Awards

Anne Tomolo, MD MPH is an Associate Professor in the Division of General Medicine and Geriatrics at Emory School of Medicine. She is the Associate Chief of Staff for Education, VAQS Advanced Fellowship Site Director and mentor for the Chief Resident in Quality and Safety Program at the Atlanta VA Health Care System. Dr. Tomolo is the former Director of the Cognitive Disorder Specialty Care Education Center of Excellence and the current Co-Director of the Center for Health Care Improvement and Change at the Atlanta VAHCS. She finished her Internal Medicine residency in 1999 from Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) School of Medicine and then completed the National VA Quality Scholars Fellowship Program at the Cleveland site and her Master’s in Public Health at CWRU. After completing her training, Dr. Tomolo served as the Emergency Department Director at the Louis Stokes Cleveland Department of VA Medical Center for eight years and joined the Atlanta VAHCS in 2010. She is nationally recognized for research in curriculum development and assessment in the graduate medical education competencies of Systems Based Practice and Practice Based Learning and Improvement. Dr. Tomolo’s career interests include health outcomes, implementation science, system redesign, and medical education.

Christianne Roumie, M.D., MPH graduated Alpha Omega Alpha from Rutgers University, N.J Medical School in 1998. She completedtraining in Internal Medicine, Pediatrics andan M.P.H. from Vanderbilt in 2005. Dr. Roumie was recruited as a physician scientist incardiovascular prevention and improvement.Her research area is in the design andexecution of interventions to improvecardiovascular risk and morbidity. She utilizespopulation based approaches to improve patient care. She is a clinical leader in the complex interactions between cardiovascular risk factor control, and medication utilization. She has dedicated her research and clinical career to improving population health; including evidence-based care for medication prescribing. Dr. Roumie has developed successful and important research designed to improve health outcomes by developing evidence-based information for patients, clinicians, and decision-makers about effective interventions. Dr. Roumie has developed a national and international reputation for her work in medications, cardiovascular epidemiology and improvement. She is often invited to present her research as a national/ international speaker on pharmacoepidemiology and cardiovascular risk factor management. These include platform presentations at American Diabetes Association, American Heart Association, Society of General Internal Medicine, and at Queens University in Belfast, Northern Ireland and in Montreal Canada. She has participated in multiple expert committees, including the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality Diabetes Research Consortium Executive Committee and the Veterans Health Administration Geriatrics taskforce. She is a standing member (voting) and Chair of the Food and Drug Administration’s Nonprescription Drugs Advisory Committee (NDAC). Dr. Roumie has been an outstanding teacher and mentor. She is the Deputy Director of the Nashville VA Quality Scholars Program. She serves as primary mentor to junior faculty in medicine, surgery, and pediatrics. She is the PI of a T32 program and the Learning Health System K12 Program. In 2019 she received the Grant Liddle Research Mentorship Award.

Kierstin Cates Kennedy, MD, MSHA is a med-peds trained academic hospitalist at the University of Alabama at Birmingham where she holds a rank of clinical associate professor of medicine and serves as Chief of Hospital Medicine. She is fellowship trained in quality improvement in healthcare via the VA Quality Scholars Program and focuses her QI efforts on improving bedside procedure outcomes, identifying and improving meaningful hospital based quality metrics and educational and professional development of hospitalists.

Dr. Mamta (Mimi) Singh is Professor of Medicine and Assistant Dean of Health Systems Science at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine where she holds the Jerome Kowal, MD Designated Professorship in Geriatric Health Education. She is a general internist and Assistant Director of the VAQS program at the VA Northeast Ohio Healthcare System in Cleveland. As an educator, she has spearheaded multiple innovative curricular projects to train future health care professionals at all levels to improve health systems in which they provide care. Dr. Singh received her MD degree from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School and completed her residency and chief residency in internal medicine at MetroHealth Medical Center and has a masters in Health Services Research. Specific interest in education research includes designing assessment instruments for quality improvement competencies and systems thinking. She spearheaded a project team to revise the Quality Improvement Knowledge Application Tool, which is used by medical educators widely to assess understanding of quality improvement. She previously led one of VA’s seven interprofessional residency programs where learners provide care in a Patient Centered Medical Home model. Subsequently she served as the National Physician consultant to the same project. Her academic interest in primary care redesign has led her work on systems thinking and context of care. In addition to VA funding, she has successfully secured funding from Macy/Institute for Health Care Improvement (IHI), RWJ foundation, HRSA and the AMA’s

