With twenty-two years of professional experience in quality improvement, Samantha Shugarman, MS, has participated in numerous projects and activities concentrated on improving patient care and physician behavioral change. During her five years with the American College of Radiology, preceded by 18 years in psychiatric quality improvement (e.g., American Psychiatric Association, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, University of Maryland Medical Center, etc.) she has developed quality measures for national improvement and accountability programs, in addition to leveraging society-led clinical quality data registries to inform practices on their quality performance and how to make improvements when their performance falls below national or internal benchmarks.
Working in clinical areas comprising illnesses that ranked among the highest causes of death in the US (i.e., lung cancer and suicide), she is attuned to the vital need to engage radiology practices in population-based quality improvement like the Expanding Capability for Early Detection of Lung Cancer. As ACR’s lead in the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation Diagnostic Excellence Initiative-funded Closing the Radiology Recommendation Follow-up Loop measure development project, as well as a learning facilitator in the Recommendations Follow-up Quality Improvement Collaborative under the ACR Learning Network, she works closely with multi-stakeholder experts and those participating in improving these efforts in real-time. She understands the clinical, technical, and other barriers that may prevent patients with incidentally found pulmonary nodules from completing their evidence-based radiology-recommended follow-up care.