Accredit Consulting Team Members

Mission:

Our mission is to improve health education by applying best practices and research innovations to pedagogical, technical, and operational aspects of higher education institutions.

All Accredit Consulting Subject Matter Experts have significant experience identifying the opportunities for operational improvement, designing new processes, and managing the cultural changes that are required for the new process to have their desired impact. Culture must be addressed along with procedure.

Accredit Consulting has been developed for the purpose of advancing medical education and supporting medical schools through their accreditation proceedings, employing best practices in each of the subject areas covered by the LCME Standards and also in the management and organizational disciplines that can be employed to make the standards a more integrated part of normal operations and make quality assurance and continual improvement part of the culture and functioning of our clients.

Accredit Consulting has developed relationships with over a dozen consultants in related fields that can be called on and seamlessly integrated for either hourly consulting or project leadership during an engagement. Your Accredit Consulting team will be designed to have the specific expertise to offer a thoughtful, professional and hassle-free process coupled with on-demand expertise.

Haviland has recently completed work as project manager for Duke University School of Medicine during their recent LCME self study and site visit (October 2008). Haviland was the sole dedicated resource on the project, supporting the self-study and site visit coordinator and leading projects that addressed compliance with a number of standards. Haviland gathered and cataloged the majority of the information for the database as well as writing or editing much of the database and subcommittee reports. Haviland developed many of the process and tools used during the process and assisted the students with technology and facilitation in the completion of their survey. Previous research and consulting projects have given him the opportunity to redesign curriculum committee processes around data-driven quality assurance practices and to gain operational insight into over a dozen medical schools. Haviland operates a consulting company that plans and executes new strategic technology initiatives and is a PMI-certified project manager with extensive experience in process improvement, software development and pedagogical research. He has also coordinated IRB-approved research projects in medical education. Haviland serves as project leader and coordinates the other team members.

Dr. Ornt is Vice Dean for Education and Academic Affairs with the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine where he has just completed preparations for the LCME Site Visit on March 22, 2009. Dr. Ornt has held numerous administrative positions at the University of Rochester including Director of Chronic Dialysis at Strong Memorial Hospital and Vice Chairman of Medicine at the School of Medicine. He was elected to the University of Rochester Medical Center Board in 2001. His clinical expertise has been recognized by election to Best Doctors in America, Inc. for several years. In research, he has authored numerous publications and presented at many national and international meetings. Dr. Ornt has served on review committees for the National Institutes of Health (NIH), served as Associate Program Director for the NIH-funded Clinical Research Center at Rochester and served as principle investigator at Rochester for the NIH, multi-center trial in hemodialysis; the results of which were published in the New England Journal of Medicine. He recently moved to Cleveland, Ohio where he is Professor of Medicine and serves as the Vice Dean for Education and Academic Affairs for the School of Medicine at Case Western Reserve University. In the community he is a recognized volunteer, acting as President for the National Kidney Foundation of Upstate New York from which he received their highest honor, the Gift of Life Award. The national organization went on to recognize him with the Distinguished Service Award in 1998. In 2007, Dr. Ornt is recognized as one of Cleveland’s “Top Doctors” by Cleveland Magazine. He is a member of numerous societies including a Fellow of the American College of Physicians. Dr. Ornt will be available to lead compliance assessments and projects and as a resource for accreditation analysis services.

Levy is a principal with Portland Partners and a proven leader at integrating technology to solve business problems and exploit opportunities in healthcare informatics. He is also an Adjunct Lecturer for the School of Public Health, University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill. In his wider practice, Levy develops complex business models to predict operational and financial performance based on variable inputs to be used by health care providers to develop operational improvement strategies and tactics. Clients include several community hospitals in North Carolina and Florida. Levy is available as a mini-project team leader, particularly where clinical operations and finance are factors.

Scharf-Deering is a clinical researcher and project manager with significant experience supporting large clinical research efforts. She has a Master of Arts degree in Medical Anthropology and she has research experience in pediatrics and geriatrics. In her current role as IRB Specialist, she manages and trains the IRB administrative office staff, heads the IRB quality assurance and quality improvement efforts, and works with investigators and researchers of University Hospitals Case Medical Center, the Cleveland Clinic, and Case Western Reserve University to facilitate the submission and review of cancer research projects; at the close of December 2008, the Case Cancer IRB has reviewed over 600 protocols. Scharf-Deering is a current member of PRIM&R (Public Responsibility in Medicine and Research). Her professional interests include research ethics, specialty IRB management, and quality assurance and improvement. Scharf-Deering has been working with Accredit Consulting on research and consulting projects since 2004. Scharf-Deering will participate in the editing process and may be available for mini-projects.

For more than 27 years, Furniss has worked with companies and universities to help them understand and improve their customers’ experiences. He is the founder of Touchpoint Associates, Inc., a strategic consulting firm and has worked with some of the top companies and universities in the world to help them re-align their customer and student strategies. He is also a senior consultant with the Cutter Consortium. Furniss has lead consulting projects for corporate clients including Dell Computer, Delta Airlines, Fed Ex, and Chase Mortgage. He then took this experience and redesigned it to fit into the higher-education arena. He helped DePaul University create a methodology to understand how to survey students and glean data that lead to immediate improvements in both internal and external experiences. He worked with the CIO to develop and implement a new experience methodology for the IS Department that made student experience research and analysis the first step in designing new systems and applications. Furniss is available to lead mini-projects in student or faculty attitudes or to provide support to the student survey.

Sangokoya is an MD/PhD candidate at Duke University presently engaged in research in the Genetics and Genomics program. Sangokoya played an integral part in the Duke University student survey and served on the LCME Task Force. Sangokoya is available to provide leadership to the student survey team or to mini-projects involving dual degree programs or research.

Mr. Stefanczyk operates Blue Wolf Strategy implements strategic and creative consulting services that include branding, advertising, marketing, customer experience and analysis and customer relationship management. At the heart of Blue Wolf is the Adaptive Process, an incremental test, learn and execute methodology for integrating business, customer-focused and marketing strategies. Keith has considerable experience in higher education, including very successful projects in accreditation and in helping administrations collect and analyze data on student impressions and interactions with systems, processes and people. For DePaul University he developed a program that chronicled the typical education student experience in scheduling, advising and finance and developed a touch point map and other tools to streamline and improve the student experience.
Blue Wolf made the the top ten and top 25 agency lists for Arizona Business Magazine and The Business Journal, respectively. Other clients include Intel, APS, Swift Trucking, Harlem Globetrotters and government agencies including the cities of Chandler, Scottsdale, Mesa, Glendale, Tempe and Phoenix, the state of Arizona and Arizona State Parks. Mr. Stefanczyk provides process analysis, communications, and visualization expertise to the team.