Program Staff
Jesse Pines, MD, MBA
Physician Advisor
Dr. Pines is the Director of the Center for Health Care Quality and Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine and Health Policy at the George Washington University Medical Center. Dr. Pines holds a B.A. and a Masters of Science in Clinical Epidemiology from the University of Pennsylvania and an M.D. and Masters of Business Administration at Georgetown University. He completed emergency medicine residency at University of Virginia and a research fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania. His primary research interests are ED throughput, quality, and best practices in emergency care along with ED-based diagnostic testing. He has received the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine Young Investigator Award (2009) and several competitive foundation, federal, and industry grants from the Agency for Health Research and Quality, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Department of Homeland Security, American Geriatrics Society, Emergency Medicine Foundation, Institute on Aging at Penn, Thomas McCabe Fund, University Research Foundation, and Abbott Point-of-Care. He is author or more than 100 peer-reviewed publications, hundreds of abstracts, and two books. He is a regular contributor to Time magazine and Slate.com, and has contributed columns to the Wall Street Journal, Foreign Policy magazine, and Emergency Physicians Monthly.
Mark McClelland, DNP, RN
Assistant Research Professor
Dr. McClelland joined the Center for Health Care Quality at George Washington University in the summer of 2008 to serve as the Quality Improvement Leader for the Urgent Matters Learning Network II, a six hospital emergency department (ED) quality improvement collaborative. He has recently assumed a similar role for a 42 hospital ED quality improvement project through the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation funded Aligning Forces for Quality project.
Dr. McClelland has over 30 years experience in health care in a variety of clinical and administrative settings. His clinical background includes the emergency department, home health, and hospice. He has also worked as a nurse recruiter, nursing supervisor, and hospital case manager. Most recently, Dr. McClelland has worked in hospital quality improvement at The George Washington University Hospital.
Dr. McClelland’s professional interests include performance measurement, redefining primary care, creating high reliability organizations, reducing clinical practice variation and the integration of evidenced base care. Dr. McClelland believes the best way to ensure safety and quality in health care is to create care cultures that value the identification, adoption, integration, and dissemination of best practices.
Dr. McClelland received his BSN from Case Western Reserve University and his masters degree in nursing administration and health policy from the University of Washington. He recently completed his doctorate in nursing at George Washington University. Dr. McClelland joined the faculty of the Department of Health Policy and the School of Nursing at GW in January 2011.
Danielle Lazar, MA
Research Associate, Editor Urgent Matters E-Newsletter
Danielle Lazar is a Research Associate for Urgent Matters and serves as the editor of the Urgent Matters E-Newsletter. Before joining the program, she was a Program Associate at the Association of Academic Health Centers. Ms. Lazar has research experience in Medicare variability, clinical trials organization and management, and emergency preparedness. Ms. Lazar earned her BA in History and Political Science from the University of Rhode Island and her MA in Political Science with a focus on international relations from Villanova University.
Jenny Twesten
Research Assistant
Jenny Twesten is a research assistant for the Urgent Matters program. She has served in many capacities as a volunteer in public health focused initiatives including at her local chapter of the American Red Cross. She is currently participating in a team based service-learning project through George Washington University’s Interdisciplinary Student Community-Oriented Prevention Enhancement Service (ISCOPES) working to address public health concerns in Washington, DC. Ms. Twesten earned her BS in Biology from Ramapo College of New Jersey and is currently a MPH candidate in Public Health Communications and Marketing at The George Washington University.
Research Assistant
Jenny Twesten is a research assistant for the Urgent Matters program. She has served in many capacities as a volunteer in public health focused initiatives including at her local chapter of the American Red Cross. She is currently participating in a team based service-learning project through George Washington University’s Interdisciplinary Student Community-Oriented Prevention Enhancement Service (ISCOPES) working to address public health concerns in Washington, DC. Ms. Twesten earned her BS in Biology from Ramapo College of New Jersey and is currently a MPH candidate in Public Health Communications and Marketing at The George Washington University.
