Innovation Clinical Coaches
Clinical Leadership & Expertise
Clinical Coaches help drive the success of MaineHealth Innovation by providing clinical leadership and expertise as innovators work to solve unmet care needs.
The goal of the Innovation Clinical Coaches is to create a multidisciplinary and geographically diverse panel of clinical innovation “coaches” who, together, will offer the following to the Innovation Center, MaineHealth care team members interested in innovation, and stakeholders:
- Clinical expertise and understanding of implementation in a large healthcare system
- Clinical credibility with innovators, healthcare industry experts, MaineHealth senior management and outside stakeholders looking to partner with innovators and the MaineHealth Innovation Center
- Accessible role models for clinical innovation, research and commercialization
- Opportunities for professional development
- Collaboration with a diverse group of MaineHealth care team members and stakeholders with unique perspectives from a variety of professions and industries
Interested in being an Innovation Clinical Coach?
Interested providers of all disciplines who have experience in entrepreneurship and healthcare innovation are encouraged to get involved.
Director, Center for Applied Science and Technology
ANNE BREGGIA, PhD
Director, Center for Applied Science and Technology
MaineHealth Institute for Research
“The investment MaineHealth has made in the innovation space will be highly impactful and further contribute to the outstanding health care we provide to our community.”
Anne Breggia, PhD, is the Director of the Center for Applied Science and Technology, a division of MaineHealth Institute for Research (MHIR), which provides the infrastructure needed to support our research enterprise through the coordinated integration of the clinical resources available at NorDx, the MaineHealth diagnostic laboratory and the research resources available through the MHIR core facilities. As Director, Dr Breggia oversees the operations and strategic initiatives of the Center which include the Maine Medical Center (MMC) BioBank. The BioBank is accredited by the College of American Pathologists (CAP) and collaborates with other academic institutes such as the Tufts biorepository in providing biospecimens annotated with extensive clinical data to the research community to aid in the characterization of disease with the goal of improved patient therapies and the advancement of science and personalized medicine. Dr Breggia is also the Chair of the Precision Medicine Council, a consortium of MaineHealth physicians and scientists who guide and support the precision medicine efforts of working groups in oncology, benign hematology, pediatrics, cardiology and neurology.
Anne has served as a MaineHealth Innovation Clinical Coach since 2020 and was a featured Innovation Blender speaker in April 2021.
Read more about Anne’s background.
Critical Care Surgeon
DAMIEN CARTER, MD
Critical Care Surgeon
Maine Medical Partners
Damien Carter, MD earned his medical degree from the University of Illinois College of Medicine in Chicago. He completed his residency in general surgery at the University of Washington, where he also completed an NIH/NRSA T32 research fellowship in Trauma and Burns immunopathology. He subsequently completed a Burn & Surgical Critical Care Fellowship at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, WA.
Damien specializes in burn care including acute management, critical care and burn reconstructive procedures. He also serves as the medical director of the Burn & Soft Tissue Service (BST) at Maine Medical Center. The Maine Medical Center Burn program currently sees approximately 185 in-patient burn admissions and nearly 700 outpatient visits. The BST service is the only provider of comprehensive burn care to burn-injured patients in the State of Maine and Northern New Hampshire with a catchment area of roughly 1.5 million people. The service also cares for complex wounds and cutaneous diseases that require surgical management. In addition to his clinical responsibilities to the BST service, Damien is an attending physician on for trauma and emergency general surgery services. He has a strong research interest in burn resuscitation & modulation of the inflammatory response to injury. He has received internal and external grant funding to pursue his basic and translational research interests.
Damien has been a MaineHealth Innovation Clinical Coach since 2021.
Read more about Damien’s background.
