TEP Chairperson
Helen Burstin, MD, MPH, MACP

Helen Burstin, MD, MPH, MACP is the Executive Vice President and Chief Executive Officer of the Council of Medical Specialty Societies (CMSS) which represents 43-member specialty societies with collective membership of almost 800,000 U.S. physician members.  CMSS works to support and strengthen specialty societies and catalyzes improvement through convening, collaboration, collective voice and action across specialties. CMSS also provides a proactive platform to assess and address emerging and critical issues across specialty societies that influence the future of healthcare and the patients we serve. Dr. Burstin formerly served as Chief Scientific Officer of The National Quality Forum. Prior to joining NQF, Dr. Burstin was the Director of the Center for Primary Care, Prevention, and Clinical Partnerships at the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). Prior to joining AHRQ, Dr. Burstin was Director of Quality Measurement at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Assistant Professor at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Burstin is the author of more than 100 articles and book chapters on quality, safety and disparities. She is a graduate of the State University of New York at Upstate College of Medicine and the Harvard School of Public Health. She completed a residency in primary care internal medicine at Boston City Hospital and a fellowship in General Internal Medicine and Health Services Research at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School.  She is a Professorial Lecturer in the Department of Health Policy at George Washington University School of Public Health and a Clinical Associate Professor of Medicine at George Washington University.

 

Mythreyi Bhargavan Chatfield, PhD
Mythreyi Bhargavan Chatfield is the Executive Vice President of Quality and Safety at the American College of Radiology (ACR) where she oversees the accreditation programs, registries, Appropriateness Criteria, and other quality activities. A health economist by training, Dr. Chatfield has been at the ACR for close to 18 years and has held a variety of roles at the organization.  Prior to stepping into her current role in 2015, Dr. Chatfield was Director of Registries at the ACR where she designed, analyzed, and reported on quality registries related to radiology.  She was involved with the ACR Dose Index Registry since implementation, and worked on measures research papers related to that registry.  She continues to work closely with the registries and measure development projects at ACR, providing input on data standards, measure testing, and implementation.  In previous roles at the ACR, she conducted research on socioeconomic topics of relevance to radiology, including trends in imaging utilization and costs, variations in healthcare use, and racial and ethnic disparities in access to care.

 

Niall Brennan, MPP
Niall was appointed President and CEO of HCCI in June 2017. In this role, he is responsible for all aspects of the HCCI mission, promoting HCCI’s research agenda, examining cost trends in U.S. healthcare, ensuring maximal use of the HCCI data resources to enable world class research and analysis by external users, leading HCCI’s Medicare Qualified Entity business, and working with state and national policy makers to improve the health care system. He is a nationally recognized expert in health care policy, the use of health care data to enable and accelerate health system change, and data transparency. He has published widely in leading academic journals, including the Journal of the American Medical Association, the New England Journal of Medicine and Health Affairs. Prior to joining HCCI, Mr. Brennan was Chief Data Officer at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). He has also worked at the Brookings Institution, the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, the Congressional Budget Office, the Urban Institute, and PriceWaterhouseCoopers. Mr. Brennan received his MPP from Georgetown University and his BA from University College Dublin, Ireland.

 

Jay Bronner, MD (Retired from TEP)
Jay began his private practice with Radiology Imaging Consultants at Ingalls Memorial Hospital in Illinois and now has more than 25 years of practice experience. He earned his medical degree at Johns Hopkins Medical School, and then completed his internship in Medicine and Surgery at Northwestern Memorial Hospital and Weiss Memorial Hospital in Chicago. Jay returned to Johns Hopkins Hospital completing his Diagnostic Radiology Residency and became the Chief Resident in Radiology followed by Fellowships in Imaging and Neuroradiology both at John Hopkins. In addition to his medical education, Jay earned his MBA at Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. He has served as chairman of radiology services at nine hospitals with Radiology Imaging Consultants, CEO Team Radiology a division of Team Health and became CEO of Radiology Imaging Consultants in 2006. Jay joined Radiology Partners in 2013.