Rebecca S. (Suzie) Miltner, PhD, RN, CNL, NEA-BC is an Associate Professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) School of Nursing and a Nurse Scientist at the Birmingham VA Medical Center. She is also an Associate Editor for the Journal for Healthcare Quality. She completed a post-doctoral fellowship with the VA National Quality Scholars Program as well as an Executive Fellowship in Patient Safety at Virginia Commonwealth University. She has extensive clinical and leadership experience in military, private, and VA acute care settings as well as experience in nursing education in both academic and organizational settings. She has been a leader in driving quality improvement efforts in several healthcare organizations. She currently teaches in the Executive Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) graduate program at the UAB School of Nursing. Her current improvement work focuses on interprofessional QI education and creating mechanisms to increase the capacity and capability for improvement work within healthcare organizations.

Dr. Melissa Swee is a Senior VA Quality Scholar and transplant nephrologist at the Iowa City VA Health Care System, where she also serves as Director of Telenephrology. She is dedicated to improving access to high-quality kidney care for Veterans, particularly those in rural areas. Under her leadership, the Telenephrology Dashboard was developed and implemented. This is an innovative tool that uses real-time data to support earlier detection and management of both acute and chronic kidney disease across the VA system. Dr. Swee’s research focuses on healthcare disparities in chronic kidney disease, with an emphasis on rural-urban differences in access and outcomes. As a recipient of an NIH-funded K12 award, she combines large-scale data analysis with implementation science to inform equitable system redesign. Her work integrates clinical innovation, education, and health services research, which are key pillars of the VA Quality Scholars mission. Through VAQS, Dr. Swee continues to collaborate with national leaders to advance training in quality improvement and transform Veteran care.

Dr. Boehm’s research aims to eliminate delirium, oversedation, and immobilization in intensive care, and maximize the quality of survivorship for patients and family members following critical illness. She has worked extensively on reducing the prevalence of ICU delirium and post-intensive care syndrome (PICS) through implementation of the ABCDEF bundle, ICU recovery clinics, and ICU peer support programs. She has advanced training in implementation science and quality improvement. Her current research is evaluating the efficacy of telehealth ICU recovery care services and implementation of digital interventions to enhance family engagement and empowerment in the ICU. Dr. Boehm is an investigator with the Critical Illness, Brain Dysfunction and Survivorship (CIBS) Center (www.icudelirium.org) and faculty with the Vanderbilt Center for Clinical Quality and Implementation Research.

Dr. Shanina Knighton is a nurse scientist and infection preventionist advancing health equity through patient-centered hygiene strategies and AI-driven interventions. Her work focuses on hand hygiene, hygiene poverty, and infection prevention across clinical and community settings, using technology and artificial intelligence to empower underserved populations and improve outcomes.

Jennifer Lewis, MD, MS is an Assistant Professor of Medicine (Hematology/Oncology) at Vanderbilt University – Ingram Cancer Center.

Lucy Spalluto, MD, MPH, is a graduate of University of Virginia and earned her medical degree from University of Virginia School of Medicine. She completed a residency in Diagnostic Radiology at Brown University and a fellowship in Women’s Imaging at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Dr. Spalluto joined the Vanderbilt faculty in 2014 as Assistant Professor and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2019. Her clinical work focuses on breast imaging, including mammography, ultrasound, MRI and image-guided procedures. In 2019, Dr. Spalluto completed the VA Quality Scholars Health Services Research Fellowship and Vanderbilt Master of Public Health program. She leads an active research program focused on addressing health disparities, designing health equity focused learning materials for healthcare professionals, and mentoring residents and medical students interested in health equity. Currently, she is the Vice Chair of Health Equity, Director of Women in Radiology, an initiative she co-founded in 2015, and Associate Director, Office of Diversity and Inclusion for the Department of Radiology. She serves on the American College of Radiology’s Commission on Patient- and Family-Centered Care and Commission for Women and Diversity, and as the President of the American Association for Women in Radiology (AAWR).