Debra Bingham, DrPH, RN, FAAN, has over 30 years’ experience in Maternal Child Health Nursing, a master's degree in perinatal nursing from Columbia University, and a doctorate in Public Health from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. She has expertise in Quality Improvement (QI), health care safety, and implementation science. Her focus is on how to improve front-line clinician’s quality improvement implementation effectiveness. Dr. Bingham was the first Executive Director of the California Maternal Quality Care Collaborative where she helped form the collaborative and the California Pregnancy-Associated Mortality Review (CA-PAMR) committee, co-authored the Obstetric Hemorrhage Toolkit and the Elimination of Elective Deliveries Prior to 39 Weeks Toolkit, and launched the first CA-Obstetric Hemorrhage Multi-Hospital Collaborative. Debra was the Vice President of Research, Education, and Practice for the Association of Women’s Health, Obstetric, and Neonatal Nurses (AWHONN) where she led the development and launch of the Postpartum Hemorrhage Project, the Women’s Health and Perinatal Nursing Care Quality Measures, the Maternal Fetal Triage Index, and the #POSTBIRTH Warning Signs program.
Currently Dr. Bingham is an Associate Professor of Healthcare Quality and Safety at the University of Maryland School of Nursing where she is advising the faculty on how to expand implementation and improvement science theories, frameworks, models, and QI methods and tools within the Doctor of Nursing Practice curriculum. She is also a perinatal consultant and the founder and Executive Director of the Institute for Perinatal Quality Improvement.
Audra R. Meadows, MD, MPH, is a clinical faculty member of The Brigham and Women's Hospital Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology and an instructor at Harvard Medical School. She received her MD from the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio and completed a chief residency in Obstetrics and Gynecology at The Brigham and Women's Hospital. Prior to joining the faculty in 2008, Audra received the Commonwealth Fund Harvard University Fellowship in Minority Health Policy at Harvard Medical School and obtained a Masters of Public Health from the Harvard School of Public Health. Audra actively engages in clinical, public health and policy initiatives to prevent preterm birth and infant mortality. In addition to full time clinical practice, Audra works to (1) establish clinical and community based, quality improvement intervention programs to improve birth outcomes and eliminate health disparities and (2) sustain a high performing system of perinatal care delivery across clinical practices in Boston. She has demonstrated this work in her roles as Massachusetts Perinatal Quality Collaborative (MPQC) Preterm Birth Prevention Committee Chair, Medical Director of the BWH Birth Equity Initiative at the Center for Community Health and Health Equity, Medical Director for the Boston Public Health Commission's Healthy Start Initiative and Director of the BWH Group Prenatal Care Practice. Audra has received the BWH Obstetrics/Gynecology Foundation Fellowship, the BWH Minority Faculty Development Award and the BWH Nesson Fellowship for her work.
John S. Cullen, MD, FAAFP, a family physician in Valdez, Alaska, is chair of the American Academy of Family Physicians Board of Directors. Dr. Cullen has practiced the full scope of family medicine in a rural community of 4,000 people in Alaska for more than 25 years. Dr. Cullen works in an independent small group practice and is director of emergency medical services at Providence Valdez Medical Center where he also provides maternity and inpatient care. He has been actively involved in residency and medical student teaching for more than 20 years, providing comprehensive training in rural health care. He is an associate clinical professor at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth College. He serves as Lead Faculty for Wave 3 of the Rapid Improvement Network.
Joia Crear-Perry, MD, is the Founder and President of the National Birth Equity Collaborative. Most recently, she addressed the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights to urge a human rights framework to improve maternal mortality. Previously, she served as the Executive Director of the Birthing Project, Director of Women’s and Children’s Services at Jefferson Community Healthcare Center and as the Director of Clinical Services for the City of New Orleans Health Department where she was responsible for four facilities thatprovided health care for the homeless, pediatric, WIC, and gynecologic services within the New Orleans clinical service area.
Dr. Crear-Perry continues to work to improve access and availability of affordable health care to New Orleans’ citizens post the Hurricane Katrina disaster of 2005. After receiving her bachelor’s trainings at Princeton University and Xavier University, Dr. Crear-Perry completed her medical degree at Louisiana State University and her residency in Obstetrics and Gynecology at TulaneUniversity’s School of Medicine. She was also recognized as a Fellow of the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology. A proud recipient of the Congressional Black Caucus Healthcare Hero’s award, and the Maternal Health Task Force Maternal Health Visionary Award, Dr. Crear-Perry currently serves on the Board of Trustees for Community Catalyst, National Medical Association, and the New Orleans African American Museum.
Christina Gunther-Murphy, MBA, Head of Operational Excellence, Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), is responsible for transforming IHI’s internal systems to improve the efficiency, effectiveness, and vitality of the organization. She works closely with other leaders to design, oversee, and iterate on a continuous improvement system, a quality management system, and a quality planning and longitudinal planning system. She also works externally as an Improvement Advisor to support IHI’s customers in transforming their organizations through improvement science and methods. Previously, Ms. Gunther-Murphy oversaw the strategy and evolution of IHI’s person-centered care content, operations for IHI’s hospital portfolio, managed key internal transitions, and led improvement efforts. She has experience in spread and scale-up as the manager of IHI’s 5 Million Lives Campaign and as an advisor for several large-scale programs in the US and internally. She is a trained Improvement Advisor and has more than 10 years of experience in health care improvement. Prior to joining IHI, she worked at the National Initiative for Children's Healthcare Quality (NICHQ), where she directed a national initiative focused on providing optimal care to prevent, identify, and treat childhood obesity. She holds a Master’s in Business Administration from MIT’s Sloan School of Management.
Kelly McCutcheon Adams, LICSW is a Senior Director at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement. Her primary areas of work with IHI have been in Critical Care and End of Life Care. She is an experienced medical social worker with experience in emergency department, ICU, nursing home, sub-acute rehabilitation, and hospice settings. Ms. McCutcheon Adams served on the faculty of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Organ Donation and Transplantation Collaboratives and served on the faculty of the Gift of Life Institute in Philadelphia. She has a B.A. in Political Science from Wellesley College and an M.S.W. from Boston College.