Chief Nursing Information Officer
MICHELLE DUVAL, MSN, RN, NEA-BC
Chief Nursing Information Officer
MaineHealth
“The nature of front line nurses is innovative, curious and eager to improve the status quo. This naturally affords them the opportunities to use innovation to improve health and well-being, design and create new approaches to the delivery of care, and communicate health information in a way that is easily accessible to patients, families and the community. The MaineHealth Innovation team provides a much needed ecosystem and infrastructure that enables the transformation of ideas into improving patient outcomes.”
Beginning as a bedside nurse, Michelle Duval has served the MaineHealth community as an effective and influential leader for over 35 years. In her current role as Chief Nursing Information Officer, Michelle is eager to leverage technology for the improvement of patient care, care team satisfaction and overall community health. She received her undergraduate degree from the University of Southern Maine and an MSN from Grand Canyon University focusing on Healthcare Informatics and Business Continuity. In exploring and implementing new technologies and improving existing ones, she strives to create strong, productive relationships across disciplines and is a recognized mentor for a number of nurse leaders within our organization. When not at work, Michelle enjoys spending time with her three grown children, spoiling her two grandsons and three granddogs.
Michelle has been a MaineHealth Innovation Clinical Coach since 2020.
Read more about Michelle’s background.
The nature of front line nurses is innovative, curious and eager to improve the status quo. This naturally affords them the opportunities to use innovation to improve health and well-being…
Michelle Duval, MSN, RN, NEA-BC
MaineHealth Innovation is about creating a platform for grassroots ideas that come from all across MaineHealth. The end result is often something that goes right back to the bedside.
Nir Harish, MD, MBA
Emergency Physician
NIR HARISH, MD, MBA
Emergency Physician
Pen Bay Medical Center
“MaineHealth Innovation is about creating a platform for grassroots ideas that come from all across MaineHealth. The end result is often something that goes right back to the bedside and makes a real difference for the care team and patients.”
Nir Harish is an emergency physician at Pen Bay Medical Center in Rockport, ME. He joined Pen Bay after completing the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholars Program at Yale University, where he studied the economics of acute care and alternative business models for health care delivery. He completed his residency in Emergency Medicine at the Denver Health Residency in Emergency Medicine, where he also served as a chief resident. He received his undergraduate degree from Yale University, and an MD/MBA from Harvard Medical School and Harvard Business School, where he studied health care systems and operations. He has previously consulted on process improvement for the CDC, directed a national patient safety education collaborative, worked in business development for a medical device company, and participated in Emergency Department redesign at two academic medical centers. He has also consulted for a number of health care startups and entrepreneurs.
Nir has been a MaineHealth Innovation Clinical Coach since 2020.
Read more about Nir’s background.
Sr. Director of Clinical Innovation & Training
Rebecca Hoffmann, MA, LMFT
Sr. Director of Clinical Innovation and Training
Maine Behavioral Healthcare
“Innovation is the practice of making imagination come to life. Not only does innovation generate better ways to provide healthcare, it also contributes to the sustainability and spark of the organization. The MaineHealth Innovation Center provides a welcoming home for imagination to come to life. It offers a safe and encouraging space to harness curiosity, courage, and transformative ideas into reality.”
Rebecca Hoffmann is the Senior Director of Clinical Innovation and Training at Maine Behavioral Healthcare (MBH) in Portland Maine and an Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Tufts University School of Medicine. Rebecca earned both her Bachelor of Science in Child and Family Studies and a Master of Arts in Marriage and Family Therapy from Syracuse University. She is a licensed marriage and family therapist with over twenty years of experience working in behavioral health.
As an organizational leader, Ms. Hoffmann oversees community and state-wide innovation and change efforts related to behavioral health. These innovation endeavors have a particular focus on the adoption of evidence-based practices and the use of implementation science principles. In addition, she manages large federally funded behavioral health research and service grants that focus on providing care and treatment for children and families that have been exposed to trauma. These programs focus on prevention of childhood exposure to violence, implementation of evidence-based trauma treatment, and fostering professional resiliency. Rebecca has extensive training and practice in the fields of childhood trauma, professional resilience, community coalition building, and implementation science. She has published numerous resources related to child traumatic stress.
