For The Media

David Gustafson, Ph.D.
Director, NIATx National Program Office

As the National Program Office Director, Dave Gustafson provides overall leadership to the NIATx initiative. He is a process improvement coach to some Learning Collaborative members, and a key faculty member in Learning Sessions. Gustafson is Director of Wisconsin's Center of Excellence in Cancer Communications Research (funded by the National Cancer Institute), and a research professor in the College of Engineering at the UW-Madison; he joined the UW-Madison faculty in 1966. In 1973 he founded the Center for Health Systems Research and Analysis, a multidisciplinary research center on the UW campus. Through his work at CHSRA, which is best known for its research on improving health care quality, Gustafson has been able to merge his interests in decision theory, behavior change and organizational improvement.

Over the last ten years, Gustafson's work has focused on CHESS (the Comprehensive Health Enhancement Support System), an Internet-based information and support system to help people face problems such as lung, breast and prostate cancer, severe asthma, substance abuse, and sexual assault. Randomized trials and field tests of CHESS have illuminated people's acceptance and use of Internet-based information systems and how those systems impact their quality of life, behavior change and health services utilization.

Gustafson helped found the Institute for Healthcare Improvement; he is a Fellow and past member of its board. He has helped numerous organizations (such as the British National Health Service) improve their processes of care. Gustafson is a Fellow of the Association for Health Services Research; a Fellow of the American Medical Informatics Association; chairs the board of the eHealth Institute; and is a past chair of the Federal Science Panel on Interactive Communications in Health.

Todd Molfenter, Ph.D.
Deputy Director, NIATx National Program Office

As Deputy Director for NIATx, Todd Molfenter's role includes managing the technical assistance provided to Learning Collaborative members and process improvement coaches. He is also a process improvement coach for some Learning Collaborative members, and a key faculty member in Learning Sessions. For the last decade, Molfenter has studied, planned and led organizational and individual change efforts. As a member of the administrative staff at The Christ Hospital in Cincinnati, OH, he implemented a total quality management program and other change processes to improve the quality of care and achieve the organization's highest customer satisfaction ratings in over a decade. The hospital received numerous awards for its quality of care, culminating in its inclusion in U.S. News and World Report's "America's Best Hospitals" for three consecutive years.

Molfenter worked at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement in Boston , MA , where he directed consulting services and the annual conference. He specializes in the use of organizational collaboratives as agents of change, and has helped many clients, including the Health Care Finance Administration, Voluntary Hospitals of America, and the Harvard Risk Management Foundation to develop more effective approaches to productive change in their organizations. Molfenter received his Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering from the UW-Madison.

Kim Johnson, MBA
Deputy Director, NIATx National Program Office

Kim Johnson is the deputy director for operations of NIATx, a research center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison that focuses on systems improvement in behavioral health. She is also director of the ACTION (Adopting Changes to Improve Outcomes Now) Campaign, a national campaign to improve access to and retention in treatment. Prior to her move to Wisconsin, Kim served for seven years as the director of the Office of Substance Abuse in Maine. During her tenure as Maine's SSA she focused on improving availability to treatment through cross system efforts including developing a model treatment program for criminal justice clients, improved referral systems for child welfare clients and increased access to medication assisted treatment through work with Medicaid, primary care, and the public health system. Kim has also been an executive director of a treatment agency, managed intervention and prevention programs and been a child and family therapist. She has a master's degree in counselor education and an MBA.

Tom Mosgaller
Director of Change Management, NIATx National Program Office

Tom Mosgaller has over 25 years of experience in organizational and community development as a manager, teacher, and consultant to the public, private, and nonprofit sectors. Tom’s passion lies in assisting communities, organizations and individuals to come together to create great places to work, learn, and grow.

Mr. Mosgaller served as the City of Madison's Director of Organizational Development and Training for thirteen years. During his tenure, the City of Madison’s Quality Management work received worldwide recognition as a pioneering effort and was recognized by the American Society for Quality. In 2000 he was recruited to join Marshall Erdman & Associates as Vice President of Organizational Development and Human Resources. At Erdman he provided leadership for human resources, quality management, organizational development and corporate training and development.

In 2006 Tom joined the staff of NIATx as Director of Change Management. He is past President and Chairman of the Board of the American Society for Quality (ASQ) and has served as a Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award Examiner and Judge for the Wisconsin Forward Award. In addition Tom has served as adjunct faculty for the University of Wisconsin School of Business - Management Institute, Northwestern University’s Asset Based Community Development (ABCD) Institute, and the McLaren School of Business of the University of San Francisco.

Tom began his career as a community organizer with the Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF) Saul Alinsky Institute where he worked with local communities in building broad based citizen organizations in both urban and rural areas of the U.S. This experience, combined with his private and public sector leadership experience and academic credentials, make Tom Mosgaller uniquely qualified to address issues of organizational change.

Mr. Mosgaller has a master’s degree from Notre Dame School of Business specializing in the area of human and process management along with a Certificate in Strategic Human Resource Management from the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM). His undergraduate degree is from the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point.

Jay Ford, Ph.D.
Technical Director, NIATx National Program Office

As Technical Director, Jay Ford's role includes ongoing enhancement of the NIATx website to support Learning Collaborative members and their improvement teams, as well as the field in general. He is also a process improvement coach for some Learning Collaborative members. For the last twenty years, Ford has studied and supported organizational and operational change initiatives. Through his work for Baptist Memorial Healthcare System in Memphis, TN, he helped improve patient delivery and staff workflow, as well as staffed and evaluated long-term planning initiatives. He also has extensive experience managing data systems across multiple healthcare organizations. Ford has developed tools to measure user satisfaction with CHESS (a computer-based, patient-centered health education and support system), and analyzed the resulting data, as well as studied the impact of training on participants' use of CHESS.

Trained as a health systems engineer, Ford received his Ph.D. in Health Systems Engineering from the UW-Madison, where his dissertation focused on employee commitment to organizational change. He is also a Fellow in the American College of Healthcare Executives, and a Fellow of the Healthcare Information Management Systems Society.