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James M. Anderson Center for Health Systems Excellence

Current and Alumni Scholars

Brandon Aylward

Brandon Aylward
Brandon Aylward, PhD, is a postdoctoral fellow in the Division of Behavioral Medicine and Clinical Psychology funded through a T32 training grant in the Center for Child Behavior and Nutrition Research and Training. He received his doctorate in clinical child psychology with a minor in quantitative psychology from the University of Kansas and completed his predoctoral residency at Cincinnati Children’s. His research interests encompass a broad range of psychology issues for children and adolescents. His work has focused on three main areas: predictors and correlates of children’s psychosocial, developmental and physical functioning in chronic illness populations; trends and correlates of adherence and self-management behaviors; and use of advanced statistical methodology and innovative technology to examine predictors and outcomes for chronic health issues. He is involved in several research projects with Scott Powers, PhD, and faculty in the Center for Adherence and Self-Management in pediatric migraine, adherence and self-management, and child health outcomes. In addition, Aylward is working with Peter Margolis, MD, PhD, on patient driven trials as part of the Collaborative Chronic Care Network.

Samuel Hanke

Samuel Hanke
Samuel Hanke, MD, is a clinical pediatric cardiology fellow within the Heart Institute at Cincinnati Children’s. He received his medical degree from the University of Louisville and completed his pediatric residency at Cincinnati Children’s. He later served as a pediatric chief resident where he was introduced to the field of quality improvement. Prior interests focused on optimizing resident education. Currently, he is pursing improvement work in the field on noninvasive cardiac imaging.

Marielle Kabbouche

Marielle Kabbouche
Marielle Kabbouche, MD, received training in child neurology at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. She moved to Cincinnati for specialty training in pediatric headache medicine. The position was the first for a pediatric neurologist. She stayed at Cincinnati Children’s as a faculty member with involvement in academic, clinical and teaching aspects of pediatric headache medicine. She is proud to be part of the maturing center that became the largest and most academically productive pediatric headache program in the world. She has been a co-PI on NIH grants and has been involved in pharmaceutical and clinical migraine studies. She focuses on acute treatment of intractable migraine in children in emergency room and inpatient settings. She was involved in establishing an acute headache infusion center and an inpatient headache unit. The acute care unit sees 200 to 300 patients a year. The inpatient unit brings specialty care with a team of six providers, fellows, residents and nurses. Kabbouche has a track record of peer-reviewed papers, reviews, abstracts and book chapters. She is editor of a pediatric headache book.

Erin Redle

Erin Redle
Erin Redle, PhD, is a speech pathologist and researcher in the Division of Speech Pathology and the Communication Sciences Research Center, as well as an assistant professor in the Department of Communication Disorders at the University of Cincinnati. Her research focuses on children with dysphasia and motor speech disorders, including childhood apraxia of speech (CAS). Her work focuses on developing clinically relevant outcome measures within these conditions using measures of family functioning, patient performance and neuroimaging. Her dissertation work was recognized by the Dysphagia Research Society in 2008. She received her doctoral degree from the University of Cincinnati.

Erika Stalets

Erika Stalets
After completing her pediatric critical care fellowship, Erika Stalets, MD, joined the faculty at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center and the University of Cincinnati. The main focus of her improvement work is the reliable recognition and delivery of care to pediatric septic shock patients. She also works with hospital improvement teams directed toward optimizing patient flow throughout the system and having the right bed at the right time for patients. This year she began co-leading the hospitalwide initiative to eliminate catheter-associated UTIs, part of the strategic priority to eliminate all preventable harm.

Heather Tubbs Cooley

Heather Tubbs Cooley
Heather Tubbs Cooley, PhD, RN, is a nurse scientist in the Center for Professional Excellence-Research and Evidence-Based Practice at Cincinnati Children’s and an assistant professor of clinical nursing at the University of Cincinnati College of Nursing. She studies relationships between nursing care and patient outcomes and is particularly interested in associations between hospital nursing organization and clinical outcomes such as ventilator-associated pneumonia and sepsis. She received a dissertation award from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and was awarded her doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania in 2010. She received the Interdisciplinary Research Group on Nursing Issues New Investigator Award at the 2011 AcademyHealth annual research meeting in Seattle.

Patrick Brady (alumnus)

Patrick Brady (alumnus)
After his fellowship, Patrick Brady, MD, joined the faculty at Cincinnati Children’s and the University of Cincinnati with a joint appointment in general and community pediatrics and the James M. Anderson Center for Health Systems Excellence. His work continues in innovating, testing and taking to scale reliable systems to identify, mitigate and escalate deteriorating hospitalized patients. He has the goal of eliminating preventable harm from deterioration at Cincinnati Children’s and later through collaboration with other hospitals. He also aims to disseminate this knowledge in peer-reviewed literature so the theory can be tested and refined and the outcomes and cost of care can improve nationally and worldwide. Brady was cited for best presentation at the 2010 International Scientific Symposium and won honors from the Academy for Healthcare Improvement for “Improving Situation Awareness to Eliminate Serious Safety Events and UNSAFE Transfers of Pediatric Inpatients: a Time-Series Study.”