 

Missy Danforth 
Missy Danforth is the Vice President of Health Care Ratings at The Leapfrog Group, a Washington, DC based, not-for-profit organization representing the nation’s largest employers and purchasers of health benefits working to make great leaps forward in the safety, quality, and value of healthcare.
At Leapfrog, Ms. Danforth serves as member of Leapfrog’s senior leadership team informing Leapfrog’s strategic direction, engaging experts and stakeholders, and analyzing program results to engage purchasers and consumers and to drive safety and quality improvements. Ms. Danforth administers Leapfrog’s various measurement and public reporting activities including the Leapfrog Hospital Survey, the Hospital Safety Grade, Leapfrog’s Value-Based Purchasing Platform, Leapfrog’s new Ambulatory Surgery Center Survey, and emerging ratings programs.
Ms. Danforth serves on the National Quality Forum’s Patient Safety Steering Committee, the Consensus Standards Approval Committee (CSAC), and is the co-chair of the Diagnostic Quality Committee. She serves on the Policy Committee of the Society to Improve Diagnosis in Medicine and on the Steering Committee of the Coalition to Improve Diagnosis. She has served on several CMS Technical Expert Panels focused on patient harm. Ms. Danforth is also on the board of PCPI, a membership organization with the goal of bringing the voices of patients and clinicians together to advance the science and practice of measurement and improvement.

 

Tricia Elliot, MBA, CPHQ
Tricia Elliott, MBA, CPHQ is the Director of Quality Measurement at The Joint Commission. Ms. Elliott joined The Joint Commission after over twenty years of experience working in acute care healthcare settings as Executive Director of Service Excellence, Director of Process Improvement, Director of Decision Support, and several other analytic roles. In this position, she ensures the development of scientifically based performance measures that drive improved healthcare outcomes. Ms. Elliott currently directs projects focused on development of standardized electronic clinical quality measures and chart-based measures to support the accreditation and certification processes, and the data receipt process which ensures the application of data quality standards. With this diverse experience, Ms. Elliott is able to contribute comprehensive insight into the selection of measures for the quality improvement of care and safety for patients within healthcare systems.

 

Jeph Herrin, PhD (Retired from TEP)
Jeph Herrin, PhD is Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Yale University School of Medicine and principal researcher for Flying Buttress Associates Ltd. He received his doctorate in mathematical physics from the University of Virginia and has more than 20 years experience as a methodologist in health services research. His primary expertise is in the areas of provider measurement, clustered design and analysis, shared decision making, and health disparities. He currently focuses his research efforts on: cluster randomized studies of interventions to improve the delivery of health care; identifying and mitigating disparities in health care and outcomes; and measuring the quality of care of clinicians, clinician groups, and hospitals.

 

Hedvig Hricak M.D., Ph.D., Dr.h.c.
Hedvig Hricak is Chair of the Department of Radiology at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK). She is also member of the Molecular Pharmacology Program of the Sloan Kettering Institute, Professor at the Gerstner Sloan Kettering Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, and Professor of Radiology, Weill Medical College of Cornell University. She is a member of the National Academy of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine (NAS) and holds honorary degrees from both Ludwig Maximilian University, Munich, Germany and University of Toulouse III, Paul Sabatier in Toulouse, France. In recognition of her distinguished work in radiology, she has received the gold medals of the International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, the Association of University Radiologists, the European Society of Radiology, the Asian Oceanian Society of Radiology, and the Radiological Society of North America. For her research accomplishments and advancement of oncologic imaging she has served on a number of NAS and National Institutes of Health (NIH) advisory boards and councils including the NIH Board of Scientific Counselors, the Scientific Advisory Board of the National Cancer Institute’s Board of Scientific Advisors, the Nuclear and Radiation Studies Board of the NAS, and the Advisory Council of the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering. Dr. Hricak is presently a member of the National Cancer Policy forum. She has served as chair, vice-chair on several NAM and NAS studies including Committee on State of the Science in Nuclear Medicine (Chair), Committee on Tracking Radiation Doses from Medical Diagnostic Procedures (Vice Chair) Committee on Research Directions in Human Biological Effects of Low Level Ionizing Radiation (Chair) and also was a member of the NAM Committee on Diagnostic Error in Medicine.

