Coordinating Center Team

Clinical Leadership

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    Program Director
    Keith E. Kocher, MD, MPH
    Dr. Kocher is an Associate Professor in the Departments of Emergency Medicine and Learning Health Sciences at the University of Michigan and a health services researcher affiliated with the Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation (IHPI). He is committed to improving the quality and performance of emergency care.
  • Program Co-Director for Pediatrics
    Michele M. Nypaver, MD
    Dr. Nypaver is a Professor in the Departments of Emergency Medicine and Pediatrics at the University of Michigan. She is a practicing pediatric emergency physician with experience in local as well as national quality improvement initiatives. Her interest lies in improving the outcomes of children visiting emergency departments.
  • Pediatric Emergency Care Consultant
    Michelle L. Macy, MD, MS
    Dr. Macy is an Associate Professor of Pediatrics at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago and Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. She completed her dual fellowship training in Pediatric Emergency Medicine and Pediatric Health Services Research at the University of Michigan. She serves as the Chair of the MEDIC Data & Publication Committee.
  • Adult Emergency Care Consultant
    Jason J. Ham, MB, BCh, BAO
    Dr. Ham is an Assistant Professor in the Departments of Emergency Medicine and Internal Medicine. He developed and directed the University of Michigan Medical Observation Service which opened its doors in 2009. He enjoys quality improvement projects and has implemented numerous care guidelines. He remains active within the observation medicine community, facilitating and lecturing at national conferences.

Coordinating Center Staff

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    Program Manager
    Andy Scott, MHSA
    Andy is responsible for managing day-to-day operations of the Coordinating Center team. In addition, Andy is directly involved in MEDIC’s yearly budget and statement of work, new site recruitment, and quality initiative development and reporting. He previously worked as an intraoperative neuromonitoring technologist, and as a project manager for the Clinical Design and Innovation team at Michigan Medicine.
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    Clinical Info Analyst Senior
    Carrie Smith, MSN, RN
    Carrie ensures that MEDIC abstractors have the tools and knowledge needed to enable efficient and accurate data entry. Prior to MEDIC, she was a Nurse Practitioner in Thoracic Surgery and has also worked in the Adult Medical Observation Unit in the ED at Michigan Medicine.
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    Program Evaluation Specialist
    Catie Guarnaccia, BSN, RN, CPEN
    Catie works with the MEDIC abstractors, clinical champions, and quality improvement teams to support abstraction training and continuous site performance improvement. Catie’s background includes working as a Certified Pediatric Emergency Nurse at Mott Children’s Hospital and as a Surgical Nurse Assistant at Michigan Medicine. She is currently working toward an MSN in Leadership, Analytics, and Innovation at the University of Michigan.
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    Data Manager
    Alyson Stone, MS Health IT
    Alyson is responsible for interfacing with hospital IT contacts to obtain monthly data files that are used to generate a list of “abstraction eligible” cases for MEDIC members. She works with our registry vendor on a daily basis to ensure the abstraction platform is running smoothly and assists with updates to modules and reports. She is also responsible for reviewing and cleansing data, performing data quality checks to ensure data integrity, and generating ad-hoc reports.
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    Project Manager
    Megan Hogikyan, MPH
    Megan brings experience in health communications design, the science and marketing of behavior change, and program strategy development. She is responsible for guiding the development of new MEDIC quality initiatives, supporting quality improvement activities across MEDIC member sites, and designing and disseminating program marketing and communications materials.
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    MEDIC Administrator
    Christie Radden, MA
    Christie brings a wealth of administrative experience from her former roles in Hospital Medicine at the University of Michigan and Emergency Medicine at Wayne State University. Currently she handles recruitment and on-boarding of new hospital teams into MEDIC, annual quality improvement initiatives, and co-manages the program budget.
  • MEDIC Health Equity Intern
    Sarah El-Azab, MS
    Sarah El-Azab is a PhD student in the department of Health Management and Policy in the School of Public Health. Her research interests are at the intersection of health information technology, data quality, and health equity. Before coming to the University of Michigan, Sarah received her Bachelor’s in Microbiology from the University of Florida and her Master’s in Health Communication from Purdue University. Most recently, she was a data analyst at the Regenstrief Institute in Indianapolis, where she worked with electronic health records to curate data sets for clinical and public health researchers.
  • MEDIC Health Equity Intern
    Timberlee Whiteus, BA
    Timberlee Whiteus is a first year Master of Public Health student studying Health Behavior and Health Education.  She received her B.A. from the University of Michigan, where she first explored her interest between advocacy and health. In this role, she hopes to develop skills critical to public health practice while focusing on an area of health that has shaped her experiences.