Meet Our Quality and Safety Team

Nadia Huancahuari, MD

Nadia Huancahuari is a Medical Director in the Department of Quality and Safety at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) and Brigham and Women’s Faulkner Hospital (BWFH). She completed her medical studies at the University of California Davis School of Medicine. Dr. Huancahuari focuses on teaching, implementing, and utilizing the Equity Informed High-Reliability Organization (EIHRO) framework. Her main responsibility is to oversee reviews of adverse events and suboptimal patient experiences for any discrimination or bias. She works collaboratively with departmental leaders and the Patient Family Relations (PFR) team to improve equitable care. Additionally, Dr. Huancahuari supports Patient Experience initiatives and guides the development and execution of innovative strategies for staff recognition, service recovery, and transparency.

Marc Pimentel, MD, MPH, CPPS

Marc Pimentel is a Medical Director in the Department of Quality and Safety at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) and Brigham and Women’s Faulkner Hospital (BWFH). Marc received his medical degree from Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons and his master’s degree in public health from Harvard School of Public Health. His work focuses on improving quality and safety, both in the perioperative space and across inpatient areas. He facilitates and leads on multidisciplinary, interprofessional programs to prevent medication errors, surgical site infection, wrong sided procedures, central line associated bloodstream infection, and other sources of patient harm. His research interests include quality improvement, quality measurement, infection prevention, and perioperative medication utilization.

Marissa McLean, JD, RN

Marissa McLean is the Senior Manager for Patient Safety and Risk Management. She joined Brigham and Women’s Hospital in 2019, and prior to that, she served as a director of quality and patient safety at another Massachusetts hospital. She received her bachelor of science degree in nursing from Northeastern University and her juris doctor degree from Vanderbilt University Law School. Her clinical background is in critical care nursing, with experience in the medical ICU at Massachusetts General Hospital where she completed a new graduate in critical care program in conjunction with the MGH Institute of Health Professions, and has additional clinical experience in surgical, neurological, and neurosurgical intensive care units. Her additional professional interests include global public health, health tech, and improving health literacy.

Marty Lantieri, RN

Marty Lantieri is the Director of Clinical Compliance for Academic Medical Centers. Marty joined Brigham and Women’s Hospital in 2023 and was previously the clinical compliance director at Massachusetts General Hospital, leading a successful joint commission survey in November 2023. Marty holds a master’s degree in clinical nurse leadership (CNL) and is a certified nurse executive. Marty has worked in compliance through much of his career both as a specialist and as liaison and/or committee chair while working in nursing leadership roles including as director of transplant. Marty’s nursing career was in general surgery and trauma where he was also a clinical nurse specialist. He served as a clinical faculty coordinator for UMass Boston for 12 years and teaches nursing leadership.

Meghan Baker, MD, ScD

Meghan Baker is a Medical Director of Infection Control at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Associate Hospital Epidemiologist and the Hospital Epidemiologist at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. She is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Population Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute. She practices medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Meghan received her medical degree from Harvard Medical School and her Doctor of Science from Harvard School of Public Health. Dr. Baker’s research focuses on the use of electronic health records and other routinely collected electronic health data to improve patient safety with a focus on cluster detection and healthcare-associated infections.

Michael Klompas MD, MPH

Michael Klompas is the Hospital Epidemiologist and Medical Director of Infection Control for Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH). He has worked in infection control at BWH since 2007. He received his medical degree from the University of Toronto Faculty of Medicine and holds a master’s degree in public health. Michael has particular interest and expertise in surveillance, prevention, and containment of healthcare-associated infections. Michael has helped co-author national and international guidelines on the prevention of hospital-acquired pneumonia, management of hospital acquired pneumonia, and surviving sepsis.

Chanu Rhee, MD, MPH

Chanu Rhee is a Medical Director of Infection Control at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and Associate Hospital Epidemiologist. He practices medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases and is a critical care physician and is an Associate Professor in the Department of Population Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute. He received his medical degree from Georgetown University School of Medicine and a master’s in public health from Harvard School of Public Health. He has been a leader in sepsis quality improvement and healthcare-associated infection prevention efforts within the Mass General Brigham Healthcare System and has participated in several national committees focusing on improving sepsis outcomes, including initiatives sponsored by the Infectious Diseases Society of America, the American College of Emergency Physicians, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.