 

Leonard Lichtenfeld, MD, MACP
Dr. Lichtenfeld has been appointed interim Chief Medical and Scientific Officer for the American Cancer Society effective November 3, 2018. In that role he will have oversight responsibility for the Society’s epidemiologic, behavioral and statistical research activities, external grants, medical affairs, and relevant constituent relationships.
He joined the Society in 2001 as a medical editor, and in 2002 assumed responsibility for managing the Society’s newly created Cancer Control Science Department. In 2014, Dr. Lichtenfeld entered his current role as Deputy Chief Medical Officer where he has provided extensive support to a number of Society activities. A frequent spokesperson in the media on behalf of the American Cancer Society, Dr. Lichtenfeld has also since 2005 written a widely read blog focused on topics related to cancer. He is board certified in medical oncology and internal medicine and practiced for over 19 years. He has also been engaged in health care policy and numerous medical professional organizations on a local, state, and national level for most of his professional career.
Dr. Lichtenfeld is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and Hahnemann Medical College (now Drexel University College of Medicine) in Philadelphia and completed his postgraduate training at Temple University Hospital, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and the National Cancer Institute. He is a member of Alpha Omega Alpha, the national honor medical society and has received several awards including designation as a Master in the American College of Physicians in recognition of his professional accomplishments.

 

Krishna Nallamshetty, MD

Dr. Nallamshetty is an Executive Vice President and Associate Chief Medical Officer of Clinical Value at Radiology Partners, the largest radiology practice in the United States. He also serves as Chair of the National Patient Safety Committee. He is an associate professor of Radiology and Cardiology at the University of South Florida and Director of Advanced Cardiac Imaging. He is the Chief of Staff for Tampa General Hospital (TGH), a 1400+ bed, level 1, quaternary academic medical center. TGH has 1600+ medical staff members and is ranked the #1 hospital in Tampa Bay and top 50 nationally in 6 specialties. Dr. Nallamshetty earned his medical degree at Jefferson Medical College in 2002, then completed his residency in Diagnostic Radiology at Tufts University School of Medicine in 2007. He then went on to complete a combined radiology and cardiology fellowship in Cardiovascular Imaging at Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School in 2008. Dr. Nallamshetty is currently a practicing radiologist and is the President of Radiology Associates of Florida, the largest radiology practice in Florida with 110+ physicians serving 8 health systems, and an owner of Tower Radiology, a network of 18 diagnostic Outpatient Imaging Centers in West Florida. 

 

Matthew Nielsen, MD, MS
Dr. Matthew Nielsen is a tenured professor of urology and chair of the Department of Urology at the University of North Carolina, where he also serves as Associate Director of the UNC Institute for Healthcare Quality Improvement. Alongside his clinical practice in urologic oncology, he has an active research program in clinical epidemiology and delivery system science, and serves as a clinical investigator in the Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research.  He has contributed in leadership roles to multiple national organizations, with the American College of Physicians' High Value Care Task Force and Performance Measurement Committee, the Physician Consortium for Performance Improvement (PCPI), and Chair of the American Urological Association Quality Improvement and Patient Safety Committee.

 

