Faculty & Staff

​Tyler Anstett, DO, is a hospitalist in the Division of Hospital Medicine at the University of Colorado. He completed his residency training in Internal Medicine at the University of Colorado where he was an inaugural member of the Hospitalist Training Program Leaders Track and went on to complete a fellowship in Hospital Medicine with a focus on Quality Improvement and Health Systems Leadership. His academic interests lie at the intersection of Quality Improvement, Leadership, and Medical Education across all levels of learners. Accordingly, his leadership roles include Director of the GME/IHQSE Quality and Safety Academy, Director of Quality and Safety Programs for GME, and he is an Associate Vice Chair for Quality for the Department of Medicine. He is an active coach for multiple projects and his own Quality Improvement work is focused on high-value care with a specific focus on simplifying processes and influencing user behavior at the point of care.

Lalit Bajaj currently serves as the Medical Director of Clinical Effectiveness at Children’s Hospital Colorado. In addition, he is a Professor of Pediatrics and Emergency Medicine at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. Dr. Bajaj has been an attending physician in the Children’s Colorado Emergency Department for 15 years. He received his MD from the University of California, San Francisco in conjunction with a Master’s in Public Health from the University of California, Berkeley in 1996. He then completed a pediatric residency, chief residency, and pediatric emergency medicine fellowship at the University of Colorado/Children’s Hospital Colorado. Dr. Bajaj has served as Research Director of the section of Emergency Medicine; as well as the Medical Director in the CHCO Research Institute. In addition, he has also served on many national leadership committees including the Steering Committee of PECARN (Pediatric Applied Care and Research Network), and the AAP Executive Committee of the Section of Emergency Medicine. Most recently, he has joined the Children’s Hospital Association steering committee for value based care.

Laura Barg-Walkow, PhD, is the Human Factors Engineer at Children’s Hospital Colorado in Aurora, Colorado. She attained her doctorate degree in Engineering Psychology at the Georgia Institute of Technology in 2017. Her research interests include understanding medical errors and applied projects to improve safety, satisfaction, and efficiency in healthcare systems. She has worked as an operationally embedded Human Factors Engineer at Children's Hospital Colorado for over eight years. 

Tina Bennett, MPA, is the Chief Experience Officer for Yale New Haven Health, where she serves as an enterprise healthcare executive leading enterprise strategy for patient experience, care delivery, and organizational culture across one of the nation’s leading integrated academic health systems, including Yale Medicine. She provides strategic leadership for enterprise-wide initiatives spanning five delivery networks, hospitals, ambulatory practices, Yale Medicine, and shared services, partnering with clinical, operational, and academic leaders to improve outcomes and create a more connected experience for patients, families, caregivers, and communities.

With more than 20 years of healthcare leadership experience, Tina is recognized for advancing enterprise strategy and aligning patient experience with quality, safety, workforce engagement, and operational excellence. Under her leadership, Yale New Haven Health has achieved significant milestones, including four of the system’s five hospitals earning Leapfrog “A” Hospital Safety Grades and the system’s flagship hospital achieving a CMS 5-Star Overall Hospital Quality Rating for the first time in its history.

In 2026, Tina was named to Becker’s Healthcare’s “CXOs to Know” list and invited to serve on Becker’s inaugural CXO Advisory Council. She also serves on the Press Ganey CXO Council and the University of New Haven Master of Health Administration Advisory Board.

Passionate about developing future healthcare leaders, Tina serves as an adjunct professor at Southern Connecticut State University. She earned a Bachelor of Science in Communications from Southern Connecticut State University and a Master of Public Administration in Health Care Management from the University of New Haven. 

