I am The Richard and Norma Sarns Research Professor of Cardiac Surgery and Head of the Section of Health Services Research and Quality in the Department of Cardiac Surgery at Michigan Medicine. I am also a faculty member at the Center for Healthcare Outcomes and Policy. I am a Cardiovascular Epidemiologist, earning my Ph.D. at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth in the Evaluative Clinical Sciences, with a special focus on applied epidemiology. I am actively involved in The Michigan Society of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgeons Quality Collaborative as its Evaluative Clinical Scientist, as well as The Society of Thoracic Surgeons. My team’s work has primarily focused on: (1) leveraging clinically rich datasets to evaluate determinants of unwarranted variation in care and outcomes, (2) partnering with engaged, frontline clinical providers to redesign the delivery of care and evaluate targeted quality improvement efforts, and (3) using administrative data sources to critically evaluate existing health policies from a patient and societal standpoint.

I have expertise in using large administrative and clinical registries for research and quality improvement. Along with my colleagues, I developed the PERForm Registry to advance care and outcomes among patients undergoing adult cardiac surgery, as well as the PediPERForm Learning Network for pediatric and congenital cardiac surgery. I am the Founding Director of the IMPROVE Network, a collaboration of cardiac surgical quality collaboratives. The IMPROVE Network seeks to improve the value of cardiovascular surgical care by developing, sharing best practice knowledge, coordinating, undertaking, evaluating and disseminating quality improvement projects across its member organizations. I am the PI on several federally funded R01 projects and a T32 training grant for cardiothoracic surgeons.