Debra P. Ritzwoller, PhD
Debra P. Ritzwoller, PhD, is an economist and Senior Investigator at the Institute for Health Research. Her research focuses on variation in cancer screening, treatment, outcomes and costs in community settings; the impact of insurance benefit design on patient cost-sharing; and cost estimation and cost-effectiveness. Dr. Ritzwoller completed her doctoral training in economics at the University of Colorado, Boulder. As a health economist and health services researcher, she has served as a Principal Investigator or Co-investigator on more than a dozen large, complex, multi-site studies, including several studies conducted  within the Cancer Research Network (CRN). Currently, Dr. Ritzwoller is the Principal Investigator (MPI with Chyke Doubeni) of the Lung PROSPR Research Center (Lung-PRC). The long-term goal of this multi-site center grant is to identify critical gaps in the lung cancer screening process and to design innovative, multilevel interventions to reduce lung cancer mortality, particularly among underserved populations. Dr. Ritzwoller is an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Health Systems, Management, and Policy at the University of Colorado School of Public Health and a member of the National Cancer Institute (NCI) Cancer Care Delivery Research (CCDR) Steering Committee. In addition, Dr. Ritzwoller is the mother of a pediatric cancer survivor. Previously, she and her daughter served as Patient/Guardian Stakeholders for a PCORI funded radiation dose registry project (Smith-Bindman PI).

 

Lewis G. Sandy, MD, FACP
Lewis G. Sandy MD FACP is Executive Vice President, Clinical Advancement, at UnitedHealth Group (NYSE: UNH) a diversified health care company dedicated to helping people live healthier lives and helping make the health system work better for everyone. UnitedHealth Group offers a broad spectrum of products and services through two distinct platforms: UnitedHealthcare, which provides health care coverage and benefits services; and Optum, which provides information and technology-enabled health services. At UnitedHealth Group (UHG) he focuses on clinical innovation, payment/delivery reform practice and policy, and physician/health professional collaboration.  From 2003 to 2007, he served as EVP and Chief Medical Officer of UnitedHealthcare.  From 1991 to 2003, he served as VP and EVP of The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the nation’s largest philanthropy dedicated solely to health. Prior to this, he was a physician executive at the Harvard Community Health Plan in Boston, Massachusetts. An internist with over 20 years in practice, Sandy received his B.S. and M.D. degrees from the University of Michigan and an M.B.A. degree from Stanford University. He was a faculty member, fellow and RWJF Clinical Scholar at the University of California, San Francisco, and served his internship and residency at the Beth Israel Hospital in Boston. He serves on a number of Boards and Advisory Groups, including the Board of the National Quality Forum (NQF) and Panel of Health Advisors for the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).  He is a senior fellow of the University of Minnesota School of Public Health, Department of Health Policy and Management.

 

Suzanne Schrandt, JD
Suz Schrandt, JD, is the Director of Patient Engagement at the Arthritis Foundation where she works to infuse the lived experience of patients into the Foundation's projects and strategies.  Schrandt previously served as Deputy Director of Patient Engagement for Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI), where she helped to launch the Institute's patient engagement infrastructure and several key efforts including the Engagement Rubric and Engagement Officers.  Schrandt's patient engagement focus stems from her own rheumatological diagnosis at age 14.  Since then, she has been involved with myriad patient and clinician education and advocacy initiatives.  Schrandt’s prior posts include roles in health and disability law and policy, genetic discrimination, and public health.  Schrandt is current chair of the ISPOR North American Patient Representative Roundtable and a member of the FDA’s inaugural Patient Engagement Advisory Committee.

 

James Anthony (Tony) Seibert, PhD 
Tony Seibert, PhD, is a professor of radiology at University of California Davis Health in Sacramento, California. He is a medical physicist who has practiced at the medical center in diagnostic radiology for 36 years and has participated in the clinical quality control and quality assurance efforts for advanced diagnostic imaging equipment, including implementation, protocol development and dose assessment in computed tomography. Dr. Seibert has taught radiology residents and biomedical engineering graduate students throughout his career, and is an author of the widely used textbook, The Essential Physics of Medical Imaging. He contributes to research in the department and participates as co-investigator of the development and translation of a dedicated breast CT scanner at UC Davis. For the University of California DOSE (Dose Optimization and Standardization Endeavor) project, he interacted with Dr. Rebecca Smith-Bindman and the assembled research team to develop dose monitoring tools, to evaluate protocols, and to develop training and education sessions for safe use of CT. This was followed by providing consultant services for the UCSF PCORI and Partnership for DOSE projects. From a professional perspective, Dr. Seibert has served as President of the American Association of Physicists in Medicine (2010-2012) and the Society for Imaging Informatics in Medicine (2004-2006). He currently serves as a Governor of the American Board of Radiology.