Ethan Cumbler is an Internal Medicine and Pediatric trained Hospitalist at the University of Colorado Hospital (UCH).  He is a pioneer in the study and practice of inter-professional team-based hospital quality improvement.  He created the Acute Care for the Elderly (ACE) Service at UCH and is the Medical Director for UCH’s ACE unit.  This serves as a crucible for testing QI methods for reducing iatrogenic events such as falls or hospital acquired infections using teams of professionals across disciplines.  He spearheaded a series of initiatives reducing treatment time for stroke patients recognized by the American Stroke Association.  His QI programs for in-hospital stroke and hospital care for the elderly service serve as national models.  He heads the National Stroke Association’s In-hospital Stroke QI initiative and speaks nationally on how to improve systems of hospital care for stroke patients.  He also serves as faculty for the UCLA Leadership and Management in Geriatrics course and his invited lectures on improving care for the hospitalized elderly have been presented at the National American College of Physicians and Society of Hospital Medicine conferences. Within UCH, he chairs the Geriatric Hospital Leadership Committee and has served in many capacities for the Hospital Medicine Division over the years, including work on patient safety and medical error.  His educational approach to teaching patient safety is published by the Association of American Medical Colleges and has been utilized by academic medical centers around the world.  Ethan has been a recipient of awards at UCH for excellence in leadership, humanism, education, and quality improvement. He received the annual 2012 National Society of Hospital Medicine Award for Team-Based Quality Improvement for his work over 6 years improving response to in-hospital stroke.  Ethan seeks to bring a collaborative approach to system change such that physicians are partners with other disciplines, and the hospital, to create a culture which fosters continuous quality improvement.

Armond M. Esmaili, MD is currently an Associate Clinical Professor of Medicine in the Division of Hospital Medicine at UCSF Health and the Director of Quality and Safety for the Department of Neurological Surgery. He is an experienced clinician, health systems leader, medical educator, and coach who enjoys care delivery innovation and quality improvement work.

As an internist, Dr. Esmaili cares for patients in the hospital, skilled nursing facility, and preoperative clinic settings. He founded and continues to lead the Neurosurgery Preoperative Medical Optimization ("PreMO") Clinic that cares for patients with high medical complexity before neurological surgery. As the Director of Quality and Safety for Neurological Surgery, he leads and oversees the Department's enterprise that continuously improves the care for patients with neurosurgical disorders across four UCSF campuses and multiple affiliate hospitals. He also leads system-wide patient safety, hospital throughput, and patient experience initiatives. He previously completed UCSF’s Learning Health System Coach Certification Program (a three-year didactic and experiential program in quality improvement, delivery system redesign, and Lean A3 thinking). In prior roles, Dr. Esmaili served as the Assistant Medical Director of the Goldman Medical Service (direct care hospitalist service), Medical Director of the Hospital Medicine Unit-Based Leadership Team (overseeing quality and safety for three inpatient medical units), and Medical Director of the Code CARE Team (a novel hospital-based behavioral de-escalation response team). He is currently a fellow in the California Health Care Foundation (CHCF) Health Care Leadership Program.  

Dr. Esmaili, a native of Evergreen, Colorado, earned his undergraduate and medical degrees from Georgetown University. He completed his medical internship and residency in Internal Medicine at UCSF and participated in the residency’s Health Systems and Leadership pathway. He then served as UCSF Chief Resident at the San Francisco VA Medical Center before joining UCSF’s Division of Hospital Medicine as faculty in 2019.

Jon Fowler is currently the Senior Director of Quality and Safety for UCHealth Northern Colorado Hospitals. Jon has a background in healthcare analytics and previously served as the first Senior Director of Quality Analytics for UCHealth. Jon has extensive experience in healthcare quality assessment systems in the public domain and in private models. Jon leads health equity efforts in the UCHealth Northern Colorado hospitals and has developed systems for identifying health equity and patient vulnerability opportunities across the healthcare continuum.  Jon's primary professional interests are in organizing leaders, improvement teams, and analytics to ensure the highest quality of care is delivered to patients. Jon has a Masters in Bioengineering from Colorado State University and appreciates a data driven approach to quality improvement with a reliance on control charts to identify real change. 

Jeffrey J. Glasheen, MD, MHM is the Director for the Institute for Healthcare Quality, Safety and Efficiency, the Associate Dean for Clinical Affairs—Quality and Safety Education and a Professor of Medicine with Tenure at the University of Colorado School of Medicine.

 Dr. Glasheen was an Alpha Omega Alpha graduate of the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and completed his residency training, including a chief residency year, at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center. As the director of the University of Colorado Hospital Medicine Group from 2003-2015, he oversaw the growth of the program from 2 to 70+ members. Dr. Glasheen served as the Chief Quality Officer (CQO) for the University of Colorado Hospital from 2015-2020 and as the CQO for UCHealth from 2017-2020.

