Don Wright, MD, MPH
Acting Assistant Secretary for Health
Director, Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
Dr. Don Wright is currently the Acting Assistant Secretary for Health and has been the Director of the Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion since January 3, 2012. In this capacity, he leads the coordination and policy development for public health and prevention activities within the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). ODPHP is responsible for Healthy People 2020, a framework for public health priorities and actions comprised of a comprehensive set of 10-year national health objectives. As Director of ODPHP, he also provides leadership for the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, evidence-based nutrition policy, and is the Chief Medical Advisor for healthfinder.gov.
Prior to joining the ODPHP team, Dr. Wright served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Healthcare Quality. From 2007 to 2009, he was the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Health within HHS. During this time, he was appointed by the president to serve as the alternate U.S. delegate to the World Health Organization Executive Board. Before joining HHS, Dr. Wright was Director of the Office of Occupational Medicine for the U.S. Department of Labor, where he built strong governmental and non-governmental partnerships addressing safety and health.
Dr. Wright received an undergraduate degree from Texas Tech University, a medical degree from the University of Texas, and a master’s degree in public health from the Medical College of Wisconsin.
Rosie Bartel
Patient Advocate
Rosie is a mother, grandmother, wife, long-time educator, and a MRSA survivor. Following a routine knee replacement surgery in 2009, Rosie was told she had contracted a MRSA infection. After multiple surgeries, the effects of the infection have led to a series of losses, including her home, her much beloved job, and her right leg and hip, and much of the independence she once cherished. Rosie will share her story on the webinar.
Denise M. Cardo, MD
Director, Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion
National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases
Dr. Denise Cardo is the director of the Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion (DHQP), National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Dr. Cardo joined CDC in 1993 as a medical epidemiologist and, after holding several leadership positions in DHQP, she was selected as division director in 2003. Dr. Cardo leads CDC activities to prevent infections and antimicrobial resistance in healthcare settings and to promote healthcare safety. She has been involved in several CDC responses to emerging infection threats.
Prior to joining CDC, she had a distinguished career in the division of infectious diseases at one of Brazil’s prestigious medical institutions, Escola Paulista de Medicina, where she received her medical degree, completed her residency and fellowship, and joined the faculty as associated professor of infectious diseases. During 1990-1991, she did a sabbatical at the Hospital Epidemiology Program, University of Tennessee, Memphis.
Dr. Cardo has been involved in healthcare epidemiology and hospital infections since 1984 and is internationally recognized as an expert and leader in the area. Her interests include patient safety, prevention of healthcare-associated infections, antimicrobial resistance, and public health-healthcare interactions to promote health. She is the author of several research and reviewed papers including book chapters and has received several awards for her work.
Melissa Miller, BSN, MD, MS
Medical Officer, Division of Healthcare-Associated Infections
Center for Quality Improvement and Patient Safety, AHRQ
Melissa Miller, BSN, MD, MS serves as Medical Officer in the Division of Healthcare-Associated Infections, Center for Quality Improvement and Patient Safety, at the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). Dr. Miller is the Project Officer for the AHRQ Safety Program for Antibiotic Stewardship and led the AHRQ Safety Program for Mechanically Ventilated Patients and the AHRQ Safety Program for Ambulatory Surgery Centers. She represents AHRQ as an ex-officio member of CDC’s Healthcare Infection Control Practices Advisory Committee (HICPAC), and serves as alternate Agency representative for the Department of Health and Human Services Agency Priority Goal: Combating Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria. She is also a Program Official for Healthcare-Associated Infection Prevention grants, and helped develop AHRQ’s Funding Opportunity Announcements for Combating Antibiotic Resistant Bacteria. Prior to joining AHRQ in 2015, she held the position of Assistant Professor at the University of Michigan and Medical Director of the Medical Intensive Care Unit at the Ann Arbor VA Medical Center, and conducted research on implementation of evidence-based multidisciplinary ICU interventions. She has fellowship training and board certification in Infectious Diseases, Pulmonary Medicine, and Critical Care Medicine.
Jade Perdue, MPA
Director, Division of Quality Improvement Innovation Models Testing,
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services
Jade has spent the past fifteen years serving as a catalyst for healthcare transformation in those areas with the most vulnerable populations. Her government career began in the field of Organ Donation and Transplantation at the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) where she, as part of a dynamic team of dedicated professionals, saved 15,000 lives by spreading best practices of high performing organ procurement organizations and transplant centers. Using that knowledge, Jade joined the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, Quality Improvement Program where she led the CMS National Patient Safety Initiative, developed the QIO Learning & Action Network Model, and launched the Strategic Innovation Engine (SIE) and American Indian Alaskan Native Healthcare Quality Initiative.
Jade has received several honors for her results, including three Health and Human Services awards for Distinguished Service. She was a Service to America Award Finalist in 2005 and in 2014 received the CMS Administrator’s Achievement Award for the National Nursing Home Quality Care Collaborative, an initiative that produced 8% relative improvement across twelve long stay clinical quality indicators.
Most recently she joined the Division of Quality Improvement Innovations Model Testing and the Partnership for Patients at CMS as the Director.
Clydette Powell, MD, MPH, FAAP
Director, Division of Health Care Quality
Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
Dr. Clydette Powell serves as the Director of the Division of Health Care Quality, Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health, Department of Health and Human Services, Rockville, MD. Her responsibilities include oversight of the federal efforts to advance two National Action Plans: one for the prevention of Health Care Associated Infections and the other for prevention of Adverse Drug Events. Prior to her work at HHS, Dr. Powell served as Medical Officer, US Agency for International Development, Washington, DC. Her medical degree was awarded by The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and her MPH is from UCLA School of Public Health. Her residencies and fellowship training were at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Centers. She is triple board certified in pediatrics, child neurology, and preventive medicine/public health.
Pamela Owens, Ph.D., is a senior research scientist with the Center for Delivery, Organization, and Markets (CDOM) within the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). Dr. Owens is the Scientific Director of the AHRQ Quality Indicators (QIs), including the Inpatient Quality Indicators, Patient Safety Indicators, Prevention Quality Indicators and Pediatric Quality Indicators. She serves as a liaison to Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP) Partners and works with the design, management, and dissemination of HCUP ambulatory surgery, observation services, and emergency department data.
Dr. Owens’ research experience and interests span a wide array of topic areas, including the quality of care for children, treatment of mental health conditions, quality of care in the ambulatory surgery settings, quality of emergency care for low-income populations, hospital readmissions, and comparative effectiveness research. Her work has appeared in journals such as the Journal of the American Medical Association, Medical Care, Health Services Research, Annals of Internal Medicine, Pediatrics, Academic Pediatrics, Ambulatory Pediatrics, Academic Emergency Medicine, Annals of Emergency Medicine, Psychiatric Services, Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, and Journal of Preventive Medicine.
Dr. Owens received a Ph.D. in epidemiology and health policy from Yale University and completed a post-doctoral fellowship at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. She also has six years of clinical experience as an occupational therapist.