Our Team
Chief Quality Officer
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Dr. Sosa began her role as Associate Chief Quality Officer in August 2021, following completion of Pediatric Hospital Medicine Fellowship and the Quality Scholars Program at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. Within the field of quality and safety, she focuses on utilizing the Model for Improvement to provide optimal and safe care to hospitalized children and their families. Her portfolio of improvement work includes initiatives which utilized situation awareness principles to reduce unrecognized clinical deterioration and prevent medication and medical device complications in pediatric inpatients.
Primary Focus Areas: Executive Safety Rounds, Pediatric Clinical Collaborative, RL Event Management (Hospital Medicine), Solutions for Patient Safety, Divisional Quality Improvement Initiatives, Quality Improvement Scholarship and Education.
Associate Chief Quality Officer
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Dr. Meyers is the Associate Chief Quality Officer for Golisano Children’s Hospital, providing oversight of quality improvement, quality assurance, and patient safety activities involving children. He has successfully led local, regional and national QI collaboratives, works with the New York State Perinatal Quality Collaborative, and has been an invited QI faculty member for external organizations such as the Vermont Oxford Network and Family Centered Care Taskforce.
Primary Focus Areas: Newborn Quality Sciences, Optimal Growth for Premature Infants, Long-term Outcomes, New York State Perinatal Quality Collaborative, Infants in the NICU.
Director, Collaborative Partnerships (DCP) for Quality and Safety (Q/S)
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Dr. Jan Schriefer began her role as the Director of Quality and Patient Safety Program in 2021 following 14 years as Director of Quality Improvement, overseeing all quality improvement and patient safety efforts at GCH. She has been a Department of Pediatrics Quality Assurance Liaison (QAL) since 2015, serving on RCA teams and managing RL events. Dr. Schriefer provides mentorship for people interested in publishing their quality efforts, has a long list of quality scholarship and has won numerous regional and national quality awards including the USA Today RIT Quality Cup and the NYS Pinnacle Award for Patient Safety.
Primary Focus Areas: Executive Safety Rounds, Pediatric Clinical Collaborative (PCC), Unit Based Performance Program (UPP) team coach, Solutions for Patient Safety Disparities Foundations Leader, Medical Student Q/S Elective Course Director and Problem Based Learning (PBL) tutor, Resident and Fellow QI education, Divisional Quality Improvement Initiatives, Quality Improvement Scholarship educator, URMC Pursuing Excellence Initiative (PEI) Leadership Team, URMC Maintenance of Certification (MOC) Part IV Leadership Team.
Matthew Allen, M.S., R.N., C.N.S., P.N.P.-B.C.
Pediatric Policy and Regulatory Management Coordinator
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Matthew started his career in 2002 on the pediatric adolescent unit (4-1400) as a staff nurse and eventually became the unit educator in 2009. Matt finished his unit educator role on 7 South in 2019 after two years there, and transitioned into his current role, as the Pediatric Policy and Regulatory Management Coordinator. Matt has facilitated many successful initiatives while practicing as a unit educator, such as the pediatric orthopedic and hemodialysis programs. Matt started as the pediatric service regulatory representative in 2013, while practicing as a unit educator. Matt’s continued efforts to grow the pediatric regulatory program has demonstrated great outcomes and increased awareness of department of health and Joint Commission requirements throughout the service.
Primary Focus Areas: Pediatric Nursing, Child Life, and Pediatric Transport policy manuals, Nursing Policy Team, Policy Management Team, Therapeutics, SMH Clinical Council, Nursing Regulatory Readiness, Regulatory Practice Committee, RN/LPN Scope of Practice Committee, Joint Commission Steering Committee, Environment of Care Council, High Level Disinfection/Sterilization Committee, and Suicide Risk Identification and Mitigation Committee.
Medical Director, Inpatient Quality and Safety
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Dr. Barker was born and raised in St. Louis, Mo. She completed residency and fellowship at St. Louis Children's Hospital and joined the faculty of Golisano Children's Hospital in 2016. Since that time, she has completed her Quality Improvement Training through Intermountain Healthcare. Over the past 5 years, she has led many successful initiatives in Pediatric Critical Care including rolling out the ICU Liberation bundle, dramatically decreasing CAUTI's on 6N, and most recently eliminating CLABSIs on 6S.
Primary Focus Areas: Inpatient Divisional Quality Improvement Initiatives, UPP Team Centered Projects, Solutions for Patient Safety Initiatives including Unplanned Extubation, CLABSI, and Adverse Drug Events, and Pediatric Critical Care Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Initiatives.
Kristen Brown N.N.P.-B.C., C.N.S.-P., C.O.N.Q.S.
Pediatric Quality Assurance, Pediatric Nursing Leadership
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Kristen has over 25 years of experience as a NICU team member. She has practiced at several large academic medical centers including Nationwide Children’s Hospital and Dartmouth Children’s Medical Center. During her time in the NICU, Kristen obtained mentorship and training in the field of quality and safety. In 2019, Kristen expanded her role to the Pediatric Service as a full time Pediatric Quality Assurance team member. She has been a former March of Dimes Nurse of the Year Award Winner and has co-published several journal articles in the areas of Safe Sleep, Antibiotic Stewardship and Simulation.