 

Emily Gottenborg is an Associate Professor within the Division of Hospital Medicine at the University of Colorado, with an interest in system redesign, patient safety, and leadership in the healthcare setting. She has received advanced training during a Chief Residency in Quality Improvement and Patient Safety at the University of California, San Francisco, as well as through Intermountain Healthcare's Advanced Training Program, and the Institute for Healthcare Quality, Safety, and Efficiency. Dr. Gottenborg is faculty within the Institute for Healthcare Quality, Safety and Efficiency where she is the Director of the Improvement Academy and specializes in coaching frontline clinical teams in improvement work. She also has multiple educational roles within the University School of Medicine and Internal Medicine Residency Program, teaching learners of all levels and across the health professions about principles of medical leadership and quality improvement.

Dr. Elizabeth Harry leads the Office of Well-Being at Michigan Medicine, collaborating with leaders, key partners, and communities across both Michigan Medicine and the University to enhance the well-being of individuals and groups. As a leader at Michigan Medicine, Dr. Harry is dedicated to strengthening and enriching the vision for the future of well-being through system-level changes. She employs a data-informed and relationship-driven approach to improve well-being in both academic and clinical settings.

Dr. Harry brings over a decade of experience in medicine, healthcare and well-being and is a nationally recognized expert on cognitive load, burnout and well-being. She joined the Michigan Medicine Wellness Office after serving as Senior Medical Director of Well-being at UCHealth and Assistant Dean of Faculty Well-being at the University of Colorado School of Medicine.  In addition to the University of Colorado, Dr. Harry practiced at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, where she was assistant medical director and director of faculty development and well-being for the Brigham and Women’s Physicians Organization, as well as faculty liaison for graduate medical education well-being at Partners Healthcare. She has practiced internal medicine in both the inpatient and outpatient settings throughout her career.

She is on the board of the Collaborative for Healing and Renewal in Medicine (CHARM) under AAIM and teaches at the Stanford Chief Wellness Officer course.  Dr. Harry has partnered with leading institutions across the country to advance research and share successful strategies in this domain. She continues to study and publish about the impact of systemic and cultural aspects of health care systems on individual well-being.

Dr. Harry earned a Bachelor of Science in psychology and biology from Santa Clara University and her medical degree and completed residency training in internal medicine at the University of Colorado. She has been a Macy Scholar for the Harvard Macy Institute, and she also completed the Brigham Leadership Program at Harvard. 

Dr. Daniel Hyman is an experienced health care quality improvement and safety leader who most recently served as Chief Safety and Quality Officer at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP). Dan spent the first 13 years of his career as a general pediatrician in primary care practice. During his years in practice, Dan received training in quality improvement methods and after applying them in his office began doing so both regionally as Medical Director for Children’s Health Net at CHOP, and nationally with the National Initiative for Children’s Healthcare Quality (NICHQ). He spent more than twenty years in a series of hospital executive leadership roles including serving as the Chief Medical Officer for Ambulatory Care and Chief Children’s Quality Officer at New York Presbyterian Hospital, and as Chief Quality Officer and then Chief Medical and Patient Safety Officer at Children’s Hospital Colorado before his return to CHOP from 2020-2025. In 2025, he founded, and is the Principal for Frontline Quality Solutions, LLC through which he supports individuals and organizations pursuing a range of healthcare improvement initiatives.

Dan received his MD degree from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and completed his pediatric residency at CHOP.  He received a Master’s Degree in Medical Management (MMM) from Tulane University. He is an Adjunct Professor of Pediatrics at the Perelman School of Medicine at Penn.  
 
Dr. Hyman previously served in a number of national leadership roles including as a member of the Clinical Steering Team for the Children’s Hospital Solutions for Patient Safety Network, and co-chair for their Measurement Committee. He co-founded and co-directed the Academic Pediatric Association (APA) Quality and Safety Improvement Scholars Program. He also held board committee and other leadership roles with Children’s Hospital Association and its predecessor organizations.

