HMS Sepsis – How a State-Wide Quality Collaborative Facilitates Performance Improvements and Collaboration

Hallie Prescott, MD, MSc, is an Associate Professor of Internal Medicine in the Division of Pulmonary Critical Care within Michigan Medicine and a Staff Physician at the Ann Arbor Veterans Affairs Medical Center. She is the physician lead on the HMS Sepsis and Mi-COVID19 Initiatives. Hallie completed medical school, residency, and chief residency at Ohio State University, and fellowship and Masters in Health Services Research at the University of Michigan. She is interested in sepsis, performance measurement, and long-term outcomes after critical illness. She serves as Vice-Chair of the Surviving Sepsis Campaign Guidelines, as a council member of the International Sepsis Forum, and on the advisory board of Sepsis Alliance.

Pat Posa RN, BSN, MSA, CCRN, FAAN, is the Quality and Safety Program Manager for the Hospital Medicine Safety Consortium (HMS), providing clinical oversight for their quality improvement work. Before that, she was the Quality and Patient Safety Program Manager for the Adult Hospitals at Michigan Medicine. In her role, she was responsible for the development, measurement, and sustainability of the Adult Hospitals’ Quality and Patient Safety program. Pat was previously a Quality Excellence Leader for St. Joseph Mercy Health System in Southeastern Michigan, leading initiatives to reduce hospital-acquired conditions, improve patient outcomes for critically ill patients, and reduce readmissions.

She received her Bachelor of Science in Nursing from Wayne State University and her Masters in Administration from Central Michigan University. Pat has a strong interest in sepsis and critical care. In her 44 years of practice, Pat has held various roles in healthcare in the hospital, ambulatory setting, and health plans, including manager of inpatient critical care units, Director of Nursing, and administrator of an outpatient multispecialty/primary care clinic.

Pat has been involved in many quality and patient safety programs, such as hospital and system-wide sepsis management programs and a statewide Keystone ICU patient safety initiative. She has been faculty for multiple state and national clinical collaboratives including the Surviving Sepsis Campaign Phase IV Collaborative, the national project on Comprehensive Unit Safety Program (CUSP) for Mechanically Ventilated Patients, and the Society of Critical Care Medicine’s ICU Liberation Collaborative. Pat has been a member and co-chair of SCCM’s ICU Liberation Committee. Through Pat’s leadership, St. Joseph Mercy Hospital was awarded the HHS/Critical Care Societies Outstanding Leadership in Eliminating CLABSI and VAP in 2011. She was inducted as a fellow into the American Academy of Nursing in 2013. Pat was also awarded the Michigan Hospital Association Quality and Patient Safety Leadership Award in 2017. Pat has published many articles in both clinical and quality journals. She lectures and consults extensively nationally on sepsis, various critical care topics, patient safety, and quality topics.

Scott A. Flanders, MD, is currently Chief Clinical Strategy Officer for Michigan Medicine, where in partnership with the Chief Strategy Officer, he leads the Department of Strategy and is responsible for the organization’s clinical growth strategy and for developing and operationalizing Michigan Medicine’s growing statewide network. Dr. Flanders is a Professor of Medicine in the Division of Hospital Medicine at the University of Michigan, where he serves as Vice Chair for the Department of Internal Medicine. He was the founding leader of Michigan’s Hospital Medicine Program, and from 2003-2017 grew the program from four faculty to over 100, while concurrently developing robust clinical, educational, quality and research programs within the section.

Dr. Flanders was a founding member of the Board of Directors of the Society of Hospital Medicine (SHM) and is a Past-President of SHM. In 2013, Dr. Flanders was awarded the designation of Master in Hospital Medicine by the Society of Hospital Medicine.

Dr. Flanders’ research interests include hospitalists, hospital-acquired conditions and their prevention, dissemination of patient safety and quality improvement practices, and the diagnosis and treatment of lower respiratory infections. Dr. Flanders developed and leads the Michigan Hospital Medicine Safety (HMS) Consortium, focused on preventing adverse events in hospitalized patients. He has authored over 200 journal articles and book chapters and has edited two textbooks and a book series in the field of Hospital Medicine. Dr. Flanders received his Medical Degree from the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine and completed his residency and chief residency at the University of California, San Francisco.

Megan Cahill, DO, MBA, is a distinguished healthcare leader and the Division Chief of Medicine at Henry Ford Macomb Hospital, leading over 750 physicians and Advanced Practice Providers across 20 medicine specialties. With a servant leadership style, she excels in navigating complex decisions, fostering team collaboration, and adapting to change. As an Emergency Medicine physician, Dr. Cahill is well-versed in sepsis management and began her leadership journey overseeing the Sepsis Steering Committee as the Sepsis Improvement Physician Champion.  This passion for enhancing clinical management of sepsis and improving patients’ lives sparked further quality improvement work in antimicrobial stewardship, diagnostic stewardship, hospital-acquired infections, and vascular access devices. Recognized for leadership in education, patient safety, and professional advocacy, Dr. Cahill's multifaceted expertise serves her larger vision for continuous advancements in healthcare nationwide.

Amy McKenzie, MD, MBA is a board-certified family medicine physician with 13 years of experience in private practice and over ten years of experience in healthcare administration and clinical leadership. Dr. McKenzie joined Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan in 2013 as a physician consultant supporting Quality Management and Accreditation and is now the Associate Chief Medical Officer and Vice President leading Clinical Partnerships. Her team is responsible for providing clinical leadership for provider value-based programs and risk contracting and helps to enable and support the network through education, communication, and partnering on practice transformation efforts. She also leads the Behavioral Health Strategy and Planning team responsible for development and implementation of the BH strategy. Dr. McKenzie graduated from Northeast Ohio Medical University and completed her residency at Ascension Providence Hospital in Southfield, Michigan. In 2017, she received her MBA with a focus in medical management from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She is currently serving as Vice Chair on the State of Michigan Certificate of Need Commission and is a past president on the Family Medicine Foundation of Michigan.