NQMC/NGC Editorial Board

Editorial Board Co-Chairs | Core Editorial Board Members | Standing Board Members

The NQMC/NGC Editorial Board is composed of health care professionals with collective expertise in clinical guidelines and quality measures. The Editorial Board provides NQMC and NGC with access to vital knowledge concerning developments in health care that informs future work. The Board also provides valuable perspectives in the form of Expert Commentaries on topics germane to the quality measures and guideline fields.

Editorial Board Co-Chairs

Richard C. Hermann, M.D., M.S.

Dr. Hermann currently serves as the Director of the Center for Quality Assessment & Improvement in Mental Health at Tufts Medical Center's Institute for Clinical Research and Health Policy Studies. His major research interests include organizational factors that influence the effectiveness of quality improvement in health care, quality assessment of mental health care and its association with clinical outcomes, and variation and appropriateness of psychiatric practices. He has received more than 20 research funding grants, and is also an editor for Psychiatry at www.uptodate.com .

After graduating cum laude with a B.A. from Dartmouth College, Dr. Hermann obtained his M.D. from the University of Michigan Medical School, followed by his M.S. in Epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health. He has led or contributed to quality measure development efforts of the National Quality Forum, National Committee for Quality Assurance, Joint Commission, American Psychiatric Association, and other organizations. He is a member of the Editorial Boards of the Harvard Review of Psychiatry and the Joint Commission Journal for Quality and Safety and serves as a reviewer of many other prominent journals. His own publishing credits include numerous refereed papers, chapters, and editorials, as well as a book, Improving Mental Healthcare: A Guide to Measurement-based Quality Improvement. He has extensive teaching experience and is frequently invited to lecture in the United States and abroad.

Paul G. Shekelle, M.D., M.P.H., Ph.D.

In addition to currently serving as a Staff Physician at the West Los Angeles Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Dr. Shekelle has served as the Director of the Southern California Evidence-based Practice Center for the RAND Corporation since 1997. He is also a Professor of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) School of Medicine. He is widely recognized in the field of guidelines, quality measurement, and evidence-based medicine. He is currently the Chair of the Clinical Guidelines Committee of the American College of Physicians.

After receiving a B.S. in both Biology and Chemistry at the University of Illinois, Dr. Shekelle earned his M.D. from Duke University in 1982. He completed his internship, residency, and fellowship at UCLA, where he also obtained his M.P.H. in 1989 and his Ph.D. in 1993.

Ethan Balk, M.D., M.P.H.

Dr. Balk is Co-Director of the Tufts Evidence-based Practice Center and Center for Clinical Evidence Synthesis. He directs and coordinates multiple projects on systematic review, quality assessment of the medical literature, and meta-analysis. In addition to preparing Evidence Reports and Technology Assessments for the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), Dr. Balk also provides methodological expertise to the Society of Gynecologic Surgeons Systematic Review Group for development of systematic reviews and, if appropriate, clinical practice guidelines. Until 2011, he coordinated guideline development for the Kidney Disease: Improving Global Outcomes (KDIGO) guidelines on chronic kidney disease.

After earning a B.A. in Chemistry at Williams College, Dr. Balk obtained his M.D. in 1991 from Tufts University School of Medicine, where he also obtained his M.P.H. in 1999. He completed his internal medicine and primary care residency and clinical care fellowship at St. Elizabeth's Medical Center and New England Medical Center (now Tufts Medical Center) in Boston, respectively. Dr. Balk has written numerous peer-reviewed publications and has significantly contributed to numerous guidelines. He is also an Assistant Professor at Tufts University School of Medicine/Tufts Medical Center.

JiWon Jane S. Jue, M.D., M.Sc.

Dr. Jue joined ECRI Institute in 2011 as both a Senior Research Analyst for its Evidence-based Practice Center (EPC) and Senior Medical Advisor for NGC and NQMC. In these capacities, she brings clinical and health policy expertise to the research performed at the EPC and to the ongoing work at NGC/NQMC. In addition to her roles at ECRI Institute, Dr. Jue is a practicing staff physician at Esperanza Health Center in Philadelphia.

After earning an undergraduate degree from Princeton University, Dr. Jue obtained a medical degree from Mount Sinai School of Medicine. During this time, she co-founded and administrated the Bowery Mission Medical Clinic, a free medical clinic at a homeless shelter and half-way home in Manhattan's Lower East Side. Her postgraduate training included an internship and residency in internal medicine at the Mount Sinai Medical Center. From 2008 to 2011, Dr. Jue completed a fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania as a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholar and a Department of Veterans Affairs Scholar, during which time she also earned a Master of Science in Health Policy Research. Dr. Jue is a member of many professional societies and associations, including the Society of General Internal Medicine and the American College of Physicians, and was awarded the American Medical Association Foundation Leadership Award in 2007.

