Amy Atwater RN, BSN, MPA-H NICQ Faculty Senior Quality Improvement Specialist Helen DeVos Children s Hospital NICU Grand Rapids, MI

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1 Amy Atwater RN, BSN, MPA-H Senior Quality Improvement Specialist Helen DeVos Children s Hospital NICU Grand Rapids, MI Amy Atwater is a Senior Quality Improvement Specialist at Helen DeVos Children s Hospital in Grand Rapids Michigan. She works closely with the Neonatal and Pediatric Intensive Care, Cardiology, and ECMO leading quality improvement projects with multidisciplinary teams. As an active participant in Vermont Oxford Quality Improvement Collaborative since 2002, she uses her skills as a facilitator to plan and promote the implementation of best practices to improve outcomes and standardize care. For the past 3 years she has been focused on promoting neurodevelopmental supportive care to the micro preemie and helped organize the opening of the Small Baby Unit which opened in Since then the unit has hosted 11 site visits using an innovative approach to adult learning which included simulation and video ethnology. Currently she is working with Grand Valley State University mentoring students on quality improvement tools and projects. 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. June Austin Quality Improvement Facilitator Process Redesign Consultant June Austin Consulting Sherwood Park, 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 Alberta 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 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.

2 Janelle G. Bainter MSW March of Dimes NICU Family Support Specialist Barbara Bush Children s Hospital at Maine Medical Center Portland, ME Janelle G. Bainter has multiple years experience related to social work/case management/program management with the following populations: Adult/children with HIV/AIDS, children with mental health diagnoses, potential adoptive families, adolescents with substance abuse/misuse disorders and criminal justice involvement and most recently (for the past 6 years) with families with an infant in the NICU. Arvelle Balon-Lyon RN, BN Director, Health Innovation Group Director, Toward Optimized Practice Alberta Medical Association 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 the 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.

3 Andrew F. Beck MD MPH Associate Professor and Attending Pediatrician, Department of Pediatrics, Divisions of General & Community Pediatrics and Hospital Medicine, University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, Cincinnati Children s Hospital Medical Center Cincinnati, OH Dr. Beck strives to improve population health outcomes by focusing on the identification and mitigation of key social, economic, and environmental determinants of health. He sees patients as a primary care and hospitalist pediatrician. For his efforts, he has been recognized with the Cincinnati Children's Junior Faculty Award for Service and Advocacy and has been recognized by the Cincinnati Business Courier as a member of the region's 40 under 40. Sandra Bellini DNP, APRN, NNP-BC, CNE Associate Professor Director, Neonatal Nurse Practitioner Track University of Connecticut School of Nursing Storrs, CT Dr. Sandra Bellini received a Diploma in Nursing from the Framingham Union Hospital School of Nursing in 1987 and a BS in Nursing from Worcester State College in She received a MS in Neonatal Critical Care Nursing (NNP) from Northeastern University in 1996 and a post-ms Certificate from the University of Massachusetts in Nursing Education in She earned her DNP degree in 2007 from Case Western Reserve University. Sandra is presently a Clinical Professor with both NCC certification as an NNP and NLN certification as a Nurse Educator. Her current position is Director for the Neonatal Nurse Practitioner Program at the University of Connecticut School of Nursing, as well as practicing NNP at Connecticut Children s Medical Center, NICU, Hartford, Ct. Dr. Bellini serves as a Council Member for the National Association of Neonatal Nurse Practitioners, where she currently leads an inter-organizational Task Force dedicated to clarifying APRN Scope of Practice for the neonatal population across AAP Levels of Care. Rodgers Gift Benkele (PCHN), (MScCHN), BSN., RPN., RN., EN. Arthur Davison Children s Hospital School of Paediatrics and Child Health Nursing Copperbelt Province, Ndola, Zambia Rodgers Gift Benkele is the Principal Lecturer at Arthur Davison School of Paediatric Nursing and Child Health. He has 23 years of experience as a bedside nurse, nurse manager, nurse educator and nurse researcher. Rodgers is based in the Copperbelt Province of Zambia at Arthur Davison Children s Hospital in Ndola. He is waiting to be conferred with Master of Science in Child Health Nursing by University of Malawi in conjunction with University of Cape Town. Rodgers holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Nursing from the University of Zambia, Post Graduate Diploma in Paediatric Nursing from University of Cape Town, Diploma in Advanced Paediatric Nursing from Gertrude Paediatric School of Nursing, Nairobi Kenya and a Diploma in Registered Nursing from the Lusaka University College of Nursing, Zambia. Rodgers is a very passionate Nurse Educator specializing in Paediatrics and Child Health Nursing as well as Professional Practice in Neonatal Nursing. He has successfully helped to establish and operationalize the two Paediatric and Child Health Nurse Training Institutions (Lusaka School of Paediatrics and Child Health Nursing and Arthur Davison School of Paediatrics Nursing and Child Health). Currently, as a team of Newborn Support Zambia

4 they are facilitating the development of Neonatal Nurse Training Curriculum. Rodgers has previously served as Nursing Officer in charge of various medical & surgical units. His other engagements include serving as consultant to the General Nursing Council of Zambia in the preparation of the curriculum for Advanced Diploma in Paediatric Nursing. He was engaged by the Ministry of Health s Nursing Unit with the development of two very important documents; Nursing and Midwifery Strategic Plan (NMSP) and Nursing and Midwifery Protocols for He was also engaged by Zambia Union of Nurses Organisation in the development of Continuous Professional Development (CPD) Modules. Rodgers has also worked with USAID on the Maternal Child Survival Program (MCSP) as Child Health and Immunisation and Technical Advisor. Sonia L. Bonifacio MD Associate Medical Director, NeuroNICU Clinical Associate Professor Lucille Packard Children's Hospital Stanford University School of Medicine Division of Neonatal & Developmental Medicine Palo Alto, CA Dr. Sonia Lomeli Bonifacio joined the Stanford faculty in May of 2015 and is the Associate Medical Director of the NeuroNICU. 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. She was on the faculty at UCSF from 2009 to 2015 and was the Director of the Neuro-Intensive Care Nursery. Dr. Bonifacio is currently an Associate Professor of Pediatrics at Stanford. 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 outcomes in these at-risk patient populations. In particular, she is interested in the impact of focused neurological care and its effects on neurodevelopmental outcome. Recent work includes studying the effect of hypothermia therapy on magnetic resonance imaging findings. Barbara S. Boushon RN, BSN Lead Quality Improvement Faculty Facilitator McFarland, WI Barbara S. Boushon RN, BSN, serves in multiple roles to improve health care. Through Mark Murray and Associates, she currently works with large and small health care organizations across the United States and Canada to improve access to primary and specialty care, medical office flow and efficiency, and hospital flow. At the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), she led learning collaboratives with health care organizations and government entities seeking to improve care for patients with chronic conditions such as asthma, depression, and HIV/AIDS disease. She also developed and led IHI s first totally virtual collaborative with the topic of improving access to primary care. Also, she directed an initiative to reduce harm from falls on medical-surgical units as part of the safety and reliability work in IHI s Transforming Care at the Bedside Initiative, funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Through the National Quality Center (funded through the HIV/AIDS Bureau), she works with state and federal government to improve care for people living with HIV/AIDS disease and serves as faculty for developing quality improvement capacity, leadership potential, and facilitation skills for Ryan White Care Act grantees. With the Veterans Administration, she codirected the national Transitioning Levels of Care Collaborative and the Patient Aligned Care Team Regional Collaboratives and is now co-directing the national Specialty/Surgical Collaboratives and Access Academy. With Vermont Oxford Network, Barbara facilitated the work of the Infection Topic Group and the POD, and currently serves as the Lead QI Facilitator. Before becoming involved in these quality and process