Dan remains active in the teaching programs at Penn and is faculty for their Center for Healthcare Improvement and Patient Safety program (CHIPS). He developed and directs a Master’s level course on Leadership of Quality and Safety in Healthcare Systems for the CHIPS program. He is also a Senior Faculty member of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, working primarily with them on their safety improvement portfolio. 

Amanda K. Johnson, MD, MBA is the System Chief of Complex Care & Community Health and Senior Assistant Vice President of Care Models at NYC Heath + Hospitals. In this role, she leads a team to deliver innovative programs that serve and finance care for people exposed to the criminal-legal system, experiencing homelessness, or facing other structural barriers that impede access to health care. She partners across the health system and the city on collaborative initiatives to improve clinical services, care management, and value-based care for these New Yorkers.  At the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, she served as interim Chief Medical Officer at Sydenham Health Center. She directed the Take Care program within the Test & Trace Corps and led the AfterCare program to provide supports to New Yorkers who may have Long COVID.  She continues to care for patients at Sydenham Health Center, where she offers integrated primary care and treatment for substance use disorders and serves as the lead physician in the Medicine department.

Prior to joining NYC Health + Hospitals, she served as the internal medicine Chief Resident for Quality Improvement and Patient Safety at UCSF. She completed her residency in internal medicine at UCSF’s primary care program based at San Francisco General Hospital. She received her medical degree from Harvard Medical School and her MBA from Harvard Business School. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Stanford University, earning her BA with honors and distinction in Human Biology and Spanish as well as a minor in African and African-American Studies. She is originally from Milwaukee, WI. She is a Clinical Assistant Professor of Medicine at NYU Grossman School of Medicine and a member of the Center for Health Care Strategies Advisory Group for the Better Care Playbook. 

Dr. Timothy Judson serves as the interim Chief Population Health Officer for UCSF Health. Dr. Judson is a hospital medicine and urgent care physician, clinical informaticist, and accomplished health system leader in population health and digital health. He is also the Chief Clinical & Innovation Officer at UCSF-affiliated Canopy Health, where he oversees quality and value of care for over 40,000 Canopy Health members. He previously served as Medical Director of Care Delivery Transformation in the Office of Population Health, and Medical co-Director of Adult Care Transitions for UCSF Health. In these capacities, he has been instrumental in developing the infrastructure for robust population health programs and safe patient discharges. Dr. Judson has played a pivotal role in advancing digital health at UCSF, leading the development and implementation of several prominent digital health tools, including the patient-facing COVID-19 Symptom Checker, and the employee-facing COVID Daily Health Screener.

Dr. Judson received his medical degree from Weill Cornell Medical College and his master’s degree in public health from the Tufts University School of Medicine. He joined UCSF for internal medicine residency and was chief resident at Parnassus. Dr. Judson is passionate about rigorously studying and evaluating population health and digital health programs and has authored over 30 peer-reviewed articles in JAMA, JAMA Internal Medicine, BMJ, JAMIA, JGIM, JHM, and others. 

Molly Kantor is an Associate Clinical Professor in the Division of Hospital Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). She received her MD from Harvard Medical School and completed residency in internal medicine at Stanford University School of Medicine. After residency, she joined the faculty of the University of California, San Diego in the Division of Hospital Medicine from 2015-2017, before joining the faculty at UCSF in 2017.  As the Medical Director for Patient Safety, Adult Services, for UCSF Health, Molly helps to lead the Patient Safety team in performing event reviews and enacting safety improvements.  She also serves at the Senior Director of Quality Improvement for the Division of Hospital Medicine, which includes overseeing the quality of care provided by the DHM and mentoring quality improvement projects.  Molly is also a co-investigator for the multi-site Achieving Diagnostic Excellence through Prevention and Teamwork (ADEPT) study which aims to measure and improve diagnostic errors.  She serves as the Associate Director of the Parnassus Medicine Teaching Service at UCSF Health, leading clinical operations of the teaching service.  Her research interests include diagnostic error, quality improvement, and patient safety. 

