Alumni/ae Spotlight

Lea Anne Gardner, RN, PhD ('06)
Senior Associate
American College of Physicians

Lea Anne Gardner graduated from Virginia Commonwealth University in August 2006.   In November 2006, she started working for the American College of Physicians (ACP) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania as the Senior Associate for the Performance Measurement Subcommittee (PMSC).  This role is multifaceted and focuses on a broad range of activities surrounding physician performance measurement. Her days are spent working with the PMSC reviewing, commenting, and voting on the many different performance measures that are developed by organizations such as the AMA Physician Consortium for Performance Improvement (PCPI), the National Committee on Quality Assurance, AHRQ, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid, other specialty physician organizations, and Quality Improvement Organizations.  She also serves as the ACP liaison for the AMA PCPI, National Quality Forum, and AQA.   When not busy with these activities, she works with the PMSC on performance measure policy papers.  This past spring, they put together a two-day Pre-Session Course on Performance Measurement and Pay for Performance at the ACP Internal Medicine 2008 Annual Meeting.

Prior to graduating from VCU, Lea Anne has had a variety of positions.  She has previously worked at Duke University Medical Center conducting follow up surveys for various cardiac studies, served an Administrative Internship at Lexington Memorial Hospital while working on her MSPH, