Awards

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.