Ray Dantes MD, MPH

Raymund Dantes, MD, MPH, is a Medical Advisor in the Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion at CDC and an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Emory University Hospital, where he practices hospital medicine. Dr. Dantes provides technical assistance to CDC sepsis epidemiology studies and educational efforts, and partners with other leaders in sepsis to advance the field of sepsis surveillance. Dr. Dantes received his medical degree and completed internal medicine residency at the University of California, San Francisco. Dr. Dantes also served in the CDC’s Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) from 2011-2013, focusing on investigating outbreaks of healthcare-associated infections and national surveillance for antibiotic resistant pathogens.

Hallie Prescott, MD, MSc

Dr. Hallie Prescott is an Associate Professor in Pulmonary & Critical Care Medicine at the University of Michigan and a staff physician the Ann Arbor Veterans Affairs Healthcare System. She works clinically in the medical intensive care unit and outpatient pulmonary clinic. She is an internationally recognized expert in sepsis management and outcomes. She serves as co-chair of the Surviving Sepsis Campaign Guidelines and physician lead for the Michigan Hospital Medicine Safety Consortium’s Sepsis Initiative. Her research program on sepsis management and outcomes has been funded by NIH, VA, and AHRQ, and she has authored over 150 publications.

Nicholas Kuhl, MD FACEP

Dr. Nicholas Kuhl is the System Emergency Services Medical Director for the Corewell Health West group of 11 hospitals. He leads clinical care delivery in the emergency departments, representing 205K patient visits per year. Dr. Kuhl’s focus is on guiding best practice and process alignment across facilities, including quality improvement, operational efficiency, and clinical innovation. He has co-chaired the CH West Sepsis Expert Improvement Team since 2018, which designed and launched a novel code sepsis process. The efforts cut sepsis mortality in half, an accomplishment recognized by the Michigan Hospital Association with their 2019 Advancing Safe Care Award. Dr. Kuhl has been involved with many quality improvement programs, both internally and with statewide institutions. With the Michigan Hospital Medicine Safety Consortium, he has led successful antibiotic stewardship efforts to reduce catheter associated UTIs and exposure to unnecessarily long antibiotic courses for CAP patients. Within Corewell Health he’s published numerous cross specialty collaborative clinical guidelines including outpatient blood culture management, ED based HIV screening, evidence directed behavioral health medical clearance, and ED induction of medication assisted therapy for opioid use disorder. Dr. Kuhl is board certified in Emergency Medicine, a Fellow of the American College of Emergency Physicians, and a Clinical Associate Professor for the Corewell Health/MSU Emergency Medicine Residency.

M. Isabel Friedman, DNP, MPA, RN, BC, CCRN-K, CNN, CHSE

Dr. Friedman currently serves as the Principal for Process Improvement for the Department of Clinical Transformation at Northwell Health. In that capacity Dr. Friedman manages several strategic clinical initiatives for the organization. Those programs include Sepsis and Advanced Illness. Dr. Friedman is the Nursing Chair of those Collaboratives. In that capacity she is responsible for coordinating quarterly interprofessional Learning Sessions for each initiative. These educational days are interprofessional in nature and as such present the opportunity to share the latest evidence-based literature and highlight site teams’ best practice and innovations. Dr. Friedman assists Collaborative members with managing regulatory compliance for state and federal agencies. Dr. Friedman is one of the authors of Goals of Care Conversation Program® (GoCCEP™). GoCCEP™ is an innovative, transformative, and sustainable program, which uses simulation-based, blended-learning pedagogy developed to address the needs of clinicians in having Goals of Care Conversations. Dr. Friedman currently holds an appointment as Assistant Professor of Science Education at the Donald and Barbara Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell and the academic rank of Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing, at Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio. Dr. Friedman has authored national and international peer-reviewed publications and is a Northwell Health certified Six-Sigma Black Belt.

Colleen Drolett, MBA, BSN, RN

Colleen is the HMS Sepsis Nurse Abstractor for Henry Ford Jackson Hospital. She is responsible for sepsis data abstraction and involved in quality improvement activities at her local hospital. Immediately prior to this role, she was Sepsis Coordinator at Henry Ford Jackson. Her clinical background includes caring for surgical cardiac and thoracic patients, nursing leadership, case management, quality improvement, and the development of stroke and trauma programs for McLaren Greater Lansing. She has also served as a consultant in program management for the Kaiser Permanente Health System at their South Sacramento and Oakland sites.

Erica Kaufman West, MD

Erica Kaufman West, MD, completed her undergraduate degrees at Valparaiso University in Indiana. She received her medical degree from Georgetown University School of Medicine. She finished her Internal Medicine residency and her chief resident year at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, California. She stayed to complete her fellowship in Infectious Diseases at the West LA VA/Cedars-Sinai/Olive View-UCLA Medical Center program. She has been working in the Midwest since then, focusing on acute inpatient as well as HIV/HCV outpatient care.