Staff

Our staff is here to help you reach your goals of improving quality of care and patient outcomes. 

Hitinder Gurm

Program Director
hgurm@med.umich.edu

Dr. Hitinder S. Gurm is the Program Director of BMC2 and the Director of BMC2 PCI. He is a Professor of Internal Medicine and the Academic Medical Center Chief Medical Officer for U-M Health. Dr. Gurm is a graduate of Christian Medical College, Ludhiana, India. He did his residency in Internal medicine followed by a fellowship in Cardiology and Interventional Cardiology at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation. His research interests include carotid interventions, contrast-induced nephropathy, quality improvement and outcomes assessment, and development of novel devices for endovascular interventions. He has published more than 250 original articles and book chapters and has been named as an inventor on 4 patents. He is the recipient of the Michigan Health & Hospital Association’s Patient Safety & Quality Leadership Award for 2016 and has been elected to the American Society for Clinical Investigation (ASCI). Dr. Gurm was selected as one of 50 experts leading the field of patient safety in 2018 by Becker Hospital Review.

Devraj Sukul

Associate Director of BMC2 PCI
dsukul@med.umich.edu

Dr. Devraj Sukul is the Associate Director of BMC2 PCI. He is a Clinical Lecturer in the Department of Internal Medicine and interventional cardiologist at Michigan Medicine. Dr. Sukul graduated AOA from Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine. He completed his residency in Internal medicine at Brigham & Women’s Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts. He then completed his general cardiology and interventional cardiology fellowships at the University of Michigan where he also obtained a master’s in health and health care. Dr. Sukul’s research interests include assessment of cardiovascular care quality, comparative effectiveness of cardiovascular therapies, and assessment of cardiovascular health care policy.

Nicholas Osborne

Director of BMC2 Vascular Surgery
nichosbo@med.umich.edu

Dr. Osborne is the Director of BMC2 Vascular Surgery. He is an Associate Professor of Surgery and Associate Program Director for the Michigan Medicine Vascular Surgery residency and fellowship training programs. Dr. Osborne practices at both the Frankel Cardiovascular Center and the Ann Arbor Veteran's Affairs Hospital. He is the Chief of Vascular Surgery and Chief of Surgery at the LTC Charles S Kettles VA Medical Center, Ann Arbor.  His clinical interests include peripheral artery disease, cerebrovascular disease, complex endovascular surgery, and aortic disease. He is a member of the Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation. Dr. Osborne has expertise in complex statistical methods and using large databases to examine variation in the care and the quality of care in the United States. He has received both an American Heart Association Career Development Award and an NIH K08 award. His primary focus has been to examine physician and patient decision-making and determine the real-world long-term outcomes of Medical, Endovascular and Surgical treatment of PAD. Dr. Osborne has published in high-profile journals including, the New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA, Journal of the American Heart Association, Journal of Vascular Surgery, and Medical Care. He also is a regular contributor to the Behind the Knife Podcast series. Nationally, he is a member of the Appropriateness Committee of the Society for Vascular Surgery and he is a member of the Executive Council for the Vascular Quality Initiative.

Loay Kabbani

Strategic Advisor
lkabban1@hfhs.org

Dr. Loay Kabbani is an Associate Professor of Surgery at Wayne State University. He is the Program Director for the Vascular Surgery Fellowship and Vice Chair of Surgery, Research at Henry Ford Hospital, Detroit. Loay Graduated from the University of Damascus, Syria. He did his General Surgery Residency at Henry Ford Hospital, and Vascular Surgery Fellowship at the University of Michigan. He also is board-certified in cardiothoracic surgery and surgical critical care. He completed a Master of Science in Health Administration (MSHA) from the School of Public Health at the University of Michigan in 2019.  His research interest includes clinical outcomes in vascular care quality, comparative effectiveness of vascular therapies, health care policy, and social disparities in health care. 