Primary Focus Areas: Review and Classification of Serious Safety Events in Pediatric Patients, Cause Analysis (Root Cause Analysis, Interdisciplinary Reviews, Parent Grievances, Apparent Cause Analysis), Adverse Drug Events, Peripheral IV Infiltrate, Disaster Preparedness, Nurse Planner, Facilitator for Clinical and Emotional Support, Debriefings.
GCH Quality and Informatics Specialist APP
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Lindsay started her career in 2015 in the NICU as a staff nurse at URMC, where she then worked for 5 years while completing her MS degree at the University of Rochester. During her time as a bedside nurse, she gained additional experience in quality improvement projects, as well as informatics roles for both the NICU and Pediatric service at GCH. Once completing her MS, she went on to complete a Neonatal Advanced Practice Provider Fellowship before continuing her practice in the URMC NICU as a Nurse Practitioner. She is a dually licensed Pediatric and Neonatal Nurse practitioner in New York State. Lindsay joined the Quality team in 2023 as a liaison between the Quality and Safety and Nursing Informatics teams at GCH. She has a particular interest in continuing to support pediatric nurses and providers alike through optimization of the electronic medical record and proactive safety initiatives.
Melina Embury M.S., R.N., C.N.S.
Pediatric Service Nurse Educator
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Melina has been a nurse since 2011 and has been a pediatric critical care nurse since 2013. She received her BSN and MS degree at St. John Fisher University. She is a licensed Pediatric Clinical Nurse Specialist in New York State. She has experience providing system wide education which includes mock codes/simulations, pediatric orientation and unit based quality initiatives. She began her role as the Pediatric Service Nurse Educator at GCH in 2021. She has an interest in continuing education for current staff and assisting with educational assessments throughout the hospital system.
Primary Focus: Pediatric Service New Nurse Orientation Coordination, Service Simulations, Service Wide Education, SMH Nursing Education Council member, GCH Pain Management Committee Co-Chair, Pediatric Service Quality Education
Wendy Hou D.N.P., R.N., C.N.S.
Assistant Director, Nursing Quality Outcomes and Community Partnership
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Dr. Hou has worked in Pediatrics at URMC for over 14 years, with a mix of experience as a staff RN and leadership roles in pediatric critical care and the outpatient setting. She has a passion for qualitative research methods and examining how the lived experience of patients can contribute to overall provision of care. She is one of the newest Assistant Directors to the GCH Nursing leadership structure and currently provides supportive oversight to the nursing quality group.
Primary Focus Areas: Support and Oversight to the Individuals in the Nursing Quality Group.
Jamie Hryunak, R.N., B.S.N.
Nurse Leader, Get with the Guidelines Coordinator
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Jamie started at the University of Rochester in 2005 where she started her career on 4-1400 (adolescent pediatrics general care unit) and then transitioned to the Pediatric CRN role in 2012. In late 2019 Jamie expanded her role to the Pediatric Quality Office as the Get with the Guidelines coordinator.
Primary Focus Areas: Review and Provide Feedback on All Pediatric Codes, Enter Deterioration Events into the Get with the Guidelines Database, Pediatric Resuscitation Committee, Monthly Simulation for General Care Units.
Rebecca Kanaley, M.S., R.N. C.P.N. C.N.L.
Quality Improvement Coordinator
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Rebecca has been a pediatric nurse for 14 years. She received her BSN at the University of Pittsburgh and her MS at the University of Rochester. Rebecca is a member of the pediatric nursing leadership team in her role as Quality Improvement Coordinator. For the last 7 years she has specialized in the prevention of pediatric hospital acquired conditions, supporting a positive safety culture, and promoting employee safety and wellness. She has a special interest in supporting pediatric nurses through recognition efforts and continuing education.
Primary Focus Areas: Solutions for Patient Safety NYS Regional Leader, Patient and Family Engagement, Behavioral Escalation Management, HAC teams, Employee Wellness
Diane Prinzing, A.A.S.
Information Analyst II, GCH Pediatrics
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Diane joined the division of Neonatology in 2005 as an information analyst, supporting the NICU Continuing Care Program, served as data manager for VON (Vermont Oxford Network), and supported quality projects for the NICU UPP team. In 2016 she moved to her current role supporting a variety of quality initiatives across GCH and assumed the oversight of US News. Prior to her career at GCH she worked as a quality project and data coordinator supporting analytical testing labs for Eastman Kodak.
Primary Focus Areas: Solutions for Patient Safety Project and Data Manager, US News & World Reports-Survey Manager, HAC Teams-UE, CLABSI, PIVIE, Colorectal SSI, PHARE (Patient Harm Associated with Race and Ethnicity), NICU-UPP Team, Safety Culture- Error Prevention Training, Wireless Temperature Monitoring, NDNQI-Pressure Injuries.
Site Director, Solutions for Patient Safety; Medical Director, Ambulatory Quality Improvement
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Dr. Rashid is currently actively involved in the Solutions for Patient Safety Culture Wave, which aims to promote a culture of safety and continuous quality improvement. This has included GCH-wide Error Prevention Training. She is also the medical director on 7S and works on UPP Team projects in that role. Other interests include promoting safety through Joy in Work and Leadership Training. In the future, Dr. Rashid hopes to get additional training in LEAN Six Sigma in order to improve patient safety and Joy in Work through projects which promote efficiency of practice.
Primary Focus Areas: Safety Culture, Error Prevention Training, Ambulatory Quality Improvement, Wellness.
GCH Quality and Patient Safety Team Structure