Ms. Hoffmann has been a MaineHealth Innovation Clinical Coach since 2022.
Read more about her background.
Director of the Advanced Practice Provider Center of Excellence
JESSICA LOGSDON, MHS, MHA, PA-C
Director of the Advanced Practice Provider Center of Excellence, established in 2022
Jessica joined MaineHealth to continue pursuing her passion for the advocacy and integration of advanced practice providers within the healthcare system. Prior to joining MaineHealth, she served as the Senior Director of Physician Assistant Services at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, in Boston, MA, where she oversaw the professional development and scope of practice of more than 500 physician assistants. She also practiced clinically as a physician assistant in the neurosurgical ICU for many years. As an advanced practice provider and an administrative leader, she has been uniquely positioned to navigate the unique and varied challenges of communication across teams in healthcare, as well as their impacts on staff and patient experiences.
Jessica previously served as member of the Board of Directors for the Massachusetts Association of Physician Assistants and as a lecturer of neurology for the MGH Institute of Health Professions physician assistant program. She has consulted with Boston based health care startup DayToDay, designing virtual perioperative patient care pathways, and Point of Care Network as a mentor and content expert for the development of a digital networking and education platform for advanced practice providers.Jessica hopes to continue working toward creating a more unified healthcare community at MaineHealth through the application of innovative technologies to help both care team members and leaders feel more connected to one another. When not at work, she enjoys cooking, skiing, and bike riding to the beach with her family. She is also actively involved in the school community, often volunteering and providing education around life threatening food allergies to promote awareness and increase inclusivity of those impacted.
Jessica has been a MaineHealth Innovation Clinical Coach since 2023.
Cardiac Surgeon & Director of Congenital Cardiac Surgery
SUNIL MALHOTRA, MD
Cardiac Surgeon & Director of Congenital Cardiac Surgery
Maine Medical Center
“I am constantly motivated to find ways in my career at MaineHealth to innovate to improve the care for patients with congenital heart disease. MaineHealth Innovation is an invaluable partner and resource to help me achieve my goals.”
Sunil Malhotra, MD is a pediatric and adult congenital cardiac surgeon and serves as the Director of Congenital Cardiac Surgery at Maine Medical Center. He received his undergraduate degree in biochemistry from Cornell University and doctorate of medicine from the NYU School of Medicine. Following medical school, he completed a general surgery residency at the NYU Medical Center and a cardiothoracic surgery residency at the University of Colorado. He then spent two years as a research fellow in pediatric cardiac surgery at the University of California, San Francisco. Sunil’s congenital heart surgery training was at Lucille Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford University in Palo Alto, CA.
Before arriving in Maine, Sunil was the Director of Pediatric and Adult Congenital Cardiac Surgery at the Children’s Hospital of New Jersey. He served in this role for eight years, during which time he was also Assistant Professor at the NYU Langone Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery. He is certified by the American Board of Thoracic Surgery in Thoracic and Cardiac Surgery as well as Congenital Cardiac Surgery.
Optimizing outcomes in pediatric cardiac surgery has been a consistent focus of the translational research endeavors throughout Sunil’s career. During his research fellowship in the Division of Pediatric Cardiac Surgery at UCSF, he was fortunate to receive a National Research Service Award from the NIH to study fetal cardiac bypass in a primate model. He developed a novel isolated working fetal heart model to optimize fetal myocardial protection strategies for fetal cardiac surgery.
More recently, his research has focused on improving neurologic outcomes following infant heart surgery. He investigated promising biomarkers for assessing neurologic injury in infants and correlated those findings with longitudinal neurodevelopmental outcomes. Another research interest includes developing visualization tools to optimize surgical education. With support from the Doty Educational Award from the Western Thoracic Surgical Association, he developed web-based, immersive 3D training modules for the Arterial Switch Operation and Complete AV Canal repair.
