GEORGE W. MERCK FELLOWS
Jacquelyn S. Hunt, RPh, PharmD, MS, comes to IHI from Providence Health and Services, Physician Division, where she works as the Executive Director of Quality and Care Improvement. In that role, she leverages organizational resources in IT, medical management, case management, clinical pharmacy, and patient and professional education to create innovative strategies to improve patient outcomes in more efficient health care delivery models. Jacquelyn received her Doctor of Pharmacy from University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio, where she also completed a two-year residency in Pharmacotherapy and Ambulatory Medicine. She later received a Master of Science in Clinical Research Design and Statistical Analysis from the University of Michigan.
Rocco J. Perla, EdD, MA, comes to IHI from HealthAlliance Hospital, a University of Massachusetts Medical Center affiliate hospital. For the past decade, Rocco directed the clinical and research activities of the microbiology department at HealthAlliance and also served as a hospital epidemiologist, statistician, and clinical lecturer. He has done basic research and published in the areas of infectious disease epidemiology, drug discovery, mathematical modeling, and education. He has undergraduate and graduate degrees in health science and earned his doctoral degree in education from the University of Massachusetts Lowell, where his work focused on measurement, cognition, and model development. Rocco has collaborated on training and research initiatives with numerous organizations, including the National Laboratory Training Network, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, and university and industry partners around the world. He is currently on the faculty of the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences and sits on the Eastern Educational Research Association Board of Directors. Upon return to his home institution, he will be involved in expanding the quality improvement, measurement, and assessment programs.
Matt Stiefel, MPA, is a Senior Director in Kaiser Permanente’s Department of Care and Service Quality. He joined Kaiser Permanente (KP) in 1981 as a Medical Economist in KP’s Program Offices. He joined the Care Management Institute as the Director of Measurement in 1998 and became the Associate Director in 2000. Previously he held various management positions in KP Northwest, directing planning, marketing, and medical economics. Prior to joining KP, Matt served as a policy analyst on the Carter Administration Domestic Policy Staff and in the US Department of Health, Education and Welfare, and as a local health planner in the Bay Area. His academic background includes the Harvard School of Public Health Program in Clinical Effectiveness, coursework in the Systems Science PhD Program at Portland State University, a Master's degree in Public Administration from Wharton, and a Bachelor’s degree from Stanford. His primary fellowship interests include health status measurement and development/adaptation of a population health index.
HEALTH FOUNDATION QUALITY IMPROVEMENT FELLOWS
Joanne Watson, MD, FRCP, MBBS, is a consultant endocrinologist in the National Health Service who is spending a year as a Health Foundation Fellow at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) where she is focusing on improving health care by making it more patient-centered.
Ever since she had a conversation with an engineer from the airline industry in 2000, Joanne’s career accomplishments have reflected an ambition to improve safety and quality in health care. Prior to her fellowship at IHI, she was head of the Department of Metabolism at Musgrove Park Hospital Taunton, England. In 2003, Joanne successfully led the hospital’s medical division in the nationwide Emergency Services Collaborative which resulted in improved patient flow through Musgrove Park. As the clinical specialist lead for Somerset County, she has overseen a broad range of innovations, including comprehensive diabetic retinal screening, the improvement of health care professional communication and the development of innovative IT support and clinical management tools for chronic disease care. In 2004, Joanne’s work using an integrated-care pathway in diabetic pregnancy management received an award and national recognition for excellence.
Brian Robson, DRCOG, MRCGP, MBChB, was a General Practitioner (GP) in the West of Scotland for almost 10 years, during which time he was a founding member of REMS, an out-of-hours service. REMS operated using telephone-based nurse triage, standardized protocols, and was latterly based on an electronic medical record. In 2001 he was appointed Medical Director of NHS 24, which provides a Scotland-wide telephone-based triage and health advice service for Scotland’s 5.1 million population.
In 2005, Brian undertook a one-year secondment with Information Services Division (ISD), where he chaired the working group on the development of the Secondary Uses Service (SUS) and, in January 2007, took up a new position as Clinical Director for eHealth across NHS National Services Scotland (NHS NSS). NHS NSS provides a range of “common” services across NHS Scotland, including national information technologies, information analytical services, legal services, and national blood transfusion services.
As Clinical Director for eHealth, Brian has responsibility for establishing key elements of clinical governance, quality, and patient safety within eHealth developments delivered by NHS NSS, including the country-wide introduction of a picture archive and communication system (PACS) for digital radiology.
Having been involved in introducing computer systems in his practice, both regionally in an out-of-hours service and nationally with NHS 24, he is aware of the opportunities and challenges such developments bring. As a member of the NHS Scotland eHealth Strategy Board from 2003-2005, he also became aware of the size of the task facing NHS Scotland in coordinating the national eHealth program. As a member of the National Advisory Committee for the Scottish Patient Safety Alliance, Brian is committed to ensuring that eHealth plays its part in improving the safety of patients for whom they provide care.
Brian continues in clinical practice with a regular session in General Practice in Glasgow, which allows a healthy mix of the planning world and the real world.
Carol J. Peden, MB ChB, FRCA, MD, has been a Consultant in Anaesthesia and Critical Care Medicine for fourteen years at the Royal United Hospital Bath, UK, providing anaesthesia for trauma and emergency surgery and major vascular surgery. As a critical care consultant she cares for patients recovering from major surgery or requiring organ support to survive severe illness.
Carol trained at Edinburgh University Medical School and completed her specialist training in Anaesthesia and Critical Care Medicine in the South West and London. She was a Medical Research Council Research Fellow at the Hammersmith Hospital and Royal Postgraduate Medical School London, performing research into critically ill patients, especially infants, using magnetic resonance. This research led to a Doctorate in Medicine. She has a continued interest in managing patients requiring anaesthesia or sedation outside the operating theatre and was a member of the working party on the national guidelines for “Sedation and Anaesthesia” for the Royal College of Radiologists. Carol is one of the authors of “Radiology for Anaesthesia and Intensive Care,” highly commend as a textbook by the British Medical Association in 2003.
Carol has a great deal of experience in teaching and training junior doctors in the specialty of anaesthesia, and is a Final Fellowship examiner for the Royal College of Anaesthetists. She also has an interest in pharmacology and therapeutics and has been a researcher for major drug trials. She chaired the Royal United Hospital drug and therapeutics committee and sat on the regional prescribing group managing the drug formulary for over half a million people.
Her Health Foundation Quality Improvement Fellowship interest is to look at ways of improving care for high-risk patients having emergency surgery, in particular the elderly.
