The AHRQ Safety Program for MRSA Prevention is led by the Johns Hopkins Medicine Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality and NORC at the University of Chicago and is funded and guided by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.
Lisa Maragakis, M.D., M.P.H., is an associate professor of medicine, Division of Infectious Diseases, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine with a joint appointment in epidemiology in the Bloomberg School of Public Health and senior director of infection prevention for the Johns Hopkins Health System. Dr. Maragakis is a nationally recognized expert in prevention of healthcare-associated infection (HAI) and multidrug-resistant organism transmission, including methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). She provides national HAI prevention leadership and expertise in her role as co-chair of the Healthcare Infection Control Practices Advisory Committee for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In addition, Maragakis has extensive experience leading the development of national guidance on HAI prevention and implementation strategies through her role as co-chair of the 2014 and 2020 updates of the Society of Healthcare Epidemiology-Infectious Diseases Society of America Compendium of Strategies to Prevent Healthcare-Associated Infections. Maragakis utilizes the Comprehensive Unit-based Safety Program (CUSP) framework in her infection prevention work, both within the Johns Hopkins Health System and previously as co-investigator on the Johns Hopkins Medicine Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality national CUSP intervention to prevent surgical site infections.
David Thompson, D.N.Sc., M.S., R.N., is an associate professor, educator, and clinical and health outcomes researcher at the Johns Hopkins Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality. Dr. Thompson is the director of patient safety education in the Division of Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine. His research concentration is in clinical patient outcomes, patient safety and quality improvement initiatives, hospital-acquired patient harm and infections, the Comprehensive Unit-based Safety Program (CUSP) teamwork and communication tool development, and peer-to-peer assessment. He has vast experience with critical care, cardiac care, and inpatient populations. He has experience with both quantitative and qualitative methods in research design and evaluation. He has led several quality improvement collaboratives in both hospital-acquired infection reduction and improvements in cardiac care. He therefore has 20 years’ experience in both translating evidence into practice and implementation science. He is currently the co-principal investigator for the AHRQ Safety Program for MRSA Prevention. He holds joint appointments in the Bloomberg School of Public Health Division of Health Policy and The Johns Hopkins School of Nursing in Acute and Chronic Care.
Sean Berenholtz, M.D., M.H.S., FCCM, is a practicing anesthesiologist and critical care physician, and a patient safety researcher and leader. He is a professor in the departments of anesthesiology and critical care medicine and surgery in the School of Medicine and health policy and management in the Bloomberg School of Public Health, at Johns Hopkins University. Dr. Berenholtz is core senior faculty for the Johns Hopkins Medicine Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality. He holds a master’s degree in clinical investigation from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Dr. Berenholtz has authored more than 150 articles and chapters in the fields of patient safety, intensive care unit care, quality health care, and evidence-based medicine. He has served as principal investigator or co-investigator on more than a dozen grants or contracts to develop, implement, and evaluate patient safety improvement efforts. He has served on several Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, and World Health Organization technical expert panels and presidential advisory panels related to improving patient safety and quality of care.
Sara E. Cosgrove, M.D., M.S., is a professor of medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and has a joint appointment in the Department of Epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. She serves as the director of the Department of Antimicrobial Stewardship and the associate hospital epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Hospital. Dr. Cosgrove’s research interests include the epidemiology and outcomes of antimicrobial resistance, the development of tools and programs to promote the rational use of antimicrobials, the prevention of hospital-acquired infections, and the epidemiology and management of Staphylococcus aureus bacteremia. Her recent research focuses on strategies for implementation of antimicrobial stewardship activities across all healthcare settings. She was member of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology Working Group on Antimicrobial Resistance and is a voting member of the Presidential Advisory Council on Combating Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria. She is president of the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology’s board of directors.
Prashila Dullabh, M.D., is a vice president and senior fellow at NORC at the University of Chicago. She also directs the NORC Health Implementation Science Center. As co-investigator of the AHRQ Safety Program for MRSA Prevention project, Dr. Dullabh will serve as the overall NORC lead, working closely with Johns Hopkins University staff and Quality Innovation Network-Quality Improvement Organizations partners on recruitment, implementation, and overall project oversight. Dr. Dullabh is a clinician with more than 20 years of experience in healthcare and health services research. Dr. Dullabh has led several technical assistance, evaluation, and strategic projects for Federal agencies and foundations. Her work includes large-scale implementation science projects focused on patient safety. She is co-investigator for a multiyear AHRQ-funded project in collaboration with John Hopkins Medicine focused on antibiotic stewardship. Dr. Dullabh is also involved in other patient safety initiatives including the Maryland Statewide Prevention and Reduction of COVID-19 (SPARC) and the AHRQ National Nursing Home COVID-19 Coordinating Center.