Jerod M. Loeb, Ph.D.

Jerod M. Loeb, Ph.D. is Executive Vice President for Healthcare Quality Evaluation at The Joint Commission in Oakbrook Terrace, Illinois. A member of the senior management team, he heads the Division of Healthcare Quality Evaluation, which subsumes The Joint Commission's activities associated with the development, testing, and implementation of evidence-based standards, survey methods, national patient safety goals, and performance measures across all of The Joint Commission's various accreditation and certification programs. Dr. Loeb has administrative responsibility for the The Joint Commission's Departments of Quality Measurement, Health Services Research, and Standards and Survey Methods. Since his arrival at The Joint Commission in 1994, Dr. Loeb has played a leadership role in identifying, evaluating, and implementing performance measures across the wide variety of Joint Commission accreditation and certification programs. He is involved in a variety of national and international initiatives associated with performance measurement and patient safety, including those of the National Quality Forum, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the International Society for Quality in Health Care, and the World Health Organization.

After completing his graduate education at the State University of New York — Downstate Medical Center, Dr. Loeb held fellowship positions at Harvard Medical School — Peter Bent Brigham Hospital and Loyola University Stritch School of Medicine. Dr. Loeb has been on the faculty at Northwestern University Medical School since 1979 in both full- and part-time capacities, received tenure in 1985, and is currently an Adjunct Professor of Physiology. He is also an Adjunct Associate of the Center for Health Policy and Center for Primary Care and Outcomes Research at Stanford University.

Dr. Loeb has more than 170 publications in cardiovascular medicine, risk assessment and communication, scientific ethics, and health care quality. Dr. Loeb received the National Quality Forum and The Joint Commission's John M. Eisenberg Patient Safety and Quality Honorary Lifetime Achievement Award in 2012. He has received many grant awards from the federal government and other sources and serves on numerous national and international advisory bodies and as a referee for several scientific journals — including the JAMA and the New England Journal of Medicine.

Kathleen N. Lohr, Ph.D.

Before becoming a Distinguished Fellow at RTI International in 2003, Dr. Lohr was Chief Scientist and Senior Program Director for a portfolio of projects in health services and health policy, with emphasis on evidence-based practice. She founded and for 10 years directed the RTI-University of North Carolina (UNC) Evidence-based Practice Center; she will be a senior advisor for the EPC in EPC-IV. Dr. Lohr was the founding Editor-in-Chief of RTI Press (www.rti.org/rtipress ) and now serves on its Editorial Board Executive Committee. She spent 9 years at the Institute of Medicine, National Academy of Sciences, where she directed the Division of Health Care Services and led or oversaw numerous studies in quality of care, clinical practice guidelines, and other health services and policy research topics. At the RAND Corporation from 1974 to 1987, her research involved various health care projects, chiefly RAND's Health Insurance Experiment and quality of care studies. For several years until the mid-2000s, she held the rank of Research Professor, Department of Health Policy and Administration at the UNC School of Public Health.

Dr. Lohr completed her undergraduate studies with a B.A. (with distinction) in Sociology from Stanford University, where she also earned an M.A. in Education. She continued her graduate work at RAND Graduate School, earning both an M.Phil. and a Ph.D. in Policy Analysis and Public Policy Analysis, respectively. Among many honors and distinctions accrued throughout her career, she was awarded the International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research (ISPOR) Avedis Donabedian Outcomes Research Lifetime Achievement Award in 2005 and the Margaret Elliott Knox Excellence award from RTI in 2007. In 1996, she held the Spinoza Lectureship at the University of Amsterdam ("Primary Care, Health Professions, and Managed Care"). Dr. Lohr's writing credits are extensive: numerous books and monographs, editorials, book reviews, letters to the editor, and more than 140 peer-reviewed journal articles. She has served on various national advisory bodies for the public and private sector, including NGC/NQMC, National Quality Forum, United Mine Workers RX program, ISPOR Health Science Policy Council, and the NIH PROMIS Health Foundation. She completed her 3-year term on the National Advisory Council for AHRQ at the end of 2010.