Sunil’s clinical interests are focused on innovative surgical approaches to complex congenital heart defects, with the goal of minimizing surgical trauma and maximizing quality of life for children and adults born with congenital heart disease.
Sunil has been a MaineHealth Innovation Clinical Coach since 2021.
Read more about Sunil’s background.
I am constantly motivated to find ways in my career at MaineHealth to innovate to improve the care for patients with congenital heart disease. MaineHealth Innovation is an invaluable partner and resource to help me achieve my goals.
Sunil Malhotra, MD
Simulation and Innovation offer natural symbiosis. Our Simulation Center serves as a laboratory for Innovation projects.
Leah Mallory, MD
Medical Director, Simulation
Center & Pediatric Hospitalist
LEAH MALLORY, MD
Medical Director, Simulation Center & Pediatric Hospitalist
The Barbara Bush Children’s Hospital at Maine Medical Center
“Simulation and Innovation offer natural symbiosis. Our Simulation Center serves as a laboratory for Innovation projects; innovators can test their ideas in realistic clinical settings, with real medical equipment and state of the art human simulators.”
Leah Mallory, MD is a graduate of Stanford University School of Medicine in 2003, and a graduate of Stanford University in 1997. Prior to beginning medical school, Dr. Mallory worked as an Emergency Medical Technician and Firefighter. Dr. Mallory completed her residency in Pediatrics, in the Boston Combined Residency Program (a collaborative program between Children’s Hospital Boston/ Harvard University and Boston Medical Center/ Boston University), staying an extra year to serve as Chief Resident. Dr. Mallory is currently a Pediatric Hospitalist at The Barbara Bush Children’s Hospital at Maine Medical Center. She is a member of the TUSM Maine/Track admissions committee and director of the pediatric simulation program. Dr. Mallory’s teaching responsibilities encompass both undergraduate and graduate medical education as well as pediatric simulation-based interprofessional team training in the hospital setting. Other academic interests include simulation-based assessment of trainees and quality improvement issues in pediatric hospitalist medicine, specifically hospital-to-home transitions.
Leah has been a MaineHealth Innovation Clinical Coach since 2020.
Director of Telehealth
LIZZY MULCAHY, DNP, FNP-C
Director of Telehealth
MaineHealth
“The MaineHealth care team is driven by increasing access to quality healthcare for their patients. This passion means that there is openness and excitement about trying new technology to connect their patients to care. The combination of passion and perseverance is a winning combination for both the development of innovation but also the interest in adopting those innovations into our patients and care team experiences. I am excited to be a part of this work!”
Lizzy Mulcahy, DNP, FNP-C, is the Director of Telehealth for MaineHealth. She leads a team of program managers and program coordinators who are responsible working with care team members to design and implement telehealth solutions at MaineHealth. These solutions range from facilitating a virtual visit for a patient and a provider at home to allowing an urgent consultation to occur between an admitted infant at a rural hospital and a NICU physician at Maine Medical Center. The department is focused on creating solutions that improve clinical outcomes, the patient experience and the provider experience. In addition to her role with the Telehealth department, she sees patients in the geriatric department as a nurse practitioner. Prior to joining MaineHealth, she was a leader in the innovation department at Ochsner Health, where she gained experience designing, implementing, and scaling remote monitoring programs throughout the health system. Her background also includes over ten years of direct patient care, including time as an ER nurse and as a primary care nurse practitioner. She completed her undergraduate degree at Harvard College in social anthropology and health policy, her nursing bachelor and master degrees at University of Pennsylvania, and her doctor of nursing practice degree at University of Massachusetts. Lizzy feels very lucky to be joining the MaineHealth team. Outside of work, she is very excited to start exploring the Maine outdoors with her husband and three young children.
Lizzy has been a MaineHealth Innovation Clinical Coach since 2022.