Michele Dritz (alumna)

Michele Dritz (alumna)

Upon completing her fellowship, Michele Dritz, MD, secured a position with Wright-Patterson Air Force Base (WPAFB) in Dayton, OH, in the Adolescent Medicine Teen Clinic. The clinic is a consult-only referral center for adolescent medicine concerns in the Dayton area, but will transition to a primary care clinic to serve the WPAFB adolescent population, which includes about 2,200 military and government-contract dependents. In addition, she will hold a joint appointment with Boonshoft School of Medicine at Wright State University, teaching and overseeing pediatric and family practice residents as well as medical students. Dritz will begin the process of integrating and managing outpatient quality-improvement initiatives both within the new Adolescent Primary Care Clinic and the General Pediatrics Clinic at WPAFB. With her training through the Quality Scholars in Healthcare Transformation Program at Cincinnati Children’s, she will be able to continue her work of improving healthcare and clinical outcomes for all patients.

David Hooper (alumnus)

David Hooper (alumnus)
After completing his nephrology fellowship, David Hooper, MD, joined Cincinnati Children’s and the University of Cincinnati with a joint appointment in the Division of Nephrology and Hypertension and the James M. Anderson Center for Health Systems Excellence. His aim is to improve clinical outcomes for children who have had a kidney transplant through research in personalized care and the design of reliable healthcare delivery systems. He focuses on the prevention of cardiovascular disease, which is the leading cause of death in young adults who had a kidney transplant as children. He has developed reliable, semi-automated systems for screening and treating high cholesterol and is focused on management of blood pressure. His methods include applying the principles of chronic care, including decision support through the electronic medical record, development of treatment guidelines and implementing standardized care, the planned medical visit, population management and self-management support. He seeks to innovate chronic disease management and study the long-term outcomes of cardiovascular care.

Matt Linam (alumnus)

Matt Linam (alumnus)
After completing his fellowship, Matt Linam, MD, acquired a position at Arkansas Children’s Hospital. About 50 percent of his time is devoted to QI work, including clinical quality activities, education and research. Much of his work is related to infection control where he functions as the primary physician contact with the infection prevention and control department and helps guide the activities of the department. He is working on a number of projects related to hand hygiene compliance and is gearing up for a hospitalwide initiative on improving compliance. He is the codirector of the antibiotic stewardship program, which is in the early stages of a QI project to expand the scope from focusing on only one antibiotic, vancomycin, to all antibiotics. Linam is also the co-course director of an internal basic quality improvement / process improvement training course for healthcare workers at Arkansas Children’s Hospital. The hand hygiene project that he worked on during his Quality Scholars Fellowship at Cincinnati Children’s will be published in Pediatrics in September 2011. The training he received at Cincinnati Children’s has allowed him to be a leader in quality improvement at Arkansas Children’s Hospital.
Quality Scholars Program Develops Healthcare Leaders

The Quality Scholars Program in the Anderson Center, led by Evaline Alessandrini, MD, MSCE, is developing researchers and leaders who will transform pediatric health and healthcare delivery. Program goals include developing faculty to create effective healthcare delivery system interventions that can be disseminated into real-world practice settings, directly resulting in improved health outcomes.
Our unique Quality Scholars Program challenges participants to:
Design, develop, test, sustain, scale and disseminate effective interventions in healthcare delivery
Accurately measure health and healthcare quality, cost and value
Create and lead organizational and policy environments engaged in continuous improvement
Undertake research that creates new knowledge and translates evidence of improved approaches to care in clinical, public health and policy settings
Candidates
We seek postdoctoral scholars to participate in the Quality Scholars Program. Eligible candidates include:
Postdoctoral scholars in pediatric healthcare specializing in medicine, surgery, public health, the social sciences, nursing, pharmacy and other allied health areas
Faculty and fellows
Individuals who can dedicate >75 percent of time for the duration of the program (two to three years)
Program Components
The Quality Scholars Program at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center includes:
Strong methodologic training in health services research and quality-improvement methods (including quality-improvement research methods of study design and analysis, planned experimentation in complex systems, statistical process control, and product and process design
Series of mentored research / improvement projects
Exposure to a wide range of high-impact areas of study including innovation in nonhealthcare industry settings
Mentoring for career development
Leadership training and multidisciplinary team work
The training period will be three years. The duration of the training program may be reduced if a candidate already has an MS, MPH, PhD or DrPH in epidemiology or other relevant field.
How can I participate? Applications accepted annually. Applicants should submit a CV, personal statement and three recommendation letters.
For more information, contact: Evaline Alessandrini, MD, MSCE, professor

Program Leadership

Core Program Faculty
Evaline Alessandrini, MD, MSCE, program director
Maria Britto, MD, MPH
Carole Lannon, MD, MPH
Keith Mandel, MD
Peter Margolis, MD, PhD
Stephen Muething, MD
Michael Seid, PhD
Advisory Committee
James M. Anderson, advisor to the president, Cincinnati Children’s
Thomas Boat, MD, dean and vice president for health affairs, University of Cincinnati College of Medicine
Uma Kotagal, MBBS, MSc, senior vice president, quality, safety and transformation; executive director, the James M. Anderson Center for Health Systems Excellence

Their improvement work goes on at Cincinnati Children's: (from left) Samuel Hanke, Erika Stalets, Heather Tubbs Cooley, Erin Redle, Marielle Kabbouche, Brandon Aylward, program director Evaline Alessandrini and Anderson Center coordinator April Mack-Williams.