Sumant Ranji, M.D. (New Core EB Member)

Dr. Ranji is an Associate Professor of Clinical Medicine at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) and serves as Associate Program Director, Quality and Safety Programs, for the UCSF Internal Medicine Residency Program. In this role, he directs the residency curriculum in patient safety and quality improvement and is interested in developing methods of measuring the quality of care provided by residents and promoting resident engagement in quality and safety programs. Dr. Ranji has a strong interest in inpatient quality improvement, and his research has focused on evidence-based assessment of the effect of quality improvement interventions on clinical outcomes. He maintains an active clinical and teaching role, serving as the attending physician for approximately 3 months per year on the ward teaching service and 1 month per year on the medical consult service.

After earning his M.D. from the University of Illinois at Chicago in 1998, Dr. Ranji completed his Internal Medicine residency training at the University of Chicago Hospitals and subsequently served as Chief Medical Resident at Cook County Hospital. He joined the Division of Hospital Medicine of UCSF in 2004 after completing a 2-year fellowship in Hospital Medicine and Clinical Research. During the fellowship, he received formal training in biostatistics, clinical epidemiology, and outcomes research as part of the Advanced Training in Clinical Research program. Dr. Ranji is an associate editor for BMJ Quality and Safety, has published numerous peer-reviewed articles, and is a fellow of the American College of Physicians. In 2009, he was the recipient of the Floyd C. Rector Housestaff Teaching Award of the UCSF Department of Medicine.

Eric C. Schneider, M.D., M.Sc.

Dr. Schneider is Senior Scientist, RAND Distinguished Chair in Health Care Quality, and Director of the RAND Boston office. He is Associate Professor of Medicine in the Division of General Medicine and Primary Care at Brigham and Women's Hospital, where he practices general internal medicine, at Harvard Medical School, and in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Harvard School of Public Health. He is Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal for Quality in Health Care. Dr. Schneider's research addresses the quality of health care with a focus on the specification, use, and impact of performance measurement and reporting in health care. He has published widely on the development and evaluation of performance measures and the uses of performance data in health care, the uses of health information technology, the impact of organization of care delivery systems on health care quality, and measurement of the racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic disparities in health care quality. Dr. Schneider's current research focuses on the use of performance measures to evaluate expansion of Medicaid insurance coverage, implementation of the patient-centered medical home, and other innovative models of health care delivery.

Dr. Schneider chairs the Expert Panel and sits on the Editorial Board of the AHRQ-sponsored NQMC and NGC. He is also co-chair of the Committee for Performance Measurement of the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA), methodologist on the Executive Committee of the Physician Consortium for Performance Improvement of the American Medical Association, and member of the Advisory Board of the Stoeckle Center for Innovation in Primary Care. He is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians and past chair of its Performance Measurement Committee.

Bo-Linn, George (M.D., M.H.A., FACP)
Chief Program Officer, Patient Care Program and San Francisco Bay Area Portfolio, The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation

Clarke, John (M.D.)
Professor, Surgery, Drexel University College of Medicine
Clinical Director, Patient Safety & Quality Initiatives, ECRI Institute
Clinical Director, Pennsylvania Patient Safety Authority

Davis, Duane (M.D.)
President and Chief Executive Officer, Geisinger Health Plan and Health System
Clinical Professor of Medicine, Thomas Jefferson University School of Medicine

Fendrick, A. Mark (M.D.)
Professor, Internal Medicine-General Medicine, University of Michigan School of Medicine
Professor, Health Management and Policy, University of Michigan School of Public Health
Co-Director, Center for Value-Based Insurance Design, University of Michigan School of Public Health

Gibbons, Raymond J. (M.D.)
Arthur M. and Gladys D. Gray Professor of Medicine, Mayo Clinic
Consultant in Cardiovascular Diseases and Internal Medicine, Mayo Clinic

Harrison, Richard V. (Ph.D.)
Professor, Department of Medical Education, University of Michigan Medical School

Hunt, Gordon (M.D.)
Senior Vice President & Chief Medical Officer, Sutter Health

Justman, Richard (M.D.)
National Medical Director, UnitedHealthCare

Kresowik, Timothy F. (M.D., M.S.)
Professor, Vascular Surgery, University of Iowa College of Medicine

Krughoff, Robert (J.D.)
President, Consumers' Checkbook/Center for the Study of Services
Chairman, External Advisory Committee, Health Care Technology Assessment Program, ECRI Institute

Wallace, Paul (M.D.)
Senior Vice President, The Lewin Group
Director, Center for Comparative Effectiveness Research

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