Team | ImPACTS

ImPACTS Leadership

Erin Montgomery, BSN, RN, CCRN

Project Director

Erin has a nursing background in Pediatric Critical Care and currently works as a critical care transport RN for the pediatric/neonatal specialty transport team for Riley Hospital for Children in Indianapolis, IN. Erin is interested in educational outreach for community sites and assisted in establishing the Pediatric Community Outreach Mobile Education (PCOME). Erin has helped in improving the quality of care provided to ill children in the emergency departments in the state of Indiana by providing in-situ high fidelity simulation visits to educate and train community hospital EDs in the state to provide optimal care to ill children. She has served as the program manager for the PCOME program and has established and developed relationships with 28 community hospitals throughout the state of Indiana. Erin is the Indiana site coordinator for the ImPACTS (Improving Pediatric Acute Care Through Simulation) consortium as the lead site on the multicenter improvement collaborative.

Benjamin Michaels, MBA

Director, Business Operations & Finance

Benjamin holds an MBA with a concentration in New Venture Development, as well as a bachelors degree in Economics; both from SUNY University at Albany. He is a seasoned professional with over a decade of operations management and business development experience in diverse sectors. Recognized for demonstrating a natural aptitude for change management, as well as for business consulting and financial analysis, he has a history of contributing directly to company growth and expansion throughout his career. As such, he has consistently exceeded budgetary and performance goals, and is adept at achieving maximum operational impacts with minimal resource expenditure. His professional focal points include business development, regulatory compliance, process optimization, project management, culture development, strategic planning, and risk mitigation Ben is a Business Consultant and Project Manager for multiple initiatives and clients, which allows him to best leverage these skillsets.

Marc Auerbach, MD, FAAP, MSc

ImPACTS Co-Chair

Marc Auerbach started collaborative work with community EDs in Connecticut ten years ago. He completed a K30 Masters of Science in Clinical Investigation with a focus in translational medicine at New York University and post-graduate course work on simulation at Harvard’s Center for Medical Simulation. He has substantial leadership experiences in simulation and emergency medical services for children.

Elizabeth Sanseau, MD

ImPACTS Co-Chair

Elizabeth Sanseau is a physician who specializes in pediatrics, emergency medicine and global health. She began her pediatrics career in 2014 working in the Alaska Native medical system and describes this time as the most inspirational and formative five years of her professional life. She currently practices clinically as a pediatric emergency medicine provider while partnering with several national and international healthcare organizations to co-create, implement and evaluate simulation-based medical education adapted for both in-person and remote facilitation.

Kamal Abulebda, MD

ImPACTS Co-Chair

Kamal Abulebda, MD, joined the IU School of Medicine faculty in 2012 after completing his fellowship in Pediatric Critical Care at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center. Focusing on service to the university, his department and his patients, he serves as the Medical Director of the pediatric sedation service at Riley Hospital for Children. Dr. Abulebda assisted in establishing the pediatric procedural sedation protocol at Riley Hospital as well as expanding the sedation service to include pediatric patients hospital-wide. Dr. Abulebda is also very interested in the medical simulation field. Being a co-leader of the Pediatric Community Outreach Mobile Education (PCOME) program, Dr. Abulebda helped in improving the quality of care provided to ill children in the emergency departments in the state of Indiana by providing in-situ high fidelity simulation visits to

educate and train community hospital EDs in the state to provide optimal care to ill children. Dr. Abulebda was successful in obtaining funding for this effort through two IU Health Value Grants and one Department of Pediatrics Grant. Dr. Abulebda is also a member of the Indiana Emergency Medical Service for Children (iEMSC) Facility Quality Improvement Project that aims to improve pediatric emergency readiness in the state. Additionally, Dr. Abulebda was successful in starting a collaborative network with other major children's hospitals across the nation to help improve the care of ill children on a national level through IMPACTS, the Improving Pediatric Acute Care Through Simulation Network.

Advisory Team

Senior Research Scientist

Travis Whitfill, MPH, MACE, MPhil

Travis Whitfill is an Associate Research Scientist at Yale in the Departments of Pediatrics and Emergency Medicine. His research interests are in the quality of pediatric care at the systems level. His background began in biochemistry after receiving scientific training at the MD Anderson Cancer Center and Duke University. He has co-founded several biotech and healthcare startups companies, including Azitra. Mr. Whitfill’s strong background in entrepreneurship and business was recently acknowledged when he was named one of Forbes’ 30 Under 30 in 2018. He serves as a partner at Bios Partners, a healthcare-focused venture capital fund based in Texas, and as the Senior Analyst at Bios Research, which provides research services to institutional investors.