5 improvement activities, Barbara worked at Dean Health Systems in Madison, Wisconsin in multiple clinical and administrative roles including RN and RN Coordinator of sub-specialties, Director of Patient Care Services, Director of Software Development and Telecommunications, and Services Initiatives Administrator. In this last role, she led initiatives to improve both access to care and customer service throughout the health system. Previous to this, she also worked as an RN for the Red Cross, and as an RN in a Medical Intensive Care Unit. Debra Brandon PhD, RN, CNS, FAAN Associate Professor, Director PhD and Postdoctoral Programs, Duke University School of Nursing Associate Professor, Department of Pediatrics, School of Medicine Neonatal CNS, Duke Intensive Care Nursery Program Director WSSU-Duke Nursing Bridge to the Doctorate Durham, NC Debra Brandon PhD, RN, CNS, FAAN is an Associate Professor at the Duke University School of Nursing and Co-editor in Chief for the journal Advances in Neonatal Care. She has extensive clinical experience in neonatology, pediatrics, and child development. Dr. Brandon s research focuses on the effects of the intensive care environment of care on the health and development of high-risk infants and young children with an overall goal of improving the shortand long-term outcomes of infants, young children and their families. She also practiced as a Neonatal Clinical Nurse Specialist in the Intensive Care Nursery of Duke University Medical Center from Kelly J. Burch PharmD Pharmacy Specialist Neonatology Emerson NICU at Mercy Children s Hospital St. Louis, MO Clinical pharmacy practice in neonatology at Mercy Children s Hospital-St. Louis since Comprehensive pharmaceutical care for patients in the NICU is a priority. Consultative services for pediatric and obstetric patients. Leadership in quality improvement for the children s hospital, pharmacy department and NICU. Implementation of technology to improve safety in NICU patients using smart infusion pumps, automated dispensing cabinets, TPN compounding software and CPOE. 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.

6 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 400 articles in peer-reviewed journals on respiratory and other neonatal topics over the past 3 decades, all while being actively involved in clinical trials and teaching Pediatrics at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. He is currently the Director of Newborn Nurseries at the University of Alabama Medical Center and Children's Hospital of Alabama. Jeanne Carroll MD Assistant Professor of Pediatrics University of California San Diego Rady Children s Hospital San Diego, CA Jeanne Carroll MD, completed her undergraduate training in math, chemistry and biology at Aquinas College and medical school at University of Virginia. She did her pediatric residency at University of California, San Diego and neonatology fellowship at Boston Children s Hospital. She is currently an assistant professor of pediatrics in the division of neonatology at UCSD/Rady Children s hospital. Her past work has included generating and banking induced pluripotent stem cells from discarded umbilical cord stumps in the delivery room and the investigation of GWAS variants associated with COPD and asthma using CRISPR/Cas9 in embryonic stem cells differentiated to lung progenitor cells. She joins the institute with an interest in improving the delivery of precision medicine to critically ill neonates through rapid whole genome sequencing

7 Sheri Carroll MD NICU Medical Director Betty H Cameron Women s and Children s Hospital Wilmington, NC Dr. Carroll 's interest is in quality improvement and she leads improvement teams at the local, state and national level. She has led a local infection reduction initiative at BHCWCH. She has been a state leader in the Perinatal Quality Collaborative of North Carolina (PQCNC), a voluntary statewide collaborative of stakeholders that strive to make NC the best state to be born. She led 18 NC hospital teams in a two-year collaborative to reduce infections. She is also a faculty member of Vermont Oxford Network, a nonprofit, voluntary organization of over 950 Neonatal Intensive Care Units worldwide that collaborate to improve infant's health outcomes. She serves as a team leader for 6 to 8 hospital teams nationwide to collaborate in 2-year cycles to achieve shared goals, like reducing infection and working better in teams. Chris Chambers RRT Supervisor, Respiratory Therapy University of Vermont Medical Center 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. Shimul Chowdhury PhD, FACMG Clinical Laboratory Director Rady Children s Institute for Genomic Medicine Rady Children s Hospital San Diego, CA Shimul Chowdhury PhD, FACMG serves as a clinical laboratory director at the Rady Children s Institute for Genomic Medicine (RCIGM). Prior to joining the RCIGM team, Dr. Chowdhury served as a Senior Scientist in the Illumina Clinical Services Laboratory in which he reviewed and analyzed patient genomes for rare and undiagnosed disease as well as healthy individuals. Dr. Chowdhury has also served as a clinical laboratory director at Quest Diagnostics. Dr. Chowdhury is licensed as a clinical laboratory director for molecular genetics by the state of California. He conducted his American Board of Medical Genetics and Genomics (ABMGG) clinical molecular genetics fellowship at Sacred Heart Medical Center in Spokane, Washington. He obtained his PhD in Clinical and Translational Sciences at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, and his Bachelors of Science at the University of Minnesota- Twin Cities. He is an active member of the Association for Molecular Pathology and the American Society of Human Genetics.

8 John Chuo MD, MSBI, IA Associate Professor of Clinical Pediatrics, University of Pennsylvania Neonatal Quality Officer Clinical Champion for Digital Health Evaluation Children's Hospital of Philadelphia Philadelphia, PA Dr. John Chuo is an Associate Professor of Clinical Pediatrics at the Perelman School of Medicine, of the University of Pennsylvania. He did his neonatal-perinatal fellowship at Children s Hospital Boston, and earned his Masters of Biomedical Informatics at the Joint MIT-Harvard Program in Health Science and Technology. He received his training in quality improvement in 2008 from the Institute for Healthcare Improvement. Dr. Chuo is the Neonatal Quality Officer for the CHOP Newborn Network, and the Clinical Champion for Digital Health Evaluation at CHOP. His research and publications are focused on quality improvement tools and infrastructures, team intelligence, and the implementation of telemedicine as a quality improvement intervention. Paige Terrien Church MD Director, Neonatal Follow Up Clinic Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre Toronto, Ontario, Canada congenital anomalies. Dr. Church is the Director of the Neonatal Follow Up Clinic at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre and the Developmental Behavioral Paediatrician in the Spina Bifida Clinic. She is board certified in both Neonatology and Developmental Behavioral Pediatrics with interest in the long-term outcomes of children either preterm or those with Dmitry Dukhovny MD, MPH Associated Professor of Pediatrics Oregon Health and Science University Fellow Liaison Vermont Oxford Network 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. With his colleagues at Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU), he is developing an improvement science curriculum for the Neonatology fellows at OHSU, as well as continuing to expand educational opportunities in improvement science for all Neonatology nationally in his role as the Fellow liaison for VON in partnership with the Section of Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine of the AAP. Currently, he is co-leading the regional effort to improve antibiotic stewardship in Oregon and Southern Washington, involving all 11 NICUs in the region under the Northwest Improvement Priority: Antibiotic Stewardship (NW IPAs). He has presented and organized workshops at national conferences, including Pediatric Academic Societies, Vermont Oxford Network Annual Quality Congress, and Perinatal Workshop.