Ryan Madder

Strategic Advisor
ryan.madder@spectrumhealth.org

Dr. Madder, a native of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, completed medical school at the University of Pittsburgh and then completed residency in Internal Medicine at Washington University in St. Louis. He completed his Cardiovascular Medicine and Interventional Cardiology fellowships at Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak, Michigan. After completion of fellowship, he joined Spectrum Health where he has been practicing Interventional Cardiology for the past 10 years. He currently serves as the Medical Director of the Cath Lab and Section Chief of Interventional Cardiology at Spectrum Health. His research interests include intracoronary imaging with a focus on near-infrared spectroscopy, radiation safety in the cath lab, and robotic PCI.

Annemarie Forrest

Managing Director
avassalo@med.umich.edu

Managing Director Annemarie Forrest joined BMC2 in the spring of 2020. A graduate of the University of Michigan School of Nursing, Annemarie also has a Master of Science in Community Health Nursing and a Master of Public Health in Community Health Sciences from the University of Illinois – Chicago. She has over 16 years of extensive management experience in a variety of clinical research and academic health care settings. Before joining BMC2, Annemarie was the Director of Projects at the Clinical Trials Transformation Initiative, a public-private partnership co-founded by Duke University and the FDA working to improve the quality and efficiency of clinical trials. Annemarie has also served as the Field Clinical Director for a medical device company investigating novel acute stroke therapies, a Research Nurse Specialist at the National Institute for Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), and the director of a statewide stroke registry in Illinois. She has previously coordinated both cardiovascular and neurological trials at academic medical centers in Michigan, Illinois, and Washington, DC.

Jeremy Albright

Statistician Lead
jeralbri@med.umich.edu

As a BMC2 Statistician, Jeremy Albright conducts statistical analyses for peer-reviewed research manuscripts, provides risk-adjusted estimates of hospital and physician performance, and builds machine learning models to predict clinical outcomes. Jeremy served as a contract statistician to BMC2 for four years before joining the team full time in November of 2021. Jeremy founded Method Consultants of Ann Arbor in 2009 and previously performed statistical analysis in support of FDA submissions for medical devices and modified risk tobacco products. He has taught statistics at the undergraduate and graduate levels and has served as an expert witness on several cases requiring data analysis as well as provided private consulting to several law firms across the U.S. Jeremy completed his undergraduate degree at Concordia College in Moorhead, MN and his graduate degree at Indiana University, Bloomington. Jeremy has been a contributing author on a wide range of publications in health care research, epidemiology, psychology, pedagogy, and public policy.

Pam Benci

Administrative Specialist
plf@med.umich.edu

Pam Benci is BMC2’s Administrative Specialist.  Pam has been with BMC2 since 2007 and has been involved in the recruitment of hospitals across Michigan.  Pam provides executive support to faculty, nurses, and staff. In addition, she assists with human resources, developing budgets and website maintenance; performs a variety of accounting activities; and coordinates and manages meetings and special events. 

Mary Casey

Project Manager
marycol@med.umich.edu

Mary Casey joined BMC2 as Project Manager in 2022. In this role, Mary collaborates with the Coordinating Center team to conceptualize, develop, and implement special projects to enhance efficiency and maintain key operational processes within the consortium. Mary has a Masters of Public Administration from Eastern Michigan University and over ten years of administrative and project management experience in health care, academia, and in local government.

Sheryl Fielding

Clinical Quality Improvement Lead
sfields@med.umich.edu

Clinical Quality Improvement Lead, Sheryl Fielding, is the nurse educator for MISHC. Sheryl works closely with the national STS/ACC NCDR TVT registry to provide feedback on behalf of Structural Heart sites in the State of Michigan on definitions, data fields, and TVT reporting. She also helps to ensure MISHC sites are meeting CMS and TVT requirements through chart reviews and site visits.  Sheryl helps develop the MISHC reports, registry and VBR goals, educational meetings, and relevant tools for our participating sites to use for quality improvement. 

Rebecca Fleckenstein

Clinical Quality Improvement Lead
rflecke@med.umich.edu

Rebecca Fleckenstein is the Clinical Quality Improvement Lead for BMC2 Vascular Surgery. Rebecca provides education and abstraction tools for our Vascular Surgery abstractors. She is the liaison between the vascular surgery provider and our programmers to help develop reports and assist in data queries from the sites. She also works with BMC2 VS leadership to develop data fields, reports, P4P, and VBR goals. A member of the team since August of 2019, Rebecca has a Master of Science in Nursing with a specialty in informatics. She is board certified in Nursing Informatics by the American Nurses Credentialing Center, the ANCC. 

