Maureen Bisognano, President Emerita and Senior Fellow, Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), previously served as IHI’s President and CEO from 2010 to 2015, and as Executive Vice President and COO from 1995 to 2010. She is a prominent authority on improving health care systems, advises leaders around the world, and is a frequent speaker at major health care conferences. Ms. Bisognano is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine, an Instructor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, and a Research Associate in the Brigham and Women's Hospital Division of Social Medicine and Health Inequalities. She currently serves on the boards of The Commonwealth Fund, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, ThedaCare Center for Healthcare Value, and on the Advisory Board of County Health Rankings and Roadmaps. Prior to joining IHI, she was CEO of the Massachusetts Respiratory Hospital and Senior Vice President of The Juran Institute.
Uma R. Kotagal, MBBS, MSc, is Executive Leader of Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center’s community and population health efforts. In this role, she collaborates internally across teams, and externally with local partners, to improve the health of children in the Greater Cincinnati region. She also serves as a Senior Fellow at Cincinnati Children’s, and formerly served as Senior Vice President of Quality, Safety and Transformation and Executive Director of the James M. Anderson Center for Health Systems Excellence, also at Cincinnati Children’s. As director of the Anderson Center, Dr. Kotagal oversaw the transformation of the health care system in Cincinnati and supported the development of learning networks. An IHI Senior Fellow, Dr. Kotagal serves on the Board of Directors of the Ohio Children’s Hospital Association, and chairs the Quality Improvement Committee of the Children’s Hospital Association.
Katharine Luther, RN, MPM, is Director of Quality at the UTHealth McGovern Medical School, Houston, TX. Prior to that she was Vice President, Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), responsible for furthering IHI's work assisting healthcare leaders achieve bold aims and developing strategic partnerships that leverage innovation, pilot testing, implementation, and continuous learning across organization. Previously, she served as Executive Director at IHI, designing new programs to impact cost and health care quality. Ms. Luther has more than 30 years of experience in clinical and process improvement, large-scale change projects, program development, rapid cycle change, developing and managing a portfolio of projects, and working with all levels of health care staff and leaders. Her clinical experience includes critical care, emergency room, trauma, and psychiatry. She has held quality and safety leadership positions at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, MD Anderson Cancer Center, and Memorial Hermann Hospital Texas Medical Center. She is certified in Lean and is a Six Sigma Master Black Belt.
Lloyd P. Provost, Statistician and Senior Improvement Advisor at Associates in Process Improvement, helps individuals and organizations learn the science of improvement to improve their processes and systems. Mr. Provost's experience is in applications of statistical process control and in designing research and quality improvement studies. For the past 16 years, he has worked as an IHI Senior Fellow as an improvement advisor. He also serves on the IHI faculty for the Improvement Advisor Development Program, provides improvement advisor support for IHI's developing countries programs, and coordinates the development and work of other improvement advisors that support IHI. He provides support for the QI curriculum for the IHI Open School. Mr. Provost co-authored the books
Quality Improvement Through Planned Experimentation, The Improvement Guide, and
The Health Care Data Guide.
Patricia Rutherford, RN, MS, Vice President, Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), is responsible for developing and testing innovations and new models of care in innovations in patient- and family-centered care; improving access to the right care, in the right place, at the right time; Transforming Care at the Bedside; optimizing care coordination and transitions in care; and clinical office practice redesign (in primary care and specialty practices). She was Project Director for the Transforming Care at the Bedside initiative, funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and she served as Co-Investigator for the STate Action on Avoidable Rehospitalizations (STAAR) initiative, funded by the Commonwealth Fund. Her skills include knowledge of process improvement, innovation, and idealized design; coaching clinicians, staff, and senior leaders in organizations on process improvement; and management of all aspects of large-scale performance improvement initiatives.
Frederick C. Ryckman, MD, Senior Vice President for Medical Operations, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, works to implement the safest and most reliable health care for children. In addition, as the Peri-operative Service Director, he leads initiatives in operating room management, infection prevention, and safety. The primary focus of his work is patient flow and capacity management throughout the Children's Hospital inpatient and outpatient environments. Dr. Ryckman is also Professor of Surgery, specializing in multi-organ transplantation.
Assaad Sayah, MD, FACEP, is Senior Vice President and Chief Medical Officer at Cambridge Health Alliance (CHA), where he is also President of the Physicians Organization. Prior to joining CHA, Dr. Sayah served as Director of Emergency Medical Service (EMS) at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Associate Chief of the Department of Emergency Medicine at St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center, and most recently as Chairman of the Department of Emergency Medicine at the Caritas Good Samaritan Medical Center. Dr. Sayah’s research focuses on Emergency Department (ED) operation, improving the ED patient experience, design of the EMS system, advance directives, violence and weapons, disaster planning, and acute cardiac care. He also currently serves as Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Sayah has received numerous awards, including the President’s Award from the Massachusetts College of Emergency Physicians and the EMS Physician of the Year Award from the Metropolitan Boston EMS Council.
Christine White, MD, MAT, is Associate Professor of Pediatrics, Associate Chief of Staff, and Medical Director, Destination Excellence at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. Dr. White has led efforts on patient safety, including initiatives to raise rates of medication reconciliation completion, to improve communication at night, and to improve discharge efficiency through standardization of discharge criteria. This last project, which significantly decreased length of stay without increasing readmission rates, earned the Children’s Hospital Association Pediatric Quality Award in 2013.
Denise L. White, PhD, is Assistant Professor and Director of Quality and Transformation Analytics at the James M. Anderson Center for Health Systems Excellence at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. In this role, she oversees staff members supporting hospital-wide improvement efforts by providing managerial support and coaching on the application of data analytics. Dr. White also partners with hospital staff and analytic experts to promote and publish research on the application of improvement methodologies, operations management, and data analytics. Previously, she served as Senior Decision Support Analyst of Quality and Transformation Analytics at the Anderson Center. She is also Adjunct Professor at Lindner College of Business at the University of Cincinnati. Dr. White has won numerous awards and has published and presented widely.