9 Michael S. Dunn MD, FRCPC 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 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 four NICQ collaboratives, including NICQ 2002 (Family Matters), NICQ 2005 (Senses and Sensibilities), NICQ 2007 (Staffing for Quality and Safety) and NICQ Next (Micropremature Infant Care- POD). Dr. Dunn was also the Clinical Leader for the Resuscitation and Stabilization group of NICQ 2009 and was a regular contributor to the Neonotes Journal Club as an editor. Perhaps his most noteworthy achievement with VON was as the winner of the NICQ Idol competition in 2007 after a stirring rendition of Twist and Shout. 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 Maternal and Perinatal Death Review Committee to the Chief Coroner for the Province of Ontario and the Database and Annual Report Committee of the Canadian Neonatal Network. Dr. Dunn is the Past-President of the Neonatal- Perinatal Section of the Canadian Paediatric Society (CPS) and was 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. He 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. Erika M. Edwards PhD, MPH Director of Data Science Vermont Oxford Network Research Assistant Professor University of Vermont Burlington, VT As Director of Data Science 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 College of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences, University of Vermont and a Research Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at the Robert Larner College of Medicine, 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.

10 Richard A. Ehrenkranz MD Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine Department of Pediatrics, Yale Medical School 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. 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 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. Danielle Ehret MD MPH Assistant Professor of Pediatrics University of Vermont Children s Hospital Director of Global Health Vermont Oxford Network Burlington, VT Dr. Danielle Ehret is a board-certified Pediatrician and Neonatologist. Her academic work focuses on the synergy of quality improvement and implementation of evidencebased neonatal care practices globally. As Director of Global Health at Vermont Oxford Network, Dr. Ehret has developed and implemented a new database for neonatal units in resource-limited settings and leads VON s Black Lion NICU project in Ethiopia. Dr. Ehret is an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at the Robert Larner College of Medicine, University of Vermont and Associate Editor of the Neonatal Review Group of the Cochrane Collaboration. Prior to joining Vermont Oxford Network, Dr. Ehret completed neonatal-perinatal medicine fellowship and M.P.H at Harvard, and pediatrics residency and pediatric global health track at Yale. Kimberly Firestone MSc, RRT Neonatal Respiratory Outreach Clinical Liaison Akron Children s Hospital Akron, OH Ms. Kimberly Firestone MSc, RRT is currently the Neonatal Respiratory Outreach Clinical Liaison for the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Akron Children s Hospital. She has been involved with simulation since the inception of their center in She has designed and implemented simulation programs for a NICU move to single patient rooms, NICU transport, post resuscitation and Neonatal Resuscitation. Ms. Firestone has been involved with the NICU s process and quality improvement programs for many years with her involvement and membership of the Vermont Oxford Network Collaborative as well as

11 the Ohio Perinatal Quality Collaborative. Her passion for improving the lives of babies in the NICU is evidenced by her continued commitment to quality improvement and ventilation enhancements. Victoria A. Flanagan RN, MS Perinatal Outreach Educator Regional Program for Women's and Children's Health Director of Operations, NNEPQIN Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center Lebanon, NH Victoria A. Flanagan RN, MS has been involved in international perinatal improvement initiatives since the 1990 s in Russia, Egypt, Croatia, Kosovo. In 2010, she was involved in the launch of Helping Babies Breathe, an evidence-based educational program to teach neonatal resuscitation techniques in resource-limited areas. Since that launch, she has taught courses in the United States, Kenya and Sudan, Africa. Marybeth Fry Med Lead Family Advisor NICU Family Care Coordinator Akron Children s Hospital Akron, OH The 2004 birth of Marybeth s daughter at 28 weeks gestation and subsequent threemonth 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 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 family-centered care and to see many of her volunteer projects come to fruition. 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

12 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 Donald Goldmann MD Chief Scientific Officer, Emeritus, Institute for Healthcare Improvement Professor of Pediatrics, Harvard Medical School Professor of Immunology and Infectious Diseases, and Epidemiology, Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health VON inicq Antibiotic Stewardship Faculty Boston, MA Dr. Don Goldmann has decades of experience in helping health care systems and clinical teams improve the quality, safety, and value of the care they provide to their patients. He brings an uncommonly broad, clinical, scientific, and academic background to this work. As Chief Scientific Officer, Emeritus, and Senior Fellow at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, Dr. Goldmann focuses on deepening the credibility of improvement and implementation science by forging relationships with key scientific, academic, and health services research organizations. He has experience across the translational research continuum (bench science, epidemiology, clinical trials, and implementation research). He has participated in the development of numerous quality measures, especially in pediatrics and infection prevention. He advances the rigor of IHI's results-oriented work by deploying sound project design and program evaluation methods appropriate for the context in which improvement initiatives are conducted. Dr. Goldmann advocates for integration of improvement science and HIT/technology to accelerate progress towards vibrant and effective learning health systems, clinical decision support, and population health and equity.dr. Goldmann explores new ways to teach, bringing promising innovations to in-person and distance-learning. He is lead faculty for a IHI/HarvardX Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) on Practical Improvement Science and is leveraging the MOOC in a large national collaborative to reduce inappropriate antibiotic prescribing an HHS and global priority. He is Co-director for the Harvard-Wide Pediatric Health Services Research Fellowship Program he founded (funded since 1994 via NRSA T32 Training Grants). He leads a Harvard College General Education course that explores how infectious diseases lead to social injustice and influence history, art, and literature. Dr. Goldmann has a keen interest in helping clinical teams integrate rigorous quality improvement into their routine work, while mitigating clinician burnout and liberating the intrinsic motivation that clinician bring to health care. He is particularly devoted to engaging medical trainees in quality improvement, and accordingly collaborates with ACGME to align general medical education training with health care delivery system quality and safety priorities.dr. Goldmann serves as Chair of the AHRQ National Advisory Council and on the Boards of AcademyHealth and the Institute for Medicaid Innovation. He also serves on a number of advisory committees and boards, including the National Quality Forum s Primary Care and Chronic Illness Standing Committee. He is Professor of Pediatrics, Harvard Medical School and Professor of Immunology and Infectious Diseases, and Epidemiology, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