Lilly D. Engineer, Dr.P.H., M.D., M.H.A., is an assistant professor in the Department of Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine, and has a joint appointment in the Department of Health Policy and Management (HPM) at Johns Hopkins University. She is associate faculty in the Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality and affiliate faculty at the Center for Health Services and Outcomes Research. She is the co-director of the Doctor of Public Health – HPM concentration. She is a physician with doctoral training in public health and health services research with a focus on methods in quality and patient safety from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. She serves as a co-Investigator on this project. Over the past 2 decades she has served as a Comprehensive Unit-based Safety Program (CUSP) coach and CUSP lead mentor to departments at the John Hopkins Hospital. She brings the expertise, educational background, team skills, and motivation necessary to enable successful implementation and evaluation of CUSP.
Valeria Fabre, M.D., is an assistant professor of medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases. She is a hospital epidemiologist and the associate medical director of the Adult Antimicrobial Stewardship Program at the Johns Hopkins Hospital. She received her medical degree from the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina. Her research interests include development of strategies to promote optimal use of antibiotics in hospitals, integration of frontline nurses into diagnostic stewardship, and healthcare-associated infection prevention initiatives. She is a member of the Infectious Diseases Society of America Diagnostics Committee and the Society of Healthcare Epidemiology Journal Club Committee.
Susan Huang, M.D., M.P.H., is a professor of medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases and Health Policy Research Institute at the University of California Irvine School of Medicine, and the medical director of epidemiology and infection prevention at UC Irvine Health. For over 15 years, Dr. Huang has been studying healthcare-associated infections with a focus on multidrug-resistant organisms. Her clinical epidemiologic research seeks to identify the burden and risk factors for acquisition and disease, and preventative strategies for containment. Dr. Huang has led several large randomized clinical trials involving decolonization to prevent methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus disease and other healthcare-associated infections. Dr. Huang has served as a member of HICPAC (federal guidelines committee for infection prevention) and has also served on the technical expert panel for infection prevention and care transitions between acute and long-term care facilities for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.
Morgan Katz, M.D., M.H.S., is an assistant professor of Infectious Disease at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and the Director of the antimicrobial stewardship program at Johns Hopkins Bayview Hospital. Her research focus is on antimicrobial stewardship and infection prevention in long-term care facilities, specifically how to develop and optimize guidelines in an often resource-limited setting. Her research employs a human factors engineering approach to assess risk for transmission of resistant organisms and identify feasible interventions. She served as the long-term care incident commander for the Johns Hopkins Health System COVID-19 response and assisted with stabilization and infection prevention guidance for nursing homes across Maryland. Dr. Katz is a committee member of the Society of Healthcare Epidemiology antimicrobial stewardship committee and the Infectious Diseases Society of America.
Dr. Jump is an Infectious Diseases physician at the Veterans Affairs Pittsburgh Healthcare System where she is part of the Geriatric Research Education and Clinical Center (GRECC) and the Center for Health Equity Research and Promotion (CHERP). She is also an Associate Professor of Medicine in the Division of Geriatric Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh. She has research funding from the Veterans Affairs (VA), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and has published extensively in peer-reviewed journals. Her long-term academic interests are to support antimicrobial stewardship in post-acute and long-term care settings in the VA and the community. She recently developed a tele-stewardship program for rural VA settings and was the senior author on a consensus statement about urinary tract infections in nursing home residents. Dr. Jump serves on committees with the Society of Hospital Epidemiology of America (SHEA) and AMDA—the Society for Post-Acute and Long-Term Care Medicine. In 2021, she was the inaugural recipient of AMDA’s Service Award in recognition for her efforts during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Sara Karaba, M.D., Ph.D., M.H.S., is an Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. She serves as Associate Director of the Antimicrobial Stewardship Program and as an Associate Hospital Epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center. Dr. Karaba’s research interests include the epidemiology and treatment of multidrug-resistant infections and the prevention of hospital-acquired infections. She is a member of the Society of Healthcare Epidemiology of America eLearning committee and the Infectious Disease Society of America.