As the IHQSE Manager of Finance & Operations, Anne directs the Institute's day-to-day operations, oversees its portfolio of programs, and leads impact-reporting efforts. Anne earned her bachelor's degree in Russian Literature from Duke University and a master's in Slavic Languages & Literature from the University of Kansas. She also holds an MBA in Health Administration from the University of Colorado Denver. Prior to joining the IHQSE, Anne oversaw financial operations and the research program at the Ludeman Family Center for Women's Health Research on the CU Anschutz Medical Campus.

If Patrick had a mantra, he might steal the words of artist Clyfford Still: “It’s intolerable to be stopped by the frame’s edge.” He revels in challenging long-held assumptions to facilitate the human(e) potential of individuals and teams. His work cultivating thriving healthcare environments is anchored in a simple, if not easy, principle: start with human relationships. Dr. Kneeland is VP of Medical Affairs at DispatchHealth where he leads AdvancedCare and Extended Care – service lines dedicated to bringing hospital and SNF-level care to patients’ homes.

Previously, Patrick served as the Executive Medical Director for Patient and Provider Experience at UCHealth, where he led the development of a system-level interdisciplinary patient and provider experience team and strategic blueprint. He is an Associate Clinical Professor of Medicine at the University of Colorado and a founding faculty member of the University of Colorado’s Institute for Healthcare Quality, Safety, and Efficiency (IHQSE) where he has been instrumental in the creation of a groundbreaking healthcare leadership development program. After completing training in internal medicine at the University of California-San Francisco, Patrick completed a fellowship in Academic Hospital Medicine where he focused on the transformation of clinical delivery systems and the role of culture in improving patient safety. He is a certified Patient Safety Officer and has advanced training in user-centered design from Stanford’s d.school.

In addition to being a practicing hospital medicine physician, he is an experienced leadership coach, speaker, facilitator, system-designer and a zealous destroyer of all of those silos everyone always talks about.  He serves on the faculty of several groundbreaking national healthcare leadership movements including the Institute for Healthcare Excellence, the Care Collaboratory, the National Taskforce for Humanity in Healthcare, and the Tulane-Ochsner Leadership Program.

 Patrick lives in Denver, Colorado with his wife and two kids where they engage the city, the mountains, and their incredible friends and family with curiosity and wonder.

 

Michelle Knees, DO completed internal medicine residency training at the University of Colorado in 2021 with a focus on healthcare systems. She spent an additional year as Chief Resident of Quality and Patient Safety, where she helped lead residency and hospital-wide quality and patient safety initiatives. She now works for the Division of Hospital Medicine at the University of Colorado as an academic hospitalist. She also works part-time with the IHQSE as faculty for the Improvement Academy, where she helps coach multidisciplinary quality and process improvement projects. She is ultimately working toward becoming a health services researcher with a focus on hospital medicine cognitive load and workforce best-practices.

CT Lin MD is former CMIO at UCHealth-Colorado, a 15-hospital, 900-clinic system. UCHealth is HIMSS Stage 7 and CHIME's Most Wired Level 10. He is Professor of Medicine, board-certified in Clinical Informatics, teaches communications and design thinking workshops, has published and gives talks on Generative AI, "Automation Complacency", EHR Sprints and "the End of Secrecy." His national awards include "Healthcare IT innovator" and "Electronic Physician of the Year." He leads a 24-member informatics team. Our mission: "We improve physician and team wellness and effectiveness by building extraordinary relationships and innovative tools." 

 

Moksha Patel is an Assistant Professor within the Division of Hospital Medicine at the University of Colorado. He has a profound interest in systems redesign, clinical informatics, leadership and provider experience. After residency, he completed a fellowship in Quality Improvement and Health Systems Leadership. During this time, he received specialized training in clinical informatics and began his Master of Business Administration. He is currently the Lead Physician Informaticist for the Institute for Healthcare Quality, Safety, and Efficiency. 

Read G. Pierce. M.D., is an experienced clinician, healthcare leader, coach, and facilitator who enjoys fostering transformation of organizational culture and complex clinical systems. He serves as Chief Medical Officer at Denver Health Medical Center.  Prior to this he served as the Division of Hospital Medicine and Associate Chair for Faculty Development and Wellbeing at the Dell Medical School for three years. 