13 David Goodman MD, MS Professor of Pediatrics Professor of Community and Family Medicine The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice Lebanon, NH David Goodman is a physician, health services researcher, and educator with a longstanding interest in the causes and consequences of health care variation. In his early years, his studies focused on the relationship of physician supply to population outcomes, and applied the findings to public policy development. More recently, he has developed a research portfolio that investigates unwarranted variation in the use of neonatal intensive care.goodman is one of the founding investigators of the Dartmouth Atlas of Health Care and has led multiple Atlas projects on such topics as end-of-life cancer care, post hospital discharge care, and care for infants and children. He has served on multiple journal editorial boards, and federal and Institute of Medicine committees, including a term as the chair of the Council on Graduate Medical Education. His research papers and editorials have been published in the New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA, Health Affairs, Pediatrics, and The New York Times. He received a BA from the University of Vermont, an MD from the State University of New York Upstate Medical Center, and an MS in medical care epidemiology from Dartmouth College. He served his residency in pediatrics at The Johns Hopkins Hospital, and then practiced as a rural National Health Corps physician before joining the Dartmouth faculty. Jeffrey B. Gould MD, MPH Robert L. Hess Professor of Pediatrics Director, Perinatal Epidemiology and Health Outcomes Research Unit Division of Neonatal and Developmental Medicine Department of Pediatrics Stanford University Medical Center Palo Alto, CA 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 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 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.

14 James Gray MD, MS Associate Chief, Section of Neonatology Medical Director, Special Care Nursery Director of Clinical Informatics Children's Hospital at Dartmouth Professor of Pediatrics Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth Lebanon, NH Dr. Gray, Professor of Pediatrics, Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth, is a boardcertified neonatologist 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 computerbased approach to creating and maintaining clinician assignments. Ruth Grunau PhD, Rpsych Professor, Division of Neonatology, Department of Pediatrics, and Associate Member, Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia, and Senior Scientist, BC Children's Hospital Research Institute, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada responses. The focus of Dr. Grunau s interdisciplinary research program is biobehavioural reactivity and infant neurodevelopment, broadly encompassing multiple aspects of infant arousal, self-regulation, attention and cognition in preterm and term born infants, including pain Munish Gupta MD, MMSc Neonatologist Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center Boston, MA Munish Gupta MD, MMSc, is a staff neonatologist and the Director of Quality and Safety for the Department of Neonatology at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston MA. He is also chair of the Neonatal Quality Improvement Collaborative of Massachusetts.

15 Timmy Ho MD, MPH Instructor in Pediatrics Harvard Medical School Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center Boston, MA Timmy Ho is a neonatology attending at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Boston Children's Hospital. He is the first graduate of a joint research fellowship between the Harvard-wide Pediatric Health Services Research Fellowship and the Institute for Healthcare Improvement. He explores mechanisms of improving the efficiency, work flow, and patient experience of healthcare delivery by applying fundamental skills in improvement 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. 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. 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 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,

16 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. Erin L. Keels RN, MS, NNP-BC Neonatal Nurse Practitioner Program Manager Nationwide Children s Hospital Columbus, OH Alex R. Kemper MD, MPH, MS Chief, Division of Ambulatory Pediatrics Professor of Pediatrics Nationwide Children s Hospital Columbus, OH Alex R. Kemper MD, MPH, MS is a health services researcher and focuses on issues related to screening and prevention. When looking at different screening methods, he examines the whole process and tries to develop ways to improve it. Examples of recent work include improving newborn screening, evaluating health care delivery for children with congenital heart defects, and evaluating the quality of vision screening services delivered in the primary care setting. Dr. Kemper is also the Deputy Editor of the journal PEDIATRICS. Peter C. W. Kim MD, CM, PhD Professor of Surgery, Pediatrics, Integrative Biology and Bioengineering The George Washington University Washington DC Founder & Chief Scientific Officer Activ Surgical Inc. Boston, MA Peter C W Kim MD, CM, PhD is a pediatric surgeon with expertise in complex minimally invasive surgery and translational research focused on imaging and product development. He joined Children s National Medical Center in July 2011 to lead the Sheikh Zayed Institute for Pediatric Surgical Innovation as its first Vice President and the Associate Surgeon-in-Chief in the Robert E. Jr. Center for Surgical Care. One of the primary goals of the institute is to transform the way pediatric surgical care is provided. As a pediatric surgeon he is motivated by the critical unmet need for safer and more effective intelligent medical products that expand surgeon s capability and capacity. His research interests are in developing these smart tools,

17 imaging theranostics and educational programs including tissue engineering, simulation to improve access, quality, efficiency and safety of care. Being a practical surgeon, he believes that true innovation requires a tangible clinical translation and/or manufacturing. He previously built an image-guided diagnostic and therapeutic center (Center for Image-guided Innovation and Therapeutic Intervention; ) in Toronto and now the National Capitol Consortium for Pediatric Device Innovation at Children s National to advance the need for smart tools and imaging theranostic ( His specific areas of research interests are in innovation, machine vision and intelligence, Image-guided intervention and tissue regeneration/printing. Hannah King MPH Healthcare Consultant Berkeley, CA Hannah King is currently a Healthcare Consultant and former Director of the National Service Quality, at Kaiser Permanente. She worked with unit based teams (Microsystems) to improve or redesign processes to be patient and family-centered. 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. Stephen F. Kingsmore MB, ChB, BAO, DSc, FRCPath President and CEO Rady Children s Institute for Genomic Medicine Rady Children's Hospital San Diego, CA Dr. Stephen F. Kingsmore is the President and CEO of the Rady Children s Institute for Genomic Medicine, San Diego. Previously he was 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, and the founding Director of the Center for Pediatric Genomic Medicine at Children s Mercy Kansas City. Prior to that Dr. Kingsmore was the President and 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 In 2015 he received a Guinness World Record for the fastest genetic diagnosis.

18 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. Zhenghong Li MD, PHD Supervisor of Postgraduate Associate Professor Vice Director of Department of Pediatrics Peking Union Medical College Hospital Beijing, China Abed AlFattah Mansour PhD Research Associate Laboratory of Genetics The Salk Institute for Biological Studies La Jolla, CA Abed Mansour PhD is a Postdoctoral fellow in the Laboratory of Prof. Fred Gage at the Salk Institute. His research focuses on developing neuronal-3d Organoid platforms derived from human stem cells and harness this technology to study the molecular pathology of neurodegenerative diseases particularly Alzheimer s disease. He received his B.Sc., M.Sc. and PhD in Medical Science and developmental Biology from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His graduate studies focused on studying the transcriptional mechanisms that regulate the development of the central nervous system. Follow his graduation, Dr. Mansour received a Dean of Faculty fellowship from the Weizmann Institute of Science to pursue postdoctoral training on the biology of pluripotent stem cells and cellular reprogramming. He is currently supported by the HFSP Fellowship from the The Human Frontier Science Program, and has received the EMBO Long-term fellowship from the European Molecular Biology Organization, and the VATAT Award. Jacqueline McGrath PhD, RN, FNAP, FAAN Professor Emeritus University of Connecticut Hartford, CT Jacqueline M. McGrath PhD, RN, FNAP, FAAN is a Professor Emeritus UConn, School of Nursing, where she served as the Director of the PhD Program from She was also served as the Associate Dean for Research and Scholarship and the Director of the Center for Nursing Scholarship from Through a collaborative partnership with Connecticut Children s Medical Center, she was the Director for

19 Nursing Research from She also served as the Pilot Core, Co-Director for the P20, Center for Accelerating Precision Pain Self-Management in the School of Nursing. She is a Co-Investigator on several other funded studies in the neonatal intensive care unit. Research foci include family-centered care, preterm infant oral feeding readiness and parent participative preterm infant touch and massage. Based on her research, she has developed the NICU-PLAY program for parents and preterm infants in the NICU. Dr McGrath became a fellow in the American Academy of Nursing in She has served as the Co-Editor for Advances in Neonatal Care since 2014; the journal of the National Association of Neonatal Nurses (NANN). In 2017, she was recognized by NANN, with the Lifetime Achievement Award for her contributions to neonatal nursing. She received her BSN from the University of Akron; MSN from Kent State University; both a post-masters certificate as a Neonatal Nurse Practitioner and a PhD from the University of Pennsylvania. John McGregor EdD Learning Systems Manager Vermont Oxford Network Burlington, VT John McGregor has worked as an Online Learning Systems Manager for the past 7 years in the public and private educational industries. John earned his doctorate in education at the University of Phoenix Arizona, where he also completed his Masters in Business Administration. John McGregor has worked in 15 states and 12 countries in Europe, Central America, and Asia supporting and training learners on multiple Learning Systems focusing on literacy development, sales training, and adult continuing education. John is currently the Learning Systems Manager at Vermont Oxford Network and is developing an online learning system that provides engaging and enhanced educational opportunities on timely topics. John is also a member of the Committee to Help Students Become Better Readers in the Burlington and Winooski, Vermont School Districts, and is a member of the Vermont User Experience (UX) Network. Paula Meier RN, PhD, FAAN Director for Lactation Services, NICU Professor: Pediatrics, and Women, Children and Family Nursing 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 Meier has conducted numerous externally-funded research and demonstration projects, and currently serves as the principal investigator for a 5-year, $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 peer-reviewed 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.

20 Charles Mercier MD Professor of Pediatrics University of Vermont Chief, Division of Neonatal Perinatal Medicine University of Vermont Children s Hospital Burlington, VT Brenda Miller BFA Manager, Ronald McDonald House of Ann Arbor Facility Operations and Family Support Ann Arbor, MI Brenda has been involved with the University of Michigan NICU since 1998, as both a volunteer and in a paid parent position. Her work as Parent Coordinator included 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. She recently accepted a manager role with the Ronald McDonald House of Ann Arbor. 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 in college. Steven Paul Miller MDCM, FRCPC Head, Division of Neurology and Centre for Brain & Mental Health The Hospital for Sick Children Bloorview Children's Hospital Chair in Paediatric Neuroscience Professor, Department of Paediatrics, University of Toronto Toronto, Ontario, Canada Dr. Steven Miller (MDCM, MAS, FRCPC) is Head of the Division of Neurology and the Centre for Brain & Mental Health at the Hospital for Sick Children, Professor of Paediatrics at the University of Toronto, and Senior Scientist in the Neuroscience & Mental Health Program at the Research Institute of SickKids. He holds the Bloorview Children s Hospital Foundation Chair in Paediatric Neuroscience and was previously a Canada Research Chair in Neonatal Neuroscience. Leading a multidisciplinary team, his research program focuses on better understanding brain injury and development in the newborn. He and his team use advanced brain imaging and detailed long-term follow-up to help children who were born early or with conditions that put them at risk of neurological and developmental deficits. He has contributed to our understanding of brain abnormalities caused directly by premature birth, perinatal asphyxia or indirectly by congenital heart disease. The ultimate goal of his team s work is to promote strategies to prevent brain injury, and to promote recovery if the brain is injured to improve the lifelong health of children and their families. He is passionate about supporting the career development of young child health researchers and recently completed his tenure as President of the Society for Pediatric Research.

21 Teesha Miller BS Family Leader 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. 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 nearly 30 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 with a core dedicated team. The results of this ambitious QI initiative were published in Pediatrics in 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 has participated with the team from CHOC Children s, Orange in previous NICQ Collaboratives and has been a clinical faculty member since Sagori Mukhopadhyay MD, MMSc Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine Attending Neonatologist, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia Newborn Care at Pennsylvania Hospital Philadelphia, PA

22 Kunda Mutesu-Kapembwa MBchB, MMed, Mphil Paediatrician & Neonatologist Women and Newborn Hospital Neonatology National Coordinator: MoH Lusaka, Zambia Dr Kunda Mutesu-Kapembwa is a paediatrician (University of Zambia) and neonatologist trained at the University of Cape Town under Groote Schuur Hospital. Upon completion of her neonatology studies in 2015, she returned to Zambia to help improve neonatal care. Being one of the few neonatologist working in the public sector, she set out to implement low cost, high impact interventions like hand washing, Kangaroo Mother Care and use of CPAP. She also spearheaded formulation of the Country neonatal protocols to be used in secondary and tertiary level neonatal units. These interventions saw a significant reduction of neonatal mortality in the Livingstone neonatal unit. She is currently Head of Neonatology Department at the largest neonatal unit in the Country as well as national neonatal coordinator, in an effort to help in reduction of neonatal mortality countrywide. Dr Kapembwa is currently working with other paediatricians and nurse midwives to improve the quality of neonatal care and is currently in collaboration with University of KwaZulu Natal to start the first ever neonatal nursing school in Zambia. Amy Nyberg BS March of Dimes NICU Family Support Program Coordinator 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 16 weeks early at 24 wks. gestation and spent 120 days in the NICU in She was involved with the neonatal unit as a volunteer for 6 years before becoming the March of Dimes NICU Family Support Specialist in She has presented at multiple national meetings in regards to improving family centered care in neonatology and was awarded with the 2013 March of Dimes National award for NICU Family Support Project of the Year in recognition of its exemplary work ensuring high quality, innovative programming, volunteer leadership, and overall impact as it informs and comforts NICU families. She currently serves as VON co-family leader for the POD and is a member of the VON Advisory Board. Yolanda Ogbolu PhD, CRNP-Neonatal, FAAN Board of Directors Vermont Oxford Network Assistant Professor, Director, Office of Global Health University of Maryland School of Nursing Baltimore, MD Yolanda Ogbolu PhD, CRNP, FAAN is an Assistant Professor at the University of Maryland Baltimore. Dr. Ogbolu received her MS and Ph.D. from the University of Maryland Baltimore with a goal of addressing health inequities. She was awarded fellowships in Maternal Child Health (HRSA), Global Health (UMB), and the Fogarty Institute (NIH) while at the University of Maryland. Dr. Ogbolu, a board certified Neonatal Nurse Practitioner, has over 20 years of clinical experience caring for critically ill newborns. Her research interest focuses on improving the dissemination and implementation of health equity research and