Kathleen Frazier

Clinical Quality Improvement Lead
frazieka@med.umich.edu

Clinical Quality Improvement Lead, Kathleen Frazier, provides education to registry participants to assure they understand how to collect data, interpret reports, and use registry data to improve quality at their respective facility.  Kathleen processes data requests and creates query specifications for programmers. She also assists with the development of BMC2 PCI data fields, PCI reports, pay for performance, and VBR goals. Additionally, Kathleen assists with educational meetings, training materials and relevant tools for our participating sites to use for quality improvement and assists with special projects, develops surveys, and assists physicians and coordinators with the peer review process. Kathleen holds a Bachelor of Science in Nursing.  Kathleen has many years of cath lab experience.  During those years, she also worked as the QI and research coordinator for Invasive Cardiology. She joined BMC2 in September of 2013.

Jeff Hartnagle

Applications Programmer Senior
hartnagj@med.umich.edu

Applications Programmer Senior, Jeff Hartnagle, joined BMC2 in May of 2023. Jeff maintains and develops server and database applications to support the collection and distribution of BMC2 data. He also handles special data requests as they arise. Jeff holds a bachelor’s degree in computer science from Central Michigan University and has worked in the defense, automotive, and entertainment industries.

Elizabeth Horn

Communications Specialist
ehorn@med.umich.edu

Elizabeth Horn is BMC2’s Communications Specialist. New to the team in October of 2020, she previously worked for 20 years in Michigan Medicine’s Department of Pathology. Elizabeth develops BMC2's internal and external communications including website content, social media, and marketing materials. She has an associate’s degree in photography from the Art Institute of Pittsburgh and is the recipient of the 2018 Hope Award for Innovation, given by RESOLVE: The National Infertility Association for her work communicating patient experiences through arts programming.

Milan Seth

Statistician
mcseth@med.umich.edu

Milan Seth is BMC2’s Statistician. Since 2012, he’s been contributing to the planning, execution, and interpretation of statistical analysis to support ongoing BMC2 research publications and reporting within the collaborative. He previously worked in clinical trial analysis at Boston Scientific. Milan has a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics from the University of Nebraska–Omaha, an Associateship in the Society of Actuaries credential, and a Master of Science in Biostatistics from the University of Minnesota School of Public Health. Milan is a contributing author on more than 50 BMC2 publications. 

Amy Shirato

Clinical Quality Improvement Lead
shirato@med.umich.edu

Amy Shirato joined the BMC2 team in 2021 as a Clinical Quality Improvement Lead for PCI. Amy provides education to registry participants to assure they understand how to collect data, interpret reports, and use registry data to improve quality at their respective facility.  She processes data requests and creates query specifications for programmers. She also assists with the development of BMC2 PCI data fields, PCI reports, pay for performance, and VBR goals. Additionally, Amy assists with educational meetings, training materials and relevant tools for our participating sites to use for quality improvement and assists with special projects, develops surveys, and assists physicians and coordinators with the peer review process.  Amy has a Bachelor of Science in Nursing and has extensive cardiac nursing experience including cardiac operating room, cardiac surgical ICU, cath lab, TAVR coordinator, and echo.

John Sly

Applications Programmer Lead
jsly@med.umich.edu

John Sly is the Applications Programmer Lead for BMC2. He is the author of two programming books, Getting Around with Google Maps: A programmer’s guide to the Google Maps API and A Practical Guide to Learning PHP, MySQL, and Apache. John has an associate’s degree in computer information systems from Monroe County Community College and worked at the Detroit Free Press before joining BMC2 in 2015. In addition to building and maintaining data structure and maintaining servers, John’s role includes fulfilling special data requests and working on peer review.

Nathan Yost

Applications Programmer Senior
nyost@med.umich.edu

Applications Programmer Senior, Nathan Yost, joined the team at the BMC2 Coordinating Center in October of 2012.  Nathan fulfills data requests, develops and maintains the website, develops reports, supports systems administrations, and assists with other technology-related tasks as they arise. He earned his Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from Eastern Michigan University and has been working in websites, databases, general software development, and system administration his entire career.