 

Arjun Venkatesh, MD, MBA, MHS
Dr. Venkatesh is an Assistant Professor and Director of Performance Improvement in the Department of Emergency Medicine at Yale University. He is also Scientist at the Yale Center for Outcomes Research and Evaluation. He is funded by the NIH and AHRQ to study health system outcomes and efficiency, and he is supported by CMS as co-Principal Investigator of the Emergency Quality Network (E-QUAL) and for the development of the Overall Hospital Quality Star Ratings. He has published over 70 peer-reviewed papers and is senior editor of The Evidence book series. He is national leader within SAEM and ACEP and he serves on expert panels for the NQF, AHRQ and CMS.

 

Todd C. Villines, MD, FACC, FAHA, FSCCT
Dr. Todd C. Villines is a Professor of Medicine at the Uniformed Services University School of Medicine in Bethesda, Maryland. He is an actively practicing cardiologist on faculty at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center where he has served for more than 5 years as the Cardiology Fellowship Program Director and for the past 10 years as the Director of Cardiovascular CT and Cardiovascular Research. Dr. Villines is the current Chair of the American College of Cardiology (ACC) Imaging Section and Leadership Council, the Immediate Past President of the Society of Cardiovascular CT (SCCT), and the Immediate Past Chair of the ACC Federal Cardiology Section and Leadership Council. He is the current Executive Editor of the Journal of Cardiovascular Computed Tomography.

 

Kenneth C. Wang, MD, PhD 
Kenneth C. Wang, MD, PhD is the MRI section chief at the Baltimore VA Medical Center, and an adjunct assistant professor of diagnostic radiology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. He is a member of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) Radiology Informatics Committee, where he serves as the chairman of the RadLex Steering Committee, as well as the liaison to the RSNA 3D Printing Special Interest Group. Dr. Wang earned his BS, MS and PhD degrees in electrical engineering from Stanford University, and his medical degree from the University of California, San Francisco. He completed his radiology residency and a musculoskeletal radiology fellowship at Johns Hopkins Hospital, and an informatics fellowship at the University of Maryland. His research interests include radiologic applications of semantic computation, shoulder and ankle imaging, 3D printing and MR neurography.

 

Ex officio federal representatives for the TEP
 

Amy Berrington, DPhil
Dr. Amy Berrington is the Branch Chief and Senior Investigator in the Radiation Epidemiology Branch at NCI. She is an internationally recognized expert in the potential cancer risks from medical radiation exposures.  Dr Berrington is co-PI of the UK Pediatric CT scans cohort, which was the first epidemiological study to suggest a direct link between CT scans and subsequent cancer risk.  She currently also leads studies on the risk of second cancer after proton therapy and other emerging radiotherapy techniques.  The goal of her research program is to quantify the potential cancer risks to enable an assessment of the risks and benefits of these medical exposures.  Dr Berrington is currently a member of the NAS Nuclear and Radiation Studies Board and has served on many national and international radiation committees.   Originally trained in mathematics/statistics she has a DPhil in Cancer Epidemiology from Oxford University.  Before joining NCI in 2008 she held faculty positions at Oxford and then Johns Hopkins University.

 

Mary C. White, ScD
Mary C. White, ScD, is Chief of the Epidemiology and Applied Research Branch in the Division of Cancer Prevention and Control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, Georgia. For nearly three decades, Dr. White has led the development, implementation, and translation of population-based health research at CDC. She has published and lectured widely on topics related to the control of asthma, cancer, and other chronic diseases, the risks associated with exposure to air pollution and hazardous substances, and the interpretation of scientific evidence for public health. In her current position, Dr. White leads a program of applied research and science dissemination to support CDC programs and partners and advance national priorities in cancer prevention and control. She has helped to expand the agency’s activities in primary cancer prevention through a transdisciplinary initiative to explore opportunities for cancer prevention across the lifespan.