23 policy into clinical practice. In 2009, as a legislative intern, Ogbolu collaborated with legislators and key stakeholders to develop policies to address health disparities and cultural competency. Dr. Ogbolu continues to assist in building interdisciplinary linkages between health equity policy, research, academia, and practice by teaching a course on cultural competency to health professionals, serving on Maryland s Infant Mortality Epidemiology Taskforce in 2011, and co-chairing a subcommittee on Maryland Cultural Competency Taskforce in She has authored and co-authored in Neonatal Network, The World Health Organization Bulletin, the Journal of Nursing Research and Practice, and was an expert reviewer for the World Health Organization for implementation science in Alexa O Dell Chair, NICU Family Advisory Council Benefis Health System Great Falls, MT Alexa s family s NICU experience in June 2006 with the premature birth of their 24- week twin girls is an example of love, courage and dedication. The O Dell family experienced the loss of Riley at 30 hours of life due to a level four brain bleed. Carsyn, however, had a long hospital stay. During their 120+ day NICU experience, Carsyn received care at three different facilities including Primary Children s in Salt Lake City, UT, and Community Medical in Missoula, MT. In February 2008, Alexa became a charter member of the Benefis NICU Family Advisory Council and has served as its Chair since its inception. The council s recent focus is in educating families and encouraging parent participation throughout the NICU stay. Alexa has also served as the Benefis family representative for VON since April Alexa is a CPA and works full-time for the state of Montana as an auditor. Her undergrad degree is from Montana State University-Bozeman. She would also like to acknowledge her son, Cael, (who was 16-months at the time Carsyn was born) and her husband, John, who generously support these volunteer efforts by holding down the fort at home. Eileen Patterson MCE, PMP Director, Co-Founder Health Innovation Group Calgary, Alberta, Canada Eileen Patterson is a leader of healthcare improvements and health system innovations. Her projects have demonstrated better care for patients, and better processes for providers. Working alongside and learning from national and international experts in quality, integration, access, efficiency, appropriateness and patient centred care, Eileen sets up the programs that built capacity with local teams, developed physician leadership, and guide system level decision makers to invest in the strategies that get results. Committed to sharing the processes and tools needed by health-system planners, providers and their teams making the make a difference for patients, she is a catalyst for change. Providing consultation services for the past 15 years across Canada and parts of the U.S., Eileen has also held key system change positions, including Vice President, Quality Improvement, Health Quality Ontario, Knowledge Translation Consultant with Alberta s Primary Care Network Program Management Office. Working alongside health system leaders, Eileen has contributed to the success of highly acclaimed initiatives achieving integrated local primary healthcare services, integrated regional chronic care management and prevention services, provincial capacity for quality improvement for primary care and longterm care, multi-jurisdictional capabilities for access and efficiency, and leadership for system innovations related to patient centered care. Eileen has the expertise and approach to help you bring out the best in your system.

24 Alan P. Picarillo MD, FAAP Neonatologist Barbara Bush Children's Hospital Maine Medical Center Portland, ME 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 and is board certified in pediatrics and neonatal-perinatal medicine. He is currently the medical director of the level 3 NICU at Henrico Doctors' Hospital in Richmond, VA since Prior to his current position, he was the medical director and the Chief of Neonatology at UMass Memorial Healthcare in Worcester, MA. He has been involved in several quality improvement projects in both the NICU and the well infant nurseries and was the co-director of the Massachusetts Neonatal Quality Improvement Collaborative (MassNeoQIC), prior to his relocation to Virginia in Daniel A. Pollock MD Surveillance Branch Chief Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Atlanta, GA Daniel Pollock is a medical epidemiologist and the Surveillance Branch Chief in CDC s Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion (DHQP). Dr. Pollock joined CDC in 1984 and has worked in agency s programs in infectious diseases, informatics, environmental health, and injury prevention and control. In 2004 he moved to his current position as chief of the CDC branch that is responsible for national surveillance of healthcare-associated infections and other adverse events in healthcare. He is an active member of the Health Level Seven (HL7) data standards organization, and he has worked on electronic reporting solutions for multiple CDC surveillance systems. Dr. Pollock s clinical background is in internal medicine and emergency medicine. He worked part-time as an emergency physician at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta from 1986 through 2007 and served as a Clinical Associate Professor in Emory University s Department of Emergency Medicine. Michael A. Posencheg MD Medical Director, Intensive Care Nursery Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA Michael A. Posencheg MD is an attending neonatologist at the Children s Hospital of Philadelphia and the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania (HUP) where he is the Medical Director of the Intensive Care Nursery. Michael is also the Associate Chief Medical Officer, Value Improvement for Penn Medicine, driving spread initiatives across the health system. Regarding his quality improvement background, he has completed the Improvement Advisor (IA) and Graduate IA program at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI). He

25 has led multiple improvement projects over the past 8 years resulting in publication and health system awards. He has also served as a Patient Safety Officer at HUP and was involved in the redesign of the Root Cause Analysis process across the health system. Michael is on the contract faculty for the IHI as an Improvement Advisor and he regularly leads workshops on all aspects of the Model for Improvement, but specifically enjoys presenting on the display and analysis of data for quality. Karen Puopolo MD, PhD Section Chief, Newborn Medicine, Pennsylvania Hospital Associate Professor of Pediatrics University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine Philadelphia, PA Karen M. Puopolo MD, PhD is a neonatologist who specializes in neonatal infectious diseases. She received her undergraduate degree in physics from Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, and went on to obtain her MD as well as a PhD in molecular physiology from the Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston, Massachusetts. She completed Pediatric residency and Neonatal-Perinatal fellowship training at Boston Children s Hospital. Upon completing her fellowship, Dr. Puopolo was appointed to the faculty of Harvard Medical School and joined the staff of the Brigham and Women s Hospital and the Channing Laboratory, where she was an attending neonatologist and researcher from Dr. Puopolo began her neonatal research career as a laboratory-based scientist investigating mechanisms of virulence in Group B Streptococcus (GBS). More recently her research has focused on the epidemiology of neonatal infection, with an emphasis on molecular epidemiology and risk assessment. Recent publications focus on the results of NIH-funded research describing the largest case-control study of risk factors for neonatal early-onset sepsis done in the era of GBS prophylaxis. Dr. Puopolo is an elected member of the Society for Pediatric Research and the American Pediatric Society. She serves on the editorial board for NeoReviews. In addition, she serves on the American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on the Fetus and Newborn, whose members study issues and current advances in fetal and neonatal care and make recommendations regarding national neonatal practice. Dr. Puopolo is currently on the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine. She is a member of the Division of Neonatology at Children s Hospital of Philadelphia, and Section Chief for Newborn Pediatrics at Pennsylvania Hospital. DeWayne M. Pursley MD, MPH Neonatologist in Chief Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center Boston, MA DeWayne M. Pursley MD, MPH is chief of the Department of Neonatology and director of the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC). He is an associate professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School (HMS) and a member of the Division of Newborn Medicine at Boston Children s Hospital (BCH). Dr. Pursley is a graduate of Stanford University, HMS, and the Harvard School of Public Health. He trained in Pediatrics at BCH, remaining for a fourth year as chief medical resident, and then completed a fellowship in Neonatal-Perinatal medicine through the Joint Program in Neonatology, a collaboration of BIDMC, Brigham and Women s Hospital, and BCH. His interests include NICU quality improvement, resource utilization, and racial and social disparities in infant outcomes. He is currently leading a project with the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) Perinatal Section to examine resource overuse in newborn medicine.