Robert Tucker, MPH

Robert Tucker is the Senior Manager for Infection Control for BWH and Brigham and Women’s Faulkner Hospital (BWFH). His prior roles at BWH include infection control manager, infection preventionist II, as well as infection preventionist at the Elliot Hospital. Robert earned a bachelor of science in microbiology from the University of New Hampshire and a master’s degree in public health from Boston University School of Public Health with concentrations in infectious disease epidemiology and biostatistics. Robert has been certified in infection control (CIC) since 2016. Robert has also been a member of the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC) since 2014 and became an APIC Fellow (FAPIC) in 2022.

Khawaja Fraz Ahmed, MD, MPH

Khawaja Fraz Ahmed is the Director of Quality for Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) and Brigham and Women’s Faulkner Hospital (BWFH). Fraz has worked in quality and safety at Mass General Brigham for the last 8 years in various roles, both centrally and at the hospital level. He received his medical degree from Aga Khan University and his master’s degree in public health from the Harvard School of Public Health. Most recently, he oversaw the quality and safety program at the Codman Center for the MGH Department of Surgery. Prior to that he worked in enterprise clinical quality collaboration at Mass General Brigham. His interests lie in leveraging data to implement effective and resilient quality improvement.

Cheryl Codner, RN BSN, CCDS, MPH

Cheryl Codner is the Director of Clinical Documentation Integrity for Academic Medical Centers. She has worked in clinical documentation integrity for 14 years and joined Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) in 2015. She was previously a resource nurse at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) in the vascular surgery unit. She holds a bachelor of science in nursing from Rivier University and a master’s degree in public health. She was second investigator of the inaugural arterial sheath removal team at MGH. Cheryl is currently a second investigator of the Neurology Mortality Collaboration. She is currently principal investigator on her work regarding Social Determinants of Health and emergency room utilization in conjunction with Center for Community Health and Health Care Equity at BWH.

Esteban Gershanik, MD, MPH, MSc

Esteban Gershanik is a Physician Advisor for Clinical Documentation Integrity in the Department of Quality and Safety at BWH where he previously served as Medical Director of Quality, Safety, and Equity. He is also a Medicine Hospitalist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He received his medical degree and Master of Public Health from Tulane University; and inaugural member of master's in medical science degree in clinical informatics from Harvard Medical School as a National Library of Medicine Biomedical Informatics Fellow. Prior to his work at BWH, Esteban was the CIO/Health Informatics Director for the Louisiana Department of Health, Prometheus Analytics Medical Director, and Partners eCare Clinical Process and Redesign Clinician. His expertise is integrating health equity policies and clinical informatics into quality and safety. He served on Technical Advisory Panels for the Joint Commission Healthcare Equity Certification Program, Commonwealth of Massachusetts Health Equity Data Standards, Collection and Accountability groups, and ambassador for the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) Global Health Equity Network Advisory Task Force.

Aimee Van Balen, RN

Aimee Van Balen is the Senior Manager for Clinical Documentation Integrity (CDI) for BWH and Brigham and Women’s Faulkner Hospital (BWFH). She received her bachelor of science in nursing from Simmons College and holds a master’s degree in business administration with a focus on healthcare administration. She has over 20 years of experience and is currently serving her fourth year on the ACDIS Advisory Board and serves on the Mass General Brigham CDI policy and procedure committee and the BWFH sepsis committee. She served as co-chair of the Massachusetts Association of Clinical Documentation Improvement Specialists and Chapter Leadership Advisory Board from 2013-2017. Aimee is certified in her field and has vast CDI, Vizient and mortality risk adjustment knowledge with a passion for capturing accuracy in medical record documentation.

Lynne Blech, MBA

Lynne Blech is the Senior Manager of Patient Family Relations (PFR) for Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) and Brigham and Women’s Faulkner Hospital (BWFH). Lynne been in the PFR Department at Mass General Brigham for the last 14.5 years both as an individual contributor and in a leadership role at BWH and more recently at BWFH and Mass General Brigham. She holds her master’s degree in business administration. Lynne leads the team with the focus on an equity-informed high reliability lens with a goal to improve the patient, family and staff experiences across their care continuum for quality of care and communication concerns. This patient voice helps to inform ways for the organization to learn and improve the patient experience for others seeking care at Mass General Brigham.