Our Team

Vice Chair, Quality and Clinical Affairs

Randall Meacham, MD

Randall Meacham, MD, is Professor and Vice Chair for Quality and Clinical Affairs in the University of Colorado School of Medicine, as well as Chief of Urology and Director of the Urology residency training program. Dr. Meacham’s medical training, residency and fellowship took place at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston Texas. He is a nationally recognized specialist in urologic microsurgery and male infertility. Dr. Meacham holds key leadership positions on multiple hospital quality committees. Previous leadership positions include President of the Medical Staff of the University of Colorado Hospital, Chair of the Urology Residency Review Committee of the ACGME and President of the South Central Section of the American Urological Association. Dr. Meacham has received the Distinguished Service Award from the American Urological Association and the President’s Award for Leadership at the University of Colorado Hospital. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Center for Personalized Education for Professionals. Dr. Meacham has a special interest in resident education on quality and patient safety and the Just Culture approach to the organizational environment of safety.

Director of Quality

Ethan Cumbler, MD, FHM, FACP

Ethan Cumbler, MD, is a Professor of Medicine and Surgery at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. He serves as Director of Quality for the Department of Surgery, Faculty for the Colorado Institute of Healthcare Quality, Safety, and Efficiency and Medical Director of the ACE Service. He is Chair of the UCH Patient Safety Committee and of the Quality and Professional Peer Review Committee.  Dr. Cumbler trained at the University of Kentucky College of Medicine and completed combined Internal Medicine and Pediatric residency training in Phoenix Arizona. His research involves utilizing team-based care to improve hospital systems with a focus on complications that develop during hospitalization such as in-hospital stroke, delirium, sepsis, and venous thromboembolism.  He has led multi-state QI initiatives and speaks nationally on how to improve systems of hospital care for vulnerable populations. Dr. Cumbler has received multiple recognitions for clinical innovation including the Society of Hospital Medicine’s National Award for Team-Based Quality Improvement.

QI Project Manager

Danielle Koffenberger, MSPM

Danielle Kofenberger is a project management professional with a background in healthcare quality improvement, and clinical research, design, validation, and implementation. She is a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt with expertise in project management, quality assurance, resource planning, budgeting and scheduling. Over a decade of experience developing and managing improvement initiatives, clinical trials and process development. She has diverse experience in medical writing and grant applications. She holds patents and is published in high impact scientific journals.  She is committed to innovation, quality, continuous improvement, patient satisfaction, cross-functional relationships, cultural competence and community awareness.

Quality Data Analyst

Kyle Bata, MS

Kyle Bata is a Data Analyst for the University of Colorado School of Medicine Department of Surgery. He holds an MS in Business Data Analytics from the University of Utah. He works with clinicians and others to understand the data need, get the right data, validate, select appropriate models and metrics, create visualizations and communicate and deploy results. Kyle enjoys the power of data analytics and its impact on changing behavior and processes for the betterment of those involved. It fills him with purpose, knowing each project is making the world a little bit better. Data projects and subjects Kyle has worked on include medication prescribing habits, surgical timing events, post-surgery actions, logistics of appointments, EDG/CPT/DRG/ICD codes, room utilization, creating data entry points, patient notes, flowsheets, smart data elements, usage reports, referrals, details of patient encounters, Pregnancy/Labor/Delivery metrics and questionnaires. Kyle is from Colorado and enjoys snowboarding, playing soccer, hanging out with his dog and volunteering in his free time.

APP Quality Advisors

Kristen Oase, PA

Kristin Oase, PA, has worked in surgical oncology for over 6 years and also brings experience in infectious diseases and acute care surgery. She currently works in inpatient complex GI Surgical Oncology at University of Colorado Hospital. Quality Improvement has been important since her early career, when she created a novel UTI pathway in her first year practicing as a Physician Assistant. Her experience in quality improvement lies with Enhanced Recovery After Surgery, which includes pre-, intra- and post-operative protocols.  She has developed multiple pre-operative patient information guides and post-operative protocols in Liver and HIPEC surgeries. Her other QI Projects include pancreas enzyme patient and nursing education, retained drain early identification and surgery clinic new patient access. Kristen Oase has served as the Department of Surgery APP Quality Advisor since June 2020. She enjoys being involved in multiple projects and mentoring others in their QI journey.

Katie Moller, PA

Katie Moller, PA, is an Instructor of Surgery at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, the Lead Physician Assistant for Transplant Surgery and APP Quality Advisor for the Department of Surgery. Her areas of interest include quality of care related to improving outcomes for post-operative surgical patients. Her area of expertise lies within the cardiac/liver/kidney organ systems. She brings her experience in cardiac surgery and abdominal transplant to her leadership of the University of Colorado Hospital’s improvement initiative focused on perioperative renal injury seeking to prevent post-operative renal failure requiring dialysis.

Department of Surgery Quality Chief Residents

Laura Leonard, MD

Laura Leonard, MD, is a general surgery resident completing the Surgical Quality and Executive Leadership Program. She graduated from Hamilton College after completing an undergraduate thesis in computational chemistry. She then worked as a clinical research coordinator in the division of genomic medicine at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia where her research focused on gene discovery, the ethics of next-generation sequencing, and patient-reported outcomes following the reporting or withholding of variants of unknown significance in pediatric patients.  She continued to do research on surgical outcomes while completing her MD at the University of Vermont. Dr. Leonard’s current quality initiatives and research focus on the de-implementation of low-value surgical oncology procedures, improving surgical culture and communication and patient-reported outcomes. Her ultimate goal is to use her research to inform initiatives that improve patient safety, the efficiency of care and patient outcomes after surgery.

Joshua Billings, MD

Joshua Billings, MD, is a general surgery resident completing the Chief Resident in Quality and Patient Safety fellowship at the VA. He trained at The David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA pursuing research in international health, healthcare inequality, and surgical cost awareness. As a resident at the University of Colorado, he has been a proponent in moving towards cost transparency and partnered with the department’s quality initiatives. He is a director for the Colorado Humanitarian Surgical Skills Workshop and chairs the Operating Room Culture and Safety Subcommittee for the VA’s Eastern Colorado Healthcare System, teaching and implementing the pillars of a High Reliability Organization within the department of surgery. He hopes to continue his research and administrative efforts to effect positive change in surgical culture.

Surgical Informatics

Jeniann Yi, MD MSCS

Jeniann Yi, MD, is an assistant professor in the Division of Vascular Surgery and Endovascular Therapy. She has a master’s degree in clinical science research, and her research interests focus on the implementation of high-value practices in surgery. She is a member of the High Value Practice Academic Alliance and a mentor in their early career faculty certificate program. Dr. Yi is also an Epic physician builder and is part of the physician informatics group at UCH.