From 2019 to 2020, Dr. Pierce served as Vice President of Culture Transformation and Strategy at the Institute for Healthcare Excellence (IHE), and in this role worked with health systems around the country on clinical transformation, creating healthy workplace culture, and increasing performance of physicians, clinical teams, and healthcare leaders. He also helped found the Institute for Healthcare Quality, Safety, and Efficiency (IHQSE) in 2012 and has led organizational transformation initiatives through programs focused on quality, process improvement methods, culture, teamwork, systems redesign, finance, innovation, and leadership of change. As part of these efforts, he has worked with more than 100 clinical microsystems to improve quality, patient safety, experience, costs of care, and turnover.

In 2010, he founded the Hospital Medicine Section at the San Francisco VA Medical Center and served as Section Chief from 2010 to 2012. He subsequently spent two years leading the University of Colorado’s Hospital Medicine Division, coordinating a practice of more than 75 hospitalists. During his tenure he oversaw expansion of the group by nearly two dozen members and led the group to achieve the highest quality and safety performance of all service lines in the hospital. He also directed a major initiative to increase joy in practice, which reduced physicians’ and advanced-practice providers’ burnout by 27 percent and increased measures of psychological safety by 70 percent.

Dr. Pierce attended medical school at University of California, San Francisco, where he completed an area of concentration in Health Systems/Health Leadership, and then did his internship at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston before returning to San Francisco for residency and chief residency in internal medicine. His personal interests include history, food, skiing, hiking, and anything that allows quality time with his wife, Vanessa, and their 2 boys.

Katie Raffel, MD, is an academic hospital medicine provider at the University of Colorado with a passion for diagnostic and systems improvement. She serves as the Medical Director of Acute Care Medicine Services at UC Hospital where she works with teams in quality and safety on five medicine units. Dr. Raffel also serves as a lead of the cross-site Achieving Diagnostic Excellence through Prevention and Teamwork research/improvement collaborative and dedicates remaining time to the Institute for Healthcare Quality, Safety and Efficiency, where her focus is on coaching teams through the Certificate Training Program.

Allison Sabel, MD, PhD, MPH is the Chief Medical Information Officer at Denver Health and a Visiting Associate Professor in the Department of Biomedical Informatics at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. Dr. Sabel has broad responsibilities overseeing and collaboratively developing strategy, guiding annual goal setting, and prioritizing institutional effort within and across all domains of clinical informatics. She provides leadership and direction to enterprise-wide clinical data reporting and clinical analytics.
Dr. Sabel is also responsible for strategy, planning, and coordination of federal, state, and local regulatory, pay-for-performance, and pay-for-reporting programs. She is board certified in General Preventive Medicine and Clinical Informatics.

Dr. Sabel’s research interests include improving the quality and safety of healthcare through electronic data repositories, adverse event surveillance, and risk adjustment methodology. She serves on many advisory boards addressing issues of health care quality, accessibility, and disparities. Dr. Sabel completed her medical degree, doctorate in biostatistics, and master’s degree in epidemiology at Tulane University. 

Niraj Sehgal, MD, MPH, is a Professor of Medicine, EVP & Chief Physician Executive for Stanford Health Care, and Senior Associate Dean for Clinical Affairs in the School of Medicine. Niraj’s clinical practice is focused on hospital medicine, while his academic career has been focused on studying and improving the quality and safety of care. The latter reinforces his commitment to emphasizing interprofessional teamwork, building multidisciplinary partnerships, developing healthcare leaders, and advocating for health equity.

Prior to returning to Stanford Medicine in 2020, Niraj spent 16 years at University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) where he held several leadership roles that included directing a medical service, leading a portfolio of health care leadership programs, and serving as the associate chair for quality & safety in the Department of Medicine. His final role was as UCSF Health’s inaugural chief quality officer where he worked to further advance quality and equity across an expanding delivery system. Niraj is also a passionate teacher and mentor who remains actively involved in those activities.

Niraj earned his undergraduate degree from Washington University and his medical degree from Rush University. He was a resident and chief resident at Stanford before completing a postdoctoral fellowship at the Stanford Prevention Research Center, during which time he earned a Master of Public Health from UC Berkeley. He was later a selected fellow and graduate of the California Healthcare Foundation Leadership Program. Despite being in the Bay Area for more than 25 years, he remains deeply connected to his Chicago roots, particularly his beloved Cubs, Bears, and Bulls. 

