AHRQ Diagnostic Safety Centers of Excellence: Moving Diagnostic Safety and Quality Work Forward

Dr. Schiff is a practicing general internist and Associate Director of Brigham and Women’s Center for Patient Safety Research and Practice, and Quality and Safety Director for Harvard Medical School (HMS) Center for Primary Care.

He has published widely in areas of medication and diagnosis safety. He was a reviewer and contributor to the 2015 National Academy of Medicine Report Improving Diagnosis in Health Care. He chairs editorial board of Medical Care. He has authored more than 200 papers and chapters including several recent papers detailing conservative prescribing and diagnosis practices as ways to transform unsafe and costly use of drugs and diagnostic testing.

He is recipient of the Institute for Safe Medication Practices Lifetime Achievement Award in 2006, the 2019 Mark Graber Diagnosis Safety Award by the Society for Improving Diagnosis in Medicine (SIDM), and in 2020 John Eisenberg Award by the National Quality Forum and the Joint Commission.

Goutham Rao, MD is the Jack Medalle Professor and Chairman of the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health at Case Western Reserve University and University Hospitals of Cleveland. He is also Chief Clinician Experience Officer for the University Hospitals Health System. Dr. Rao is board certified in both family medicine and obesity medicine and practices in both specialties.  He is an established health services researcher who is currently the PI of the  UH-ADVANCE (Advancing Diagnosis through Validated Analytics and Novel Collaborations for Excellence) Center - an AHRQ-funded diagnostic safety center of excellence.  He is or has led or served as a co-investigator of a number of other large research projects funded by AHRQ, PCORI, the NIH and the American Heart Association. Dr. Rao's focus is improving the diagnosis of common but serious conditions in primary care. He is the author of more than 100 publications, including four books. He is Editor-in-Chief of Family Practice: An International Journal (Oxford University Press). He has or does serve in a number of prominent national roles. He is a past chair of the American Heart Association's Obesity Committee and currently serves on the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force.  Dr. Rao is a graduate of McGill University School of Medicine and completed his family medicine residency at the University of Toronto. He competed fellowship training at the University of Pittsburgh.

Monika Haugstetter is a master’s prepared nurse with a Master of Health Administration from Quinnipiac University and a Master of Science in Nursing from Yale University School of Nursing. Her professional focus has been on directing quality improvement projects, managing variety of domestic and international public health and health research programs, facilitating and overseeing patient safety initiatives, development, implementation and monitoring of domestic and international training and education clinical programs, and teaching graduate level nurses. She currently serves as a Health Scientist Administrator at Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), Center for Quality Improvement and Patient Safety, in the General Patient Safety (GPS) Division. Prior to AHRQ, her positions included a Chief of Clinical Education, US Peace Corps, Office of Health Services, an Adjunct Professor, University of Hartford, College of Education, Nursing and Health Professions teaching graduate level nurses, a Healthcare Quality Improvement Projects Manager, Qualidigm, and a Research Compliance Auditor/Health Advocate, Human Subject Protections Office, University of Connecticut Health Center, among others.

Kristen Miller, DrPH, MSPH, MSL, CPPS is the Senior Scientific Director of the MedStar Health National Center for Human Factors in Healthcare, Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine at Georgetown University School of Medicine, and Affiliate Faculty at Georgetown Innovation Center for Biomedical Informatics. Dr. Miller is a clinically oriented human factors researcher focusing on medical decision making, diagnostic safety, informatics, and the assessment of medical interventions with an emphasis on usability, human error, and patient safety. Her portfolio includes federally funded work from the National Institutes of Health, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Department of Defense, National Science Foundation, Society to Improve Diagnosis in Medicine, and Pew Charitable Trust. Her research interests also include an evaluation of the ethical, legal, and policy implications of health information technology and digital health tools.