International Representative

Isabel Gross, MD, PHD, MPH

Dr. Isabel T Gross is an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at Yale University School of Medicine and she is leading several multi-site international simulation-based research projects. She serves on the Board of Directors of IPSS and is leading the IPSS-INSPIRE Pediatric Simulation Fellowship Committee. Furthermore, she is on the Executive Board of INSPIRE pediatric research network serving as the chair of the Scientific Review Committee. What drives her most is seeing her peers succeed in their simulation-based research, helping colleagues perform high-quality simulation-based research anywhere in the world. Her expertise includes simulation-based research methodology with a special focus on technology enhanced simulations and international simulations. Specifically, she is focusing on research around remote simulation, telemedicine, artificial intelligence, and international simulations.

Physician Representative

Linda Brown, MD, MSCE

Dr. Linda Brown will serve as the site investigator at Brown University. She is an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics and Emergency Medicine at Alpert Medical School of Brown University, and a pediatric emergency medicine attending. She completed a Master’s of Science in Clinical Epidemiology from the University of Pennsylvania, and for the past five years, through her work at the Rhode Island Hospital Medical Simulation Center (RIHMSC), she has developed significant experience in the use of in situ high fidelity simulation as a tool to educate clinicians and test new systems and environments. She is the director of pediatric portable simulation, as well as the director of PALS education, for the RIHMSC. Dr. Brown has extensive experience in the use of simulation for medical education, and she has directed multiple workshops on the use of simulation for systems probing teamwork and communication training and medical error disclosure at the national and international level. She is a co-investigator on several simulation-based grants, and she is currently the PI for a grant through the AHRQ entitled “Improving Pediatric Resuscitation: A Simulation Program for the Community ED” which endeavors to assess the preparedness of general emergency departments in Rhode Island to care for critically ill infants and children. Her current work in this field, and her pilot data on this topic, have only increased her certainty that further benchmarking and multicenter collaboration is needed to improve the quality of care delivered to children across all emergency department settings.

Physician Representative

Barbara Walsh, MD

Dr. Barbara Walsh is a Clinical Associate Professor of Pediatrics, Associate Clinical Director of Pediatrics | Solomont Simulation Center and Director of In Situ and Mobile Outreach Simulation at BMC, Boston University School of Medicine. She created and launched COMET - community outreach mobile education training, which was a segue into being a founding member of the ImPACTS group. She has been to numerous sites in Massachusetts providing team training with the impacts curriculum as well as working with EMS providers using the same model. She has published this work with the ImPACTS group as well as directed and facilitated multiple national and international workshops in mobile outreach programming. Dr. Walsh plans to create ongoing simulation programming at community sites creating lasting partnerships to collaborate in pediatric acute care with regular simulation training. She is also engaging community health centers to partake in this training and will design programming to meet their needs using their current resources. Finally, she is working on other cases to meet the needs of the inner city patient population of Boston Medical Center focusing on sickle cell care and acute presentations at community sites.

Physician Representative

David Kessler, MD, MSc

Dr. Kessler is an Associate Professor of Pediatrics in the Department of Emergency Medicine at Columbia University where he is the Vice Chair of Innovation and Strategic Initiatives. Dr. Kessler also serves as an associate Medical Director for the Mary & Michael Jaharis Simulation Center and an associate course director for the Foundations of Clinical Medicine-Tutorials Course in the medical school. Dr. Kessler is passionate about leveraging new technology and education to improve safety and enhance the quality of patient care. David has an extensive record of education, grant-funded research, and leadership on an international level in the fields of Simulation and Emergency Ultrasound. As a founder and director for INSPIRE, (International Network for Simulation-based Pediatric Innovation, Research and Education) Dr. Kessler has shown deep commitment to growing communities of practice dedicated to collaboration, mentorship, and scholarship.