Clare Rock, M.D., M.S., is an infectious diseases physician, associate professor of medicine, core faculty at the Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality, and associate hospital epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Dr. Rock has been at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine since 2015, where she is an academic researcher, infectious disease physician, healthcare epidemiologist, and consultant for Johns Hopkins International. Dr. Rock is leading Centers for Disease Control and Prevention-funded research studies including developing novel metrics to evaluate the role of the healthcare environment in transmission of healthcare-associated infections, innovation with COVID-19 respirators/face masks, testing and vaccination strategies, and translation of physical distancing practices into the workplace. She co-leads a public health–academic partnership including Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and Maryland Department of Health, Maryland Statewide Prevention and Reduction of COVID-19 (SPARC), reducing healthcare-associated transmissions across the State. She has over 70 peer-reviewed published academic manuscript publications, multiple media (video and print) experiences including PBS NewsHour, is an elected councilor on the Society of Healthcare Epidemiology board of trustees, past chair of the SHEA Research Network, and research co-director of the High Value Practice Academic Alliance.
Heather Saunders is an experienced and motivated registered nurse with a master’s degree in public health and a certification in infection control. Striving for excellence in the prevention and control of infectious disease, Heather believes in using innovative and strategic leadership methods to achieve program goals. Heather first discovered her love for population health and infection control during a short-term assignment in Nairobi, Kenya where she worked to improve maternal and child health and the prevention of infectious diseases. After spending the first 6 years of her nursing career in busy emergency departments, Heather transitioned away from the bedside to join the work at the Johns Hopkins Hospital as an Infection Control Epidemiologist. Following the completion of her master's degree in public health, Heather became the infection prevention and control nurse consultant for the State of Maryland, assisting healthcare facilities, especially long-term care facilities, in the prevention and control of infectious diseases. Heather returned to Johns Hopkins in the division of Infectious Diseases as a Research Nurse Program Manager, continuing her efforts to improve population health and infection control in healthcare settings.
Glenn J.R. Whitman, M.D. is a Professor of Surgery, Co-Director of the Cardiovascular Surgical Intensive Care Unit as well as the Director of Quality and Safety for the Johns Hopkins Health System and has held that role since 2009. He has served as a member of the Society of Thoracic Surgery National Workforce on Critical Care since 2011 and served as its Chair for 6 years, ending in 2020. He has well over 250 peer reviewed publications as well as numerous book chapters, review articles, and invited editorials, and has co -authored a variety of expert consensus documents regarding extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) and Cardiac Critical Care. Dr. Whitman has been an associate editor of the Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery and has had leadership roles in program design and content for many of the annual thoracic society meetings over the past decade. Dr. Whitman is most proud of the many residents and medical students he has mentored over the past 30 years, many of whom have gone on to be leaders and educators in the field of cardiothoracic surgery and critical care in their own right.
Kathleen Speck, M.P.H., is a research project administrator in the Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. She completed her master’s degree in public health at the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University. She has 18 years of progressive project management experience and has extensive successful experience in administering large-cohort implementation projects, such as the Cardiovascular Surgery Translational Study, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) Safety Program for Mechanically Ventilated Patients, and the AHRQ Safety Program for Improving Antibiotic Use projects.
Roy Ahn, M.P.H., Sc.D., is vice president in the Public Health Department at NORC at the University of Chicago. In conjunction with Johns Hopkins Medicine, Ahn is the evaluation lead for the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) Safety Program for Improving Antibiotic Use study. He was the project director of one of the evaluation portfolios of Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ Health Care Innovation Award portfolios, and currently leads public health projects for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He has worked for 20 years at the intersection of program leadership and research in the areas of health policy, nonprofit/civil society organization management and strategy, and public health innovation. Prior to NORC, he served as the founding associate director of the Division of Global Health & Human Rights in the Massachusetts General Hospital’s Department of Emergency Medicine, where he helped design, implement, and evaluate health innovation programs. He was also assistant professor of emergency medicine at Harvard Medical School. He holds a doctor of science degree from the Harvard School of Public Health.
Jennifer Titus, M.P.H., is a senior research director in the Health Sciences Research Department at NORC at the University of Chicago. She completed her master’s degree in public health at Yale University’s School of Public Health and has 15 years of experience managing complex data collection, delivery, statistical analysis, reporting, and dissemination tasks for government clients and private foundations.