Brad Sharpe grew up in Iowa, was an undergraduate at Stanford University, attended Harvard for medical school, and completed his residency and chief residency at UCSF.  He is currently a Professor of Medicine at UCSF, focusing on clinical care and teaching.  He has served in multiple leadership roles at UCSF, including as an Associate Program Director for the Internal Medicine Residency and as the Division Chief for the Division of Hospital Medicine. 

He has academic interests in evidence-based medicine, medical education, and clinical teaching skills.  He has been actively involved with national organizations, previously serving as Co-Chair of the Academic Hospitalist Taskforce within the Society of General Internal Medicine (SGIM) and on the Board of Directors for the Society of Hospital Medicine (SHM).  He is the recipient of numerous teaching awards Including the UCSF Distinction in Teaching Award and the SHM National Excellence in Teaching Award.  He and his spouse have two children and live in San Francisco.  

Sandra P. Spencer, MD, is an Associate Professor in the Section of Emergency Medicine at Children’s Hospital Colorado and the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Colorado. She has a passion for promoting the spread of quality improvement work by mentoring QI leaders through manuscript publication. Dr. Spencer is the Director of the IHQSE Quality Improvement Writing group. Dr. Spencer helped develop this successful publication curricula with quality leaders from Nationwide Children’s Hospital, as highlighted in “Writing Group Increases Quality Improvement Writing Competency.” She has also provided similar writing lectures to national groups, including the Scholars Programs for both Emergency Medicine Services For Children (EMSC) and Pediatric Pandemic Network (PPN).

Dr. Spencer’s other QI interests include making change “stick” through reliability theory, emergency services process and quality improvement, and local and national guideline development. Dr. Spencer is a member of the American Academic of Pediatrics’ Council on Quality Improvement and Patient Safety’s Executive Committee, where she is the Chair of its Education Subcommittee and Vice Chair of the Committee on Guideline Development. 

Finally, Dr. Spencer serves as the Director of Faculty Academic Development for the Children’s Hospital Colorado Section of Emergency Medicine, where she specifically supports career development for physician scholars with expertise and interests outside of classic research, including quality improvement, education, and operations. 

 

Dr. Tad-y is the Associate Chief Medical Officer of Patient Flow at the University of Colorado Hospital. In this role, she oversees efforts to optimize operational efficiency and ensure patients receive the right care, at the right time, in the right setting. In addition, she is Medical Director for Capacity at UCHealth, guiding the strategy for optimal placement of patients within the system. She is a Professor of Medicine at the University of Colorado School of Medicine (CU) where she is an academic hospitalist.  She teaches for the Quality and Safety Educators Academy, authored and co-directs the quality improvement curriculum and annual QI pre-course for the American College of Physicians and is an Assistant Editor for the Joint Commission Journal of Quality and Patient Safety. She serves on the Board for the Society of Hospital Medicine and Prime Health.

 Dr. Tad-y’s prior leadership roles included Vice President of Clinical Affairs for the Colorado Hospital Association in which she led statewide quality and safety initiatives in Colorado hospitals, oversaw workforce development including physician engagement, hospital emergency preparedness and innovation. She is a faculty member of CU’s Institute for Healthcare Quality, Safety and Efficiency, and previously served as a director on the Board of Colorado’s state health information exchange, Contexture (parent company of CORHIO).

 Dr. Tad-y earned her medical degree from St. George’s University, completed Internal Medicine residency at  NYU Langone Hospital – Brooklyn and hospital medicine fellowship at Johns Hopkins Bayview.

 Read Dr. Tad-y's Pubmed publications

Dr. Sarah Tevis completed her general surgery training at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health and a breast surgical oncology fellowship at MD Anderson Cancer Center prior to being recruited to the University of Colorado. She is passionate about quality improvement and patient centered care and dedicates her research to improving outcomes that are important to patients and shared-decision making as it relates to breast surgery. In her free time, she enjoys camping, hiking, and snowboarding with her family. 