Physician Representative

Jessica Katznelson, MD

Jessica Katznelson is an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics and Emergency Medicine at Johns Hopkins University. She is board certified in general pediatrics and pediatric emergency medicine. Dr. Katznelson has extensive experience implementing and testing the efficacy of pediatric simulation programs in the Critical Access Hospital Emergency Department setting. She is currently the principal investigator on an R18 that is assessing the impact of tele simulation on pediatric patient safety in Critical Access Emergency Departments. She has previously been the PI on studies demonstrating the positive impact of pediatric patient simulations on team performance in rural Emergency Departments and the feasibility of utilizing tele simulation in the Critical Access Hospital setting. Dr. Katznelson has been a member of ImPACTS since 2012.

Physician Representative, FOAMED/Social

Anita Thomas, MD

Anita Thomas is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Pediatrics, Division of Pediatric Emergency Medicine at the University of Washington/Seattle Children’s Hospital. She is board certified in general pediatrics and pediatric emergency medicine (PEM). She is director of PEM fellow simulation at Seattle Children’s Hospital and is passionate about interdisciplinary pediatric simulation education. Dr. Thomas founded Pediatric Emergency Medicine Didactics and Simulation (PEMDAS), which is a multi-institutional group that creates peer-reviewed PEM simulation content, with the goal of broad dissemination via free open access medical education (FOAMed). Dr. Thomas completed a yearlong faculty development course through Academic Life in Emergency Medicine’s (ALiEM) Faculty Incubator program and currently serves as an alumni mentor. Dr. Thomas has been a member of ImPACTS since 2018.

Nurse Research Representative

Suzan (Suzie) Kardong-Edgren, PhD, RN, ANEF, CHSE, FSSH, FAAN

Suzie Kardong-Edgren is an internationally known speaker, consultant, and educational researcher with over 120 publications. Dr. Edgren was a consultant on the landmark National Council of Nursing National Simulation Study that determined that up to 50% of traditional clinical could be replaced with high quality simulation and will reprise that role again in the National Council Simulation Study 2.0. Dr. Edgren served as the Editor-in-Chief of Clinical Simulation in Nursing for 10 years; and is currently the Editor-in-Chief of 2 new interactive online review guides for those seeking certification in the Society for Simulation in Healthcare. She was awarded the National League for Nursing Debby Spunt Lectureship and the Michael Gordon Lectureship in Simulation from the Society for Simulation in Healthcare. Dr. Edgren served as chair of the Research Committee for the Society for Simulation in Healthcare and the Vice President of Research for the INACSL. She is a Fellow in the Society of Simulation in Healthcare, the Academy of Nursing Education Fellows, and the American Academy of Nursing. She recently completed a 16 month position as a nurse scientist in a large hospital system in Texas. Dr. Edgren is the President-elect of the International Nursing Association of Clinical Simulation in Nursing and an Associate Professor at the MGH Institute of Health Professions in Boston.

Senior Advisory Team

Marianne Gausche-Hill, MD, FACEP, FAAP, FAEMS

Dr. Gausche-Hill is the Medical Director for Los Angeles County Emergency Medical Services (EMS) Agency, Professor of Clinical Emergency Medicine and Pediatrics at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and serves as Clinical Faculty at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center in Torrance, CA. She is nationally and internationally known for her work as an EMS researcher and educator, and for her leadership in the field of EMS and pediatric emergency medicine. She is best known for her study of pre-hospital airway management for children published in JAMA 2000 and her work on the National Pediatric Readiness Project published in JAMA- Pediatrics in 2015. She has won numerous national awards for her leadership in emergency medicine, pediatric emergency medicine and EMS. Dr. Gausche-Hill currently serves as one of three senior editors for the nationally and internationally known textbook, Rosen’s Emergency Medicine: Concepts and Clinical Practice, and serves on the American Board of Emergency Medicine Board of Directors.