26 Dr. Pursley is immediate past chair of the Executive Committee of the AAP Perinatal Section. He is a member of the neonatal-perinatal medicine sub-board of the American Board of Pediatrics, the board of directors of the National Perinatal Information Center, and the governing council of the American Hospital Association Section on Maternal-Child Health. He is a member of the expert panel to identify drug priorities as part of the federal government s Best Pharmaceuticals for Children Act and the AAP liaison to the National Fetal and Infant Mortality Review Program. Dr. Pursley recently served as a contributor to the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Disparities in Perinatal Medicine: Focus in Infant Mortality, Stillbirth and Preterm Birth workshop; served on the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Newborn Issues workgroup of the Pandemic Influenza Revisited: Special Considerations for Pregnant Women and Newborns workshop; provided testimony to the Food and Drug Administration on the effect of critical drug shortages on children and on the need for improved neonatal drug research; and was a member of the NIH Consensus Panel on Inhaled Nitric Oxide for Premature Infants. Dr. Pursley is a recipient of the Harvard Medical School Dean s Community Service Award, the Massachusetts Chapter March of Dimes Franklin Delano Roosevelt Award, the Excellence in Mentoring Award from the HMS Office of Recruitment and Multicultural Affairs, and the HMS Harold Amos Faculty Diversity Award. Rebecca Ritzema NICU Graduate Bronson Children's Hospital Kalamazoo, MI Ruth Ritzema NICU Graduate Parent NICU Family Advisor Bronson Children's Hospital Kalamazoo, MI Elizabeth Rogers MD Associate Professor of Pediatrics Director, ICN Follow Up Program Associate Clinical Director, ICN Benioff Children's Hospital University of California San Francisco San Francisco, CA Elizabeth Rogers MD graduated from Harvard University summa cum laude, and attended Stanford University Medical School, obtaining MD in She completed pediatric internsip and residency at University of California San Francisco, finishing in 2006, subsequently completing fellowship in neonatalperinatal medicine at UCSF in Currently she is an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at UCSF, practicing neonatology and serving as the Director of the UCSF Intensive Care Nursery Follow Up Program and Assistant Director of Neonatal Clinical Programs. Her research experience is in directing neurodevelopmental follow up ascertainment for neonatal clinical trials, and in outcomes after periviable birth and neonatal critical illness.

27 Asaph Rolnitsky BSc Med, MSc(HQ), MD Neonatologist, Quality Improvement and Patient Safety, Aubrey and Marla Dan program for High Risk Mothers and Babies Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre Assistant professor, PhD scholar, University of Toronto Toronto, Canada Asaph Rolnitsky is a neonatologist in Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre and Cochair of Toronto Centre for Neonatal Health, in Toronto, Ontario. After completing his paediatrics residency, he trained in perinatal-neonatal medicine in the University of Toronto, completed the VAQS fellowship and a MSc in healthcare quality. Believing that studying delays children-associated, sleepdeprivation dementia, he is now studying for a PhD, focusing on cost of care for, and resource utilization by, extremely preterm infants. Always optimistic, his QI work targets reduction of NEC, ROP, and IVH, and he is part of the antimicrobial stewardship project and the small baby team. Asaph loves QI methods and measurements and teaches in UofT and in Queen s University MSc in healthcare quality. Eduardo Salas PhD Professor and Allyn R. & Gladys M. Cline Chair in Psychology Department of Psychology Rice University Houston, TX Eduardo Salas is Professor and Allyn R. & Gladys M. Cline Chair of Psychology at Rice University. Previously, he was a Senior Research Psychologist and Head of the Training Technology Development Branch of NAVAIR-Orlando for 15 years. During this period, Dr. Salas served as a principal investigator for numerous R&D programs focusing on teamwork, team training, simulation-based training, human-to-human and human-to-automation systems, decision-making under stress, learning methodologies, trust development and performance assessment. Dr. Salas has co-authored over 350 journal articles and book chapters and has co-edited over 25 books. Dr. Salas has held numerous positions in the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society during the past 15 years. He is the past chair of the Cognitive Engineering and Decision Making Technical Group and of the Training Technical Group, and served on the Executive Council. He is currently the immediate Past President of the Society. He is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association (SIOP and Division s 19, 21 & 49), the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society and the Association for Psychological Science. He received his Ph.D. degree (1984) in industrial and organizational psychology from Old Dominion University.

28 Lisa Salz MS, LCGC Genetic Counselor Rady Children s Institute for Genomic Medicine Rady Children s Hospital San Diego, CA Lisa Mullen Salz has been a genetic counselor in San Diego for over 20 years. At UC San Diego and Scripps Clinic, she worked with perinatologists, medical geneticists, and radiologists in high-risk maternal fetal medicine. Following time off as a stay-at-home parent, she returned to UC San Diego as a case coordinator for the California Prenatal Screening Program. She has also been a product specialist for GeneDx, a commercial genetic testing company, with an emphasis on educating non-genetics providers about inherited cardiovascular disorders, neurologic and mitochondrial disease, and familial cancer syndromes. She currently works as a genetic counselor at Rady Children s Institute for Genomic Medicine (RCIGM) which is focused on rapid genomic diagnosis for acutely ill children. Lisa is interested in the interpretation of complex genetic information and how it is applied, both in research and in the clinic. She believes that genomics education will play a key role in smoothly integrating precision medicine into the care of children with rare genetic disorders. Lisa graduated from Stanford University in Human Biology and obtained her master s degree in genetic counseling from the University of California, Irvine. She is ABGC board-certified and licensed as a genetic counselor in California. Jan Schriefer MBA, MSN, DrPH Director of Pediatric Quality Improvement Golisano Children s Hospital at University of Rochester Medical Center Assistant Professor, Pediatric Hospital Medicine University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry 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, JACHO and NICHQ. She has presented on quality improvement topics more than 100 times. She has completed peer review as a quest editor for numerous journals. She has been an administrator and investigator on many grants. She 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 on Quality Improvement: An Overview in Pediatrics In Review August 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 NYS Department of Health. She 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 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

29 Today and Mosby Quality Awards. At University of Michigan, her doctoral research focused asthma quality of life surveys to predict resource utilization. Ginny Shaffer Parent Navigator The Children s Hospital at Providence Anchorage, AK Ginny has been role as the Parent Navigator since During this time they have been able to begin to reenergize our parent volunteer groups, increase parent support offerings every month as well as provide monthly meals. She feels privileged to be included in the NICQ collaborative Design team for the design and building of our new single-family room NICU. She is honored and thrilled to be a part of The Children s Hospital at Providence NICU team. 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 on 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 co-author 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 He received his MD degree from the University of Health Sciences/Chicago Medical School in He returned to New York City to complete his residency training in Pediatrics at Bellevue Hospital/New York University Medical Center in 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. Arjun Srinivasan MD (CAPT, USPHS) Associate Director for Healthcare Associated Infection Prevention Programs Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Atlanta, GA Arjun Srinivasan MD envisions a future where patients are safer because healthcareassociated infections have been stamped out and antibiotics are used correctly. Charting the path to this new reality, Srinivasan investigates hospital-associated disease outbreaks and conducts ground-breaking research into multi-drug resistant organisms and the use of antimicrobial drugs. Srinivasan directs CDC s programs aimed at preventing healthcare associated

30 infections. He advocates for everyone from parents to farmers to doctors to Get Smart and understand when antibiotics work, and when they don t. A distinguished research scientist, Srinivasan also offers clear, crisp explanations of very real healthcare problems and the path toward solving them. 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 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. 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 evidence-based 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.

