to implement change.
John Lester BSc
Lead Facilitator and Emerging Faculty
Alberta AIM
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
John is passionate about quality improvement, particularly when it involves teams that provide
healthcare services to patients and clients. Over the past 18 years he has held a variety of
positions in cardiac rehabilitation, chronic disease management, primary care management, and quality
improvement in healthcare across Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia, Canada. He has supported teams
in Primary Care, Specialty Care and health care programs to improve the services they deliver. John is currently a
faculty member and the Lead for Facilitation for Alberta AIM where he works with other faculty and facilitators to
support health care teams in their improvement journey.
Brenda Miller BFA
Parent Coordinator
University of Michigan
CS Mott Children’s Hospital Brandon NICU
Ann Arbor, MI
Brenda has been a parent leader in the University of Michigan NICU since 1998, becoming part
of the paid staff in 2002. Her full-time role as Parent Coordinator includes development of
programs and education for parents, peer support to families, quality improvement initiatives,
and participation on unit and children’s hospital committees. She has been a Family Advisor with VON since 2006,
serving as part of the faculty in the most recent collaborative. Her degree and background is in Fine Arts, with
much of her career enjoyed as an illustrator and designer. Brenda’s daughter Emily was born at 26 weeks, 1lb, 5oz,
and is now a freshman in college.
STATES TOGETHER COLLABORATIVE
Edward F. Donovan MD
Vermont Oxford Network Collaborative of State Collaboratives
Faculty Leader
Professor Emeritus Pediatrics
La Veta, CO
Dr. Ed Donovan, retired neonatologist, is Emeritus Professor of Pediatrics at the
University of Cincinnati College of Medicine and Cincinnati Children's James M.
Anderson Center for Health Systems Excellence. He was co-founder of the Ohio
Perinatal Quality Collaborative. Dr. Donovan now lives in La Veta, Colorado and consults with the newly formed
Colorado Perinatal Quality Care Collaborative.
Ronda Christopher D.HSc(c), M.Ed., OTL, PCMH-CCE
Executive Director
Chief Network Integration Officer
Springfield Market
Ronda Christopher D.HSc(c), M.Ed., OTL, PCMH-CCE serves as the Vice President of
Network Experience and Consulting Solutions for HealthSpan Solutions. In this role, she
leads regional and statewide network development initiatives that help providers and
organizations adopt improvement science and organizational change applications in
support of the triple aim. She works to build systems that will produce measurable and positive outcomes for
patients. This focus serves to bridge the payer/provider/employer relationship helping each industry execute
population health interventions resulting in healthier lives. Her clients appreciate her practical and hands-on
solutions to complex problems. Throughout her career, she has provided strategic oversight and management of
multi-stakeholder projects in healthcare transformation. By championing a culture of transparency and building
synergy between operational and clinical practice, she has helped systems realize goals toward value based care
models. Her expertise includes diagnosing a system’s needs and quickly identifying improvement opportunities,
redesigning clinical and operational workflows, building network relationships that will allow for realization of
measured cost, quality and experience targets and creating resources that help get results.
Rochelle Nelson MS
Academic advisor and lecturer
University of Tennessee
Knoxville, TN
Rochelle Nelson has served as an Oversight Committee Member, Family Representative, and
Co-Chair of the Family Involvement Team of the Tennessee Initiative for Perinatal Quality
Care since 2010. She is the mother of 20 year old twin daughters born at 29 weeks, and also
the mother of a son born at 28 weeks who lived for 3 days. Rochelle is enthusiastic about
the opportunity to serve as a Family Leader with the States Together Collaborative.
She also serves as an academic advisor and lecturer within the College of Communication and Information and the
First Year Studies Department at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, where she has worked for over 25 years.
In addition to Rochelle’s responsibilities at the University, she has coordinated and presented workshops at the
TIPQC Annual Meetings, as well as, planned and facilitated monthly TIPQC Family Involvement Team webinars.
Rochelle’s educational background includes a B.A. in Communication from the University of Illinois at Springfield,
and a M.S. in College Student Personnel from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.
Jump Starting Quality – Calling All Fellows Preconference
Munish Gupta MD, MMSc
Quality Improvement Director
Department of Neonatology
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
Boston, MA
Munish Gupta MD, MMSc is a staff neonatologist and the Quality Improvement Director for
the Department of Neonatology at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston MA. He is
also co-chair of the Neonatal Quality Improvement Collaborative of Massachusetts.
Jeffrey Gould MD, MPH
Professor of Pediatrics
Perinatal Epidemiology and Health
Outcomes Research Unit,
Stanford University
Jeffrey Gould is director of the Perinatal Epidemiology and Health Outcomes Research Unit in the division of
Neonatology at the Stanford University School of Medicine and Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital. He also directs
the California Perinatal Quality Care Collaborative (CPQCC), a network of 132 California hospitals that provide
intensive care to newborns that have volunteered to submit and compare uniform care processes and outcome
data and conduct quality improvement initiatives for their mothers and newborns. He has also developed an all
California Neonatal Transport database and the all California High Risk Infant Follow-up database till age 3 that are
both linked to the CPQCC dataset. Gould is a leading public health researcher in population-based studies related
to neonatal and perinatal diseases. Much of his research is focused on developing strategies to assess the quality
of perinatal care based on risk-adjusted indicators of neonatal and maternal morbidity. In 2006 he received the
National MCH Epidemiology Leadership award. In October, 2008 he received the American Academy of Pediatrics
Perinatal Section’s Education Award and in 2010 in Recognition of Lifetime Achievements in Healthcare Services,
the Society for Pediatric Research’s Douglas K. Richardson Award for Perinatal and Pediatric Healthcare Research. .
Gould received his medical degree from University of Rochester School of Medicine in 1965. He completed his
residency at Yale University School of Medicine in 1968, and a fellowship in Neonatal/Perinatal medicine at the
University of California, San Diego School of Medicine in 1972. Prior to joining the Stanford faculty in 2003, Gould
served on the faculty of the UC-Berkeley School of Public Health from 1982 through 2002, after earning a Master
of Public Health degree from there.
Thomas Parker MD
Associate Professor
Department of Pediatrics
Section of Neonatology
University of Colorado School of Medicine
Thomas Parker MD is an Associate Professor at the Department of Pediatrics, Section of
Neonatology at the University of Colorado School Of Medicine and a Director, Training
Program in Neonatal Perinatal Medicine, and Co-Director of Department of Pediatrics Fellowship Programs.