Charles Macias, MD, MPH

Dr. Macias is an Associate Professor of Pediatrics at Baylor College of Medicine and Chief Clinical Systems Integration Officer for the Texas Children’s Hospital enterprise. He is also the Director of the Evidence Based Outcomes Center at Texas Children’s Hospital and Director of the Center for Clinical Effectiveness at Baylor College of Medicine, Department of Pediatrics. He is a graduate of Stanford University and subsequently completed his medical degree at Southwestern Medical School. He has completed both a pediatrics residency and pediatric emergency medicine fellowship. Additionally, he completed a fellowship in Clinical Research at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center and subsequently completed a Master in Public Health at the University of Texas School of Public Health. His national interest in improving the care for children has led to his role as the executive director of the national Emergency Medical Services for Children (EMSC) Innovation and Improvement Center, utilizing improvement science to support the EMSC program in 58 states and territories. He is the immediate past chairman of the American Academy of Pediatrics, Section on Emergency Medicine, the largest professional society for pediatric emergency medicine physicians. He has and continues to chair or co-chair a number of Quality Improvement collaboratives. In addition to creating QI collaboratives for the Children’s Hospital Association of Texas, he has also initiated a number of activities involving emergent sepsis care. He is a co-chair of the Improving Pediatric Sepsis Outcomes quality improvement collaborative of the Children's Hospital Association- a collaborative of over 40 institutions dedicated to decreasing mortality and morbidity from sepsis. He has been recognized for his work in quality improvement, emergency care, and analytics. He was named HealthData Management’s Clinical Visionary of the Year in 2014. His national interest in improving the care for children has led to his role as the executive director of the national Emergency Medical Services for Children (EMSC) Innovation and Improvement Center, utilizing improvement science to support the EMSC program in 58 states and territories. He is the immediate past chairman of the American Academy of Pediatrics, Section on Emergency Medicine, the largest professional society for pediatric emergency medicine physicians. He has and continues to chair or co-chair a number of Quality Improvement collaboratives. In addition to creating QI collaboratives for the Children’s Hospital Association of Texas, he has also initiated a number of activities involving emergent sepsis care. He is a co-chair of the Improving Pediatric Sepsis Outcomes quality improvement collaborative of the Children's Hospital Association- a collaborative of over 40 institutions dedicated to decreasing mortality and morbidity from sepsis. He has been recognized for his work in quality improvement, emergency care, and analytics. He was named HealthData Management’s Clinical Visionary of the Year in 2014.

Nathan Kuppermann, MD, MPH

Dr. Kuppermann is a Distinguished Professor of Emergency Medicine and Pediatrics, and the Bo Tomas Brofeldt Endowed Chair of the Department of Emergency Medicine at UC Davis. He is a pediatric emergency medicine (PEM) physician and clinical epidemiologist, and a leader in emergency medical services for children, particularly in multicenter research. Research foci for which he is a leading national investigator include 1) infectious emergencies in children including the laboratory evaluation of young febrile children, 2) the evaluation of children at risk of diabetic ketoacidosis-related cerebral injury, and 3) the laboratory and radiographic evaluation of the pediatric trauma patient. He has published works in all three focus areas in high-impact journals such as the New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA, BMJ, and the Lancet. He focuses his work on clinical prediction rules, having recently derived and validated a prediction rule for traumatic brain injury after minor blunt head trauma in more than 40,000 injured children, and co-led a separate project to derive a prediction rule for intra-abdominal injury in more than 12,000 injured children. Dr. Kuppermann has received more than $30 million in federal grants and contracts as a PI over the past decade and has published more than 200 peer-reviewed publications. Dr. Kuppermann has been a leader in multicenter research in PEM, starting by chairing the first U.S. research network in PEM (the Pediatric Emergency Medicine Collaborative ResearchCommittee of the AAP) from 1996-2000, and leading several investigations there. He then became one of the founding investigators and founding Chair of the Steering Committee of the Pediatric Emergency Care Applied Research Network (PECARN) since it’s inception in 2001 until late in 2008 and remains one of the 7 network PIs. He recently completed a 4-year term as Chair of the Executive Committee of the (global) Pediatric Emergency Research Network (PERN), an international consortium of PEM research networks.Dr. Kuppermann has been recognized nationally for his research and mentorship. In 2009, Dr. Kuppermann received the Miller-Sarkin Mentoring Award from the Academic Pediatric Association, and in 2012 received the Jim Seidel Distinguished Service Award, from the Section on Emergency Medicine of the AAP for outstanding contributions to Pediatric Emergency Medicine. In 2010 and 2011, he received national research awards from the EMSC program of HRSA, the Society for Academic EmergencyMedicine, and the American College of Emergency Physicians. In 2015, he was recognized with the American College of American Physicians EBSCO/PEMSoft Achievement Award for outstanding contributions to pediatric emergency evidence-based medicine. In 2017 a PEM Scientific Research Mentoring award was named after him by the SAEM. In 2010 he was elected to the National Academy of Medicine.