31 Nathaly M. Sweeney MD, MPH Clinical Assistant Professor Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine Department of Pediatrics University of California San Diego Physician Scientist Rady Children s Institute for Genomic Medicine Rady Children s Hospital San Diego, CA Nathaly M. Sweeney MD, MS, MPH, FAAP, is a neonatologist at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD)/Jacobs Medical Center/Rady Children s Hospital and an investigator with the Rady Children s institute for genomic medicine (RCIGM). She earned her undergraduate degree from Springfield College, Massachusetts and her graduate degrees from the University of Texas at El Paso and the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore. She obtained her medical degree from Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, NY, NY and completed a pediatric residency at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. Dr. Sweeney subsequently completed a pediatric cardiology fellowship at Stanford University in She was employed as a clinical instructor and academic staff researcher at Stanford University from 2013 to 2015 where she divided her time working in the cardiovascular intensive care unit and researching the genetics of congenital heart disease. Upon completion of her neonatology fellowship at the UCSD she joined the division of Neonatology at UCSD in January of Dr. Sweeney is interested in the application of individualized medicine in the care of neonates with suspected genetic disease, especially those with congenital heart disease. Her research at RCIGM focuses on identifying genotypic differences via rapid next generation sequencing (NGS) that may explain the observed phenotypes with the goal of offering prompt, directed, accurate, personalized care to patients in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) and beyond. Prof. Max Tegmark Physicist & AI Researcher Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cambridge, MA Max Tegmark is a professor doing physics and AI research at MIT, and advocates for positive use of technology as president of the Future of Life Institute. He is the author of over 200 publications as well as the New York Times bestsellers Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence and "Our Mathematical Universe: My Quest for the Ultimate Nature of Reality". His work with the Sloan Digital Sky Survey on galaxy clustering shared the first prize in Science magazine s Breakthrough of the Year: 2003.

32 Mike Toomey Member Services Manager Vermont Oxford Network Burlington, VT Mike Toomey joined Vermont Oxford Network in 2014 after two decades in telecom project management and computer sales. Mike appreciates being part of VON s social mission and positive impact on infants and families. After two and a half years as a VON Program Manager, Mike transitioned into his current role of Member Services Manager. He enjoys working with the VON Account Management team and VON member centers to ensure that infant data is submitted accurately and available for VON members quality improvement programs. Rebecca J. Vartanian MD Assistant Professor Division of Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine Department of Pediatrics and Communicable Diseases University of Michigan Medical Director of Respiratory Care Services C. S. Mott Children s Hospital 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 Dr. Vartanian oversees and facilitates the quality improvement initiatives in the Newborn Intensive Care Unit, including multicenter collaborations within Vermont Oxford Network. Her clinical interests include oxygen management in premature infants, optimization of neonatal nutrition, and the care of extremely low birth weight infants. 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).

33 Michele Walsh MD William and Lois Briggs Chair and Chief, Neonatology UH Rainbow Babies and Children's Hospital Professor, Pediatrics, Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine Cleveland, OH Michele Walsh, MD, FAAP, is Chief, Division of Neonatology and Perinatal Medicine and Inaugural William and Lois Briggs Endowed Chair in Neonatology at University Hospitals Rainbow Babies & Children s Hospital and Chief, Division of Neonatology, UH Cleveland Medical Center. She is also Professor of Pediatrics, Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine. Dr. Walsh is board certified in pediatrics and neonatal-perinatal medicine. Her special interest is in neonatal lung disease, clinical trials and quality improvement. Dr. Walsh earned a bachelor s degree summa cum laude from University of California, Davis, Calif. She received her medical degree from Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine where she was elected to Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Medical Society. Dr. Walsh completed her residency in pediatrics and a fellowship in neonatal-perinatal medicine, both at UH Rainbow Babies & Children s Hospital. She joined the UH Rainbow Babies & Children s Hospital staff in In 2000 Dr. Walsh earned a Master s of Science in epidemiology from the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine; in 2007 she received a certificate from Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass., in Leadership Development for Physicians; and in 2012 she earned a certificate from University Hospitals Leadership Academy, Weatherhead School of Management, Case Western Reserve University. Dr. Walsh is a dedicated researcher and has participated in a number of multi-center studies, primarily focusing on improving outcomes in neonates and premature infants. Currently she is participating in numerous studies, including serving as Principal Investigator on studies sponsored by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and the Ohio Children s Hospitals' Neonatal Research Consortium. She is a frequent invited presenter at local, national and international medical conferences, speaking on the diagnosis and management of medical problems in neonates and premature infants. She has authored or coauthored nearly 150 papers and abstracts in leading medical journals and three dozen monographs and chapters in textbooks. She is a reviewer for many prestigious pediatric journals, including Journal of Pediatrics, Pediatrics and Pediatric Research as well as American Journal of Epidemiology and Journal of the American Medical Association. Dr. Walsh is a Fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American College of Physician Executives and a member of the American Pediatric Society. She has been named numerous times to America s Top Pediatricians by the Consumers Research Council of America, Washington, DC; Cleveland s Top Doctors and Who s Who in America. 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

34 with a concentration in quality improvement science from The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy & Clinical Practice, Dartmouth College, NH. John A. F. Zupancic MD, ScD Associate Professor of Pediatrics Harvard Medical School Associate Chief of Neonatology Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center Boston, MA Dr. Zupancic is Associate Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School and Associate Chief of Neonatology at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. His research and consulting work seek to improve the efficiency with which scarce resources are used in improving the health of children, and in particular, newborns. He 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. He is also involved in various epidemiologic and health services investigations, including the Neonatology Canon Project, a large-scale systematic review of all randomized controlled trials in neonatology over a twenty-two-year period. Dr. Zupancic has served as leader of the Value Initiative for Vermont Oxford Network s Neonatal Intensive Care Quality Improvement Collaborative and is the Chair Elect of the American Academy of Pediatrics Section on Perinatal Pediatrics. His teaching and mentorship of fellows has been recognized locally through the Merton R. Bernfield Mentoring Award, awarded by the Harvard neonatology fellows, and nationally through the John M. Eisenberg Excellence in Mentorship Award, awarded by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.