Chief Section MFM -- H103, Hershey Medical Center
Dr. Botti has served on the Board of the National Perinatal Information Center/ Quality Analytic Services since 1999. Dr. Botti currently serves as a maternal –fetal medicine specialist and Director of Perinatal Outreach Services for Penn State Hershey Medical Center in Hershey, PA. Dr. Botti is a past president of the National Perinatal Association and is a current member of the board of the National Perinatal Foundation. During his career, he has continued to combine academic teaching and research with clinical care and community service in an effort to improve pregnancy outcomes. Dr. Botti has also served on the advisory board for the National Friendly Access program of the Lawton and Rhea Chiles Center at the University of South Florida. Dr. Botti is a 1970 graduate of the University of Notre Dame, received his MD from Albany Medical College of Union University, and residency and fellowship training from the University of Pittsburgh, Magee Women's Hospital.
George Little, MD
Professor of Pediatrics and Obstetrics & Gynecology, Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center
Dr. Little has served on the Board of the National Perinatal Information Center/Quality Analytic Services since 1993. Dr. Little is Professor of Pediatrics and of Obstetrics & Gynecology at the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center where he is a clinically active neonatologist. He served for over a decade as Professor and Chairman of the Department of Maternal and Child Health at Dartmouth before it became separate departments of Pediatrics and Ob/Gyn. In addition to clinical research, his interests have focused on perinatal health policy, regionalization, outcomes, reproductive and perinatal ethics, the family in the NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit) and international health. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics and an Honorary Fellow of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.
He received his undergraduate degree from Wesleyan University and his MD from the University of Vermont. He completed a rotating internship at the University of Oregon and then was a Public Health Service officer serving with the Peace Corps for 3 years. He then completed a pediatric residency at the University of Vermont and a neonatology fellowship with Dr. Lula Lubchenco at the University of Colorado before joining the faculty at Dartmouth Medical School where he founded the neonatal intensive care unit and the regional perinatal outreach education program.
He is presently a member of the national steering committee of the Neonatal Resuscitation Program (NRP) of the American Academy of Pediatrics and American Heart Association. He is also a member of the NRP Global Implementation Task Force. In addition he serves on a number of Dartmouth, regional and national committees and boards.
Vicki L. Briggs
Vicki Briggs has served on the Board of the National Perinatal Information Center/Quality Analytic Services since 1995. Ms. Briggs has been in the healthcare industry for 30 years with a strong interest in women’s healthcare that began when she was CEO of Woman’s Hospital in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. In addition to serving on the Board of NPIC/QAS, Ms. Briggs is a member of the Alabama Women’s Health Steering Committee and the Alabama Chapter of the March of Dimes Board of Directors. She was the co-founder of CWISH, served on the Board of Directors of the Jacobs Institute of Women’s Health and the National Perinatal Association, and she was the Chair of the Louisiana Commission on Perinatal Care and the Prevention of Infant Mortality.
She has been recognized for her contributions to healthcare by the American Hospital Association, Modern Healthcare, Healthcare Financial Management Association and The Healthcare Forum. In the 2007 Modern Healthcare 25th Anniversary Yearbook of Up and Comer’s she was recognized as “Notable” in her class.
Ms. Briggs is a graduate of Nicholls State University with a B.S. in Accounting. In 1998, when Nicholls celebrated its 50th anniversary she was named one of the top 50 graduates, received the James Powell Outstanding Graduate Award and was the commencement speaker for the 50th Anniversary graduating class.
Donald F. Snell
President and CEO, MCG Health, Inc.
Mr. Snell has served on the Board of the National Perinatal Information Center/ Quality Analytic Services since 1993, and he has been with the Medical College of Georgia Health, Inc. since 1999. He has a twenty-five year track record in multi-institutional academic medical centers for financial turnaround and repositioning; strategic repositioning; business development and growth; integrated delivery system development and integration; achieving bottom line results in academic medical centers; and merger, acquisition, and divestiture. He has led many institutions through key transitions, including the MCG Hospitals and Clinics. Mr. Snell has his Masters of Arts degree in Health Services Administration from The George Washington University and his Baccalaureate degree in Sociology from State University of New York at Albany. He is also a National Association of Public Hospitals (NAPH) fellow through New York University (NYU).