Mary Patterson, MD, MEd

Mary D. Patterson, MD, MEd is a pediatric emergency physician and the Medical Director of the Akron Children’s Hospital Simulation Center for Safety and Reliability. Previously she was the Medical Director of the Cincinnati Children’s Center for Simulation and Research from 2002 to 2011. She is past- president of the Society for Simulation in Healthcare. Dr. Patterson completed pediatric residency training at Columbus Children’s Hospital and then served as a primary care physician in the United States Air Force. During her service in the Air Force, she developed an interest in trauma and pediatric resuscitation. Subsequently, she entered fellowship training in pediatric emergency medicine at Children's National Medical Center in Washington, D.C. Dr. Patterson has completed a Master’s in Education at the University of Cincinnati and a Patient Safety Fellowship at Virginia Commonwealth University. She served on the Board of Directors of the Society of Simulation in Healthcare from 2006-2011 and was the president of the Society in 2010. Dr. Patterson's primary research interests are related to the use of medical simulation to improve patient safety and human factors work related to patient safety. She is a federally funded investigator in these areas.

Vinay Nadkarni, MD

Dr. Vinay Nadkarni will serve as the site investigator at Children’s Hospital Of Philadelphia. He has served as co-investigator on several large multi-center planning grants sponsored by the NIH/NICHD to develop interventional studies in pediatric advanced life support. Dr. Nadkarni has led the pediatric subcommittees for resuscitation science guideline development including the ILCOR consensus statements on resuscitation science and the accompanying AHA CPR and ECC guidelines in Circulation. He serves on the Scientific Advisory Board of developing networks of pediatric critical care research coalitions including the Pediatric Acute Lung Injury and Sepsis Investigators (PALISI), the Pediatric Emergency Care Research Network (PECARN) cardiac arrest study group, and the EXPRESS and POISE pediatric simulation education, innovation and research networks. His appointment to the board of directors of the World Federation of Pediatric Intensive and Critical Care Societies (2007-2013), the SCCM National Council 2001-2015, and the AHA’s Science Advisory and Coordinating Council and 2006-2020 AHA Strategic Planning Committees herald my ability to influence the national and international research and training agendas. As current co-chair of the International Liaison Committee for Resuscitation and founding Council member of the Accreditation Committee for the Society of Simulation in Healthcare, Vinay is well aware of the need for improvement in current educational and treatment support methods for pediatric resuscitation in general emergency departments.

Richard Lammers, MD

Richard Lammers, MD, is a board-certified emergency medicine physician at Western Michigan University Homer Stryker M.D. School of Medicine. He is a graduate of University of California in Riverside, California. He earned his medical degree from Saint Louis University School of Medicine in Saint Louis, Missouri. He completed his emergency medicine residency at Medical College of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Dr. Lammers holds the position of Assistant Dean for Simulation and is responsible for course development and administration for simulation and labs for both residents and medical students.

Mona Jabbour, MD, MEd, FRCPC

Dr. Mona Jabbour earned her MD at McMaster University in Hamilton, followed by training in pediatrics at the University of Ottawa in 1992. She completed her Master’s of Higher Education with specialization in Health Professions Education at the University of Toronto in 1997. Dr. Jabbour’s interests in education revolve around development and evaluation of iLearn-Peds, a pediatric curriculum based on e-learning modules, simulation training and outreach education. Her research interests include: improving systems of care, mobilizing best evidence to practice settings and emergency department management of children and youth presenting with mental health concerns. Dr. Jabbour is involved in TRanslating Emergency Knowledge for Kids (TREKK), a national network of pediatric emergency and community emergency department sites that have been created to mobilize knowledge on best pediatric emergency care. She is also involved in a study to implement clinical pathways in community emergency department settings.

Evelyn Lyons, MPH, BSN, RN

Evelyn Lyons is the Manager and Co-Principal Investigator of the Illinois Emergency Medical Services for Children (EMSC) program within the Division of EMS & Highway Safety, Office of Preparedness and Response at the Illinois Department of Public Health. She has held this position since 1994. Her responsibilities include administration and oversight to multiple pediatric emergency care and disaster preparedness initiatives within the state of Illinois, including a statewide pediatric facility recognition program that has designated over 100 hospitals. Her responsibilities also include assuring compliance with Federal Emergency Medical Services for Children (EMSC) performance measures defined by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA). She completed her Bachelor of Science in Nursing degree at Saint Xavier University in Chicago, Illinois and a Masters in Public Health degree at Benedictine University in Lisle, Illinois. Areas of interest include emergency care, quality improvement, systems of care, and disaster preparedness.