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.

Jessie King, MD, PhD

Jessie King is an Assistant Professor of Hospital Medicine, and the Medical Director for Sepsis Initiatives in the Quality Department at Michigan Medicine. She received her BA in Neuroscience from Smith College, and her MD and PhD from Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Jessie then completed her Residency in Internal Medicine at the University of Michigan, where she then stayed on as faculty. She became involved in quality work accidentally when asked to “attend some meetings” and “share some opinions” from a hospitalist perspective around work being done in ED involving sepsis recognition. Eight years later she finds herself leading the sepsis program with improvement work being done following the entire scope of the septic patient’s experience – from initial recognition of sepsis to post-hospitalization follow up and reduction in readmissions. Jessie also has a dedicated interest in medical education, teaching the next generation of physicians how to do quality improvement work with both student and resident level electives in Quality Improvement.

Pat Posa RN, BSN, MSA, CCRN-K, FAAN

Pat Posa is the Quality and Patient Safety Program Manager for the Adult Hospitals at Michigan Medicine. In her role she is responsible for development, measurement and sustainability of the Adult Hospitals’ Quality and Patient Safety program. Her prior role was a Quality Excellence Leader for St. Joseph Mercy Health System in Southeastern Michigan leading initiatives to reduce hospital acquired conditions, improve patient outcomes for critically ill patients and reduce readmissions. She received her Bachelors of Science in Nursing from Wayne State University and her Masters in Administration from Central Michigan University. She is interested in sepsis and critical care. She serves on the advisory board of Sepsis Alliance. She has held various roles in healthcare in the hospital, ambulatory setting and health plan over her 44 years in practice including manager of inpatient critical care units, Director of Nursing and administrator of an outpatient multispecialty/primary care clinic. Pat has been involved in many quality and patient safety programs such as, hospital and system wide sepsis management program and a statewide Keystone ICU patient safety initiative. She has been faculty for multiple state and national clinical collaboratives including the Surviving Sepsis Campaign Phase IV Collaborative, the national project on Comprehensive Unit Safety Program (CUSP) for Mechanically Ventilated Patients and Society of Critical Care Medicine’s ICU Liberation Collaborative. Pat has been a member and co-chair of SCCM’s ICU Liberation Committee. Through Pat's leadership St. Joseph Mercy Hospital was awarded the HHS/Critical Care Societies Outstanding Leadership in Eliminating CLABSI and VAP in 2011. She was inducted as a fellow into the American Academy of Nursing in 2013. Pat was also awarded the Michigan Hospital Association Quality and Patient Safety Leadership Award in 2017. Pat has published many articles in both clinical and quality journals. She lectures and consults extensively nationally on sepsis, various critical care, patient safety and quality topics.

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.