Irina Topoz, MD, is an Associate Professor of Pediatrics at University of Colorado School of Medicine and a Pediatric Emergency Medicine Physician at Children’s Hospital Colorado. She completed her residency training in Pediatrics at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and Pediatric Emergency Medicine fellowship at Lurie’s Children’s Hospital of Chicago. She received Quality Improvement Certification through Intermountain Health and Lean Six Sigma Black Belt Certification through Lean Methods. She also completed IHQSE CTP course in 2018. Her expertise includes change management, development of measurement systems and use of statistical process control. Her academic interests includes clinical pathway development and implementation. She currently serves as a director of Quality for the Section of Emergency Medicine. In that role, she oversees quality improvement and patient safety initiatives, runs QI education course for ED fellows, and mentor faculty and trainees in QI activities.

Anunta Virapongse, MD, MPH, is an Associate Professor and hospitalist for the Division of Hospital Medicine at the University of Colorado Hospital. She completed her medical school training at the University of South Florida College of Medicine, Internal Medicine Residency at Baystate Medical Center in 2006 and earned her Master of Public Health from the Harvard School of Public Health in 2007. She has completed extensive coursework in the areas of quality improvement and medical leadership, including a nonclinical fellowship at the Medical Innovation and Leadership Division at Blue Cross, Blue Shield of Massachusetts, the Clinical Quality Fellowship Program at the Greater New York Hospital Association and United Hospital Fund and the MiniATP course at Intermountain Health. Her areas of interest include clinical pathway development and outcomes driven improvement strategies. Dr. Virapongse is the Director of Quality and Patient Safety for the Division of Hospital Medicine, the Associate Vice Chair for Quality for the Department of Medicine, the Chair of the DOM Quality Council, the Director of the IHQSE Clinical Effectiveness and Patient Safety Grant Program for UCH and newly elected At Large Member of the UCH Medical Board. 

Dr. Widmer is originally from the Midwest, did her residency at Children's Hospital Colorado and has been on faculty as a pediatric hospital medicine attending since 2011. She is the medical director of Clinical Effectiveness with an interest in quality and process improvement. She has experience leading both unit based quality improvement projects, as well as system wide initiatives and have been a CTP faculty coach for the past 5 years.

Ali Wiersma, MD, is a board-certified pediatric emergency medicine physician at Children's Hospital Colorado, where they provide expert care to children and families in acute care settings. Dr. Wiersma earned their medical degree from Michigan State University College of Human Medicine and completed residency training in pediatrics at Children's National Medical Center through the George Washington University Program.

With a clinical and academic focus on pediatric emergency car, Dr. Wiersma has contributed to multiple peer-reviewed publications addressing diagnostic accuracy and quality improvement. Their work has appeared in Academic Emergency Medicine, Diagnosis and The Journal of Urgent Care Medicine, among others. Dr. Wiersma also serves as a contributing author to Fleisher and Ludwig's 5-Minute Pediatric Emergency Medicine Consult.

Jennifer Wiler is UCHealth's Metro Denver Chief Quality Officer. She is a graduate of the University of Buffalo School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences and completed a residency in Emergency Medicine at Drexel University College of Medicine in Philadelphia, PA.  She is the former Assistant Medical Director at Hahnemann University Hospital and Assistant Clinical Service Chief and Medical Director of Observation Medicine at Washington University in St. Louis.  She has served in numerous state and national leadership positions and is currently an Alternate of the American Medical Association RBRVS Updates Committee (RUC), Immediate Past-Chair of the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) EM Practice Committee, Alternate Delegate to the AMA House of Delegates for Emergency Medicine, a former Chair of the American Medical Association's Women Physicians Congress, a member of the ACEP Quality and Performance and Reimbursement Committees, and a member of the Board of Directors for the Colorado Medical Society. She has been nationally recognized for her expertise in professional reimbursement, operations, quality, patient safety and health policy and has published widely on the topics.

James Won is the Director of Human Factors and Systems Design for the Center for Healthcare Quality and Analytics (CHQA) at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), Associate Professor for the Perelman School of Medicine and the School of Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania, and a Senior Fellow at the Center for Injury Research and Prevention. His previous work with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) contributed to the development of a safe and efficient national airspace system. He is passionate about preaching the message of empathy by keeping the human at the center of every system and bridging the gap between work as imagined and work as done.