Improving Performance in Practice

IPIP is led by an executive team with extensive experience in health care delivery, management and quality improvement.

Sheldon Horowitz, MD

Sheldon D. Horowitz is Senior Advisor, Professional and Scientific Affairs, American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS) and Adjunct Professor of Pediatrics at the Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University. He is the Principal Investigator and Medical Executive for Improving Performance in Practice (IPIP). He has played a leadership role in ABMS initiatives on physician competence, maintenance of certification, assessment/improvement of physician practice performance and patient safety.

Dr. Horowitz received his AB degree from UCLA and his MD degree from the UCLA School of Medicine. He completed a pediatric residency at Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles and a pediatric immunology fellowship at the University of Wisconsin Medical School in Madison. He is board certified in pediatrics and allergy & immunology.

Keith Mandel, MD

Keith Mandel is Vice President of Medical Affairs of the Physician-Hospital Organization (PHO) at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center. Dr. Mandel has been with Cincinnati Children's during the quality and transformation journey over the past 12 years, and, in 2001, co-authored the grant proposal for Pursuing Perfection, the national quality improvement and transformation initiative launched by The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and Institute for Healthcare Improvement. His leadership role includes executing multiple large-scale improvement initiatives at the regional, state, and national level. He has led the design and negotiation of quality reward programs that accelerate large-scale improvement, and recently published an innovative model for linking incentives to improving population-based quality measures aggregated across provider sites (JAMA, 2010).

Recent recognition of these large-scale improvement initiatives includes being selected by the American Academy of Pediatrics for a national campaign to spread the asthma improvement interventions; the PHO web-based asthma registry being designated a "best practice" by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, with a case study published in "Registries for Evaluating Patient Outcomes: A User's Guide (2nd edition);" and, the American Board of Pediatrics designing their web-based asthma improvement module based on the PHO approach.

Dr. Mandel serves as Improvement Advisor to leaders of large-scale improvement initiatives at the national level, including the Department of Health and Human Services-Office of National Coordinator for Health Information Technology Beacon Community Program, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Aligning Forces for Quality and Improving Performance in Practice initiatives, American Academy of Pediatrics' asthma improvement initiative with state chapters, and American Board of Pediatrics' strategy for linking quality improvement to maintenance of board certification. He serves on the Ohio Department of Health-Hospital Measures Advisory Council, representing children's hospitals across Ohio relative to public reporting and transparency of hospital quality measures. He was also recently selected to lead a national advisory group developing the quality improvement strategy for the AMA Physician Consortium for Performance Improvement.

Dr. Mandel currently leads the AF4Q/IPIP project team and oversees the planning, development and implementation of QI Leadership Training (QILT) as well as continues to provide direct technical assistance to an alliance as they progress towards their AQI goals.  

Darren DeWalt, MD, MPH

Darren A. DeWalt is Associate Professor in the Division of General Internal Medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is board-certified in pediatrics and internal medicine. Dr. DeWalt led the IPIP design team and is currently Director of Evaluation for the IPIP program. Dr. DeWalt is a former Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC). He completed his residency in internal medicine and pediatrics at UNC where he also served as chief resident in internal medicine. He received his medical degree from the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine.

Dr. DeWalt's current involvement with the AF4Q/IPIP project allows him to lend his expertise primarily to the development and implementation of QILT.

Peter Margolis, MD, PhD

Peter Margolis is a Professor of Pediatrics and Co-Director of the Center for Health Care Quality at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. Dr. Margolis obtained his MD from New York University and his pediatric training at the University of Colorado, where he also served as Chief Resident in Pediatrics. He subsequently spent three years in the National Health Service Corps in Rochester, NY, and Los Angeles, CA before pursuing a fellowship in clinical epidemiology. He was a Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where he also earned his Ph.D. in Epidemiology. In 1994, Dr. Margolis was named a Robert Wood Johnson Generalist Faculty Scholar at UNC where he also served on the faculty between 1991 and 2005.

In 2006, Dr. Margolis joined Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center to create a new center focused on Health Care Quality. His work encompasses the application and study of quality improvement methods in a broad range of areas including primary and sub-specialty care and public health settings to improve the health outcomes of children, families and communities.

Dr. Margolis leads the IPIP National Quality Improvement Team. He provides direction for improvement activities, reliability, spread and innovation. He currently serves as the QI Director on the AF4Q/PIP project, providing expertise throughout all aspects of the project. He also plays an integral role in the development and implementation of the QI Leadership Training (QILT) and provides direct technical assistance to alliances progressing towards AQI goals.

Jen Powell, MPH, MBA

Jen Powell is an independent consultant providing quality improvement technical support to health care systems and regional infrastructures over the last 8 years. She has contributed to the design and execution of six large scale learning collaboratives in chronic disease management, geriatric services, patient centered medical home and access and efficiency in outpatient settings. She also serves as a QI Coach for the American Academy of Pediatrics Chapter Quality Network.

Currently with the AF4Q/IPIP project, Ms. Powell serves as the moderator and faculty for the AF4Q Practice Coaching Program Affinity Group (PCPAG) and  she serves as faculty, playing an integral role in the design and implementation of the QI Leadership Training Program (QILT).

Richard Scoville, PhD

Richard Scoville is an independent consultant specializing in healthcare quality improvement and performance measurement. He is an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Health Policy Management at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where he teaches courses in healthcare quality improvement and informatics. He serves as an improvement advisor to the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, the National Initiative for Children's Healthcare Quality, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, the Dentaquest Institute and other organizations on a range of collaborative improvement, data management and systems design projects.

Dr. Scoville has served as policy analyst for RAND Health. He founded Canopy Systems, Inc., a successful care management Internet-based software product, and served as its Chief Technology Officer. Dr. Scoville holds degrees from Dartmouth College, the University of South Carolina, and a PhD in Psychology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He has worked as part of the IPIP team for over 5 years.

Dr. Scoville's current role with the AF4Q/IPIP project involves direct support to AF4Q alliances in their strategic planning efforts.  He also serves a lead role in the planning and implementation of the QI Leadership Training (QILT).