Jeanne Luckett
Jeanne Luckett has served on the Board of the National Perinatal Information Center/Quality Analytic Services since 1991. The co-owner of Communication Arts Company since 1975, she recently began a free-lance communications consulting business. Ms. Luckett served as chairman of the Infant Mortality Task Force in Mississippi for 20 years and chaired the Mississippi Coalition for Mothers and Babies for six years. She was a member of the State and Local Action Task Force of the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy for seven years. A former member of the board of the National Perinatal Association, she is past president of the Mississippi Perinatal Association. She is currently president of the Mississippi Historical Society. A writer and video producer, she has spoken at more than 100 national, regional, and state meetings on maternal and child health care issues. She has been honored by the National Perinatal Association, the March of Dimes, the Mississippi Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the National Association of Social Workers for her advocacy for mothers and babies. Ms. Luckett has a B. A. in English from Millsaps College, she attended the University of Georgia’s Graduate School of Journalism, and she completed her coursework for her M. A. in English at Mississippi College.
Raymond L. Cox, MD, MBA
Chairman of OB/GYN Department, St. Agnes Hospital
Dr. Cox received his undergraduate degree from Howard University, his medical degree from University of Pennsylvania Medical School and did his residency at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta. He also holds an MBA in Medical Management from Johns Hopkins University. Dr. Cox is an Assistant Professor, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Department of OB/GYN and a member of the Clinical Faculty, Howard University School of Medicine, Department of OB/GYN. He is also on the faculty of the Maryland Patient Safety Center Perinatal Collaborative, a 27 hospital state-wide initiative to improve the processes and outcomes in maternal and child health for the participating Maryland and District of Columbia hospitals. Dr. Cox states as his guiding principles: “The responsible use of outcomes information to continuously improve quality, development of cost-effective strategies designed to reduce unintended clinical variance, empowerment of all members of the health care team to provide high clinical performance, and active patient participation in the improvement of the healthcare process.
Karla Damus, RN, MSPH, PhD
Senior Research Associate, March of Dimes Birth Defects Foundation
Dr. Damus has served on the Board of the National Perinatal Information Center/Quality Analytic Services since 2001. She is an Associate Professor and the Director of the Division of Community Programs and Public Health in the Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology and Women's Health at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx. She is also the Senior Research Associate in the Office of the Medical Director at the National Office of the March of Dimes. Dr Damus is a fellow of the New York Academy of Medicine; a member of: the Select Expert Panel on Preconception Health, the National Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder Steering Committee, the National Fetal Alcohol Syndrome Task Force and the Nurse Advisory Council for the National March of Dimes. She is also a board member for the New York State Perinatal Association, the co-chair of the Clinical Care Work Group for the Preconception Panel and a consultant to the Obstetrics and Gynecology Devices Panel of the Medical Devices Advisory Committee Food and Drug Administration. Dr. Damus is a perinatal epidemiologist and a nurse, having received her PhD in epidemiology from the University of California at Berkeley and two master of science degrees from UCLA in Nursing and Public Health.
Marilyn B. Escobedo, MD
Reba Mc Entire Chair in Neonatology, Director of Section of Neonatal Perinatal Medicine, Children’s Hospital of Oklahoma
Dr. Escobedo has served on the Board of the National Perinatal Information Center/Quality Analytic Services since 1998. She has been with the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center since 2000. Dr. Escobedo is board-certified in pediatrics and neonatal/perinatal medicine. Prior to joining the OU Health Sciences Center and OU Physicians, Dr. Escobedo founded CliNeTex, an association of institutions in Texas that works together to conduct clinical research about newborns. Dr. Escobedo, was awarded the 2003 Ross Pediatric Educator Award for her involvement in medical education for the American Association of Pediatricians. Her work included creating a model to teach neonatal resuscitation and developing a national review course for neonatologists. She also studied the way residents acquire neonatal intubation skills. Dr. Escobedo has pioneered neonatal intensive care unit design concepts, including the first fully computerized charting system for a NICU in the United States. She earned her MD from Washington University in St. Louis, MO. Dr Escobedo had her residency at Washington University Teaching Hospital in St. Louis, MO, she did a fellowship at Vanderbilt Medical Center in Nashville, TN as well as one at Washington University Teaching Hospital in St. Louis, MO. And she became board certified in pediatrics as well as Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine. She completed her medical training at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, and St. Louis Children’s Hospital in Missouri.
John Hartline, MD
Dr. Hartline has served on the Board of the National Perinatal Information Center/Quality Analytic Services since 1987. Dr. Hartline was in the private practice of neonatology in Kalamazoo, MI, until 2001. He was actively engaged in health care and medical education as a Clinical Professor of Pediatrics and Human Development, Michigan State University School of Human Medicine, and in college education as an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Philosophy (Medical Ethics) at Western Michigan University. Dr. Hartline has served as President of the National Perinatal Association. Currently, he is engaged in several projects and activities at the American Academy of Pediatrics, including the Pediatric Leadership Alliance, the Section on Perinatal Pediatrics Committee on Practice Management, and as an Editor of NeoReviewsPlus© , an online self-assessment activity for neonatologists.
Martin J. McCaffrey, MD
Dr. McCaffrey has served on the Board of the National Perinatal Information Center/Quality Analytic Services since 2007. He has worked with NPIC/QAS for the last four years as a key advisor and champion on our Department of Defense contract. He’s very enthusiastic about our work and will make a wonderful addition to the Board. Dr. McCaffrey retired from the Navy Medical Corps in September, 2006 to assume a position in the Neonatology Department at University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Dr. McCaffrey is a 1982 graduate of the University of Connecticut and Albany Medical College. He did his pediatric residency at Naval Hospital San Diego and a postdoctoral fellowship in neonatology at the UNC, Chapel Hill. He is Board Certified in Neonatal Medicine and spent his military career primarily in Guam and San Diego where he was Director of the NICU for the ten years prior to his retirement.
Rachel Schiffman, PhD, RN, FAAN
Professor & Associate Dean for Research, College of Nursing, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Rachel Schiffman has served on the Board of the National Perinatal Information
Center/Quality Analytic Services since 1997. As Associate Dean for Research,
Dr. Schiffman provides leadership to the College of Nursing by facilitating and
fostering faculty research. She serves as a member of the Dean's administrative
team to enhance and further develop the research activities and accomplishments
of the faculty. Dr. Schiffman assists investigators in planning programs of
study and in developing applications for funding. She is also responsible for
the coordination of the Harriet H. Werley Center for Nursing Research and
Evaluation,which provides support services for grant application preparation
including budgets and data analysis. Dr. Schiffman's expertise is in
parent-child nursing, prenatal care, early childhood intervention programs, and
community-university partnerships. She also contributed her expertise as a
Society for Research in Child Development Executive Branch Fellow at the
National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). She worked with the Center on AIDS
and Other Medical Consequences of Drug Abuse in several critical areas,
including: health and developmental consequences of drug exposure/use among
children, adolescents and young adults; HIV/AIDS and drug abuse among
adolescents; and child and adolescent aspects of NIDA's goal for blending
research and practice. Dr. Schiffman came to the fellowship after serving as
Acting Director of Research at the College of Nursing at Michigan State
University. Dr. Schiffman has played an integral role as a local researcher and
Consortium member of the Early Head Start Research and Evaluation Project (EHS),
having served on a steering committee and on the EHS Fathers Study subcommittee.
Dr. Schiffman received her B. S. in nursing from Boston College, she received
her Ph.D. in Education from the University of Connecticut, with a specialty in
educational psychology, and prior to her doctoral training, she received her
M. S. in nursing from the University of Connecticut.
Winnie O. Willis, RN, ScD
Professor Emeritus
Dr. Willis has served on the Board of the National Perinatal Information Center since 1998. She taught in the San Diego State University School of Public Health from 1984 to 2005, with a particular focus on maternal and child health, and public health nursing. During that time she helped many professionals from all health and related disciplines to attain the Master of Public Health and PhD degrees. She has been Principal Investigator on national, state and privately funded research, evaluation and community-based service grants. These grants included: pesticide exposure in pregnant women, prevention of infant mortality in African-American women, health in child day care, and health professions training. Currently, she also serves as a Director of the California Endowment, the largest healthcare foundation in California. Dr. Willis received her public health degrees from Harvard and Johns Hopkins Universities.