George W. Hallett, MD
Chair of Pediatrics
MARY OTTOLINI, MD, MPH, MEd
George W. Hallett, MD Chair of Pediatrics
The Barbara Bush Children’s Hospital at Maine Medical Center
Mary Ottolini, MD, MPH, MEd is the George W. Hallett MD Chair of Pediatrics at the Barbara Bush Children’s Hospital (BBCH) at Maine Medical Center and a Tufts University Professor of Pediatrics. In her role as the Chair of Pediatrics, she oversees the academic and clinical work of pediatric faculty at the BBCH and the MaineHealth Children’s Health Service Line.
Mary is a nationally recognized expert in medical education with particular expertise in eLearning. During her 30 year career as a medical educator she has presented numerous workshops and original research in medical education at national meetings. She has published book chapters, review articles, and original educational research in peer-reviewed journals. She has served as the Education Chair for the Academic Pediatric Association (APA) and as the APA President. Mary was awarded the prestigious Pediatric Academic Society’s (PAS) Ray Helfer award three times for the most outstanding educational research study presented at the annual PAS meeting as well as the APA’s Teaching Program Award four times for educational programs she helped develop and implement.
Mary was awarded the Parker Palmer Courage to Lead Award by the ACGME in 2016 for outstanding Graduate Medical Education leadership as the Designated Institutional Official at Children’s National Hospital and Lifetime Achievement Award for Medical Student Education Leadership from the Council on Medical Student Education in Pediatrics in 2017. In 2019 she was awarded the Pediatric Hospital Medicine LifeTime Achievement Award. In 2020 she was named an inaugural member of the National Academy of Distinguished Educators in Pediatrics and a MITE Academy Master Educator.
Her clinical interest areas include the use of technology to innovate the learning process, including eLearning and simulation with augmented reality. Her current innovation project, Neonatal Resuscitation Simulation using Augmented Reality, was a recipient of the MaineHealth Innovation Ignite Fund and was featured in the MaineHealth Innovation Blender event series.
Mary has been a MaineHealth Innovation Clinical Coach since 2020.
Read more about Mary’s background.
Manager of Clinical Informatics
TAMMY WHITNEY, RN, MSN, MHA
Manager of Clinical Informatics
Stephens Memorial Hospital
“As an organization, we are fortunate to have such a large pool of experts from various backgrounds in work experiences, education, and culture. Our employees often brain storm the most outstanding solutions to identified problems or create systems of optimization. Now, through MaineHealth Innovation, our team members have a designated place to bring their ideas forward to be discussed, encouraged, and developed. We are just beginning to scratch the surface of the countless innovative ideas that our MaineHealth members have to share, improving patient and community outcomes.”
Tammy Whitney is an experienced Clinical Leader, working in the hospital and ambulatory health care settings for over 27 years. She earned her Bachelor of Science in Nursing from William Carey College and a Master of Science in Nursing/Master of Health Administration from St. Joseph’s College.
Tammy moved to Maine from Louisiana in 2007, when she joined MaineHealth as an RN in the Neonatal ICU/ Continuing Care Nursery at the Barbara Bush Children’s Hospital. During her time at MMC, she also held a position as a care manager, and more recently, as a clinical informatics specialist. She worked closely with multidisciplinary teams to provide guidance moving projects forward, led formal Epic training classes, served on numerous governance committees, and was a strong advocate for pediatric patients. In 2020, Tammy joined Stephens Memorial Hospital as the Manager of Clinical Informatics.
When not at work, Tammy enjoys hiking, going to the ocean, and watching as many beautiful Maine sunsets as possible. She also enjoys spending time at the lake with her husband, family, friends, and her dog Rylee.
Tammy has been a MaineHealth Innovation Clinical Coach since 2022.
Read more about Tammy’s background.
Our employees often brain storm the most outstanding solutions to identified problems…
Tammy Whitney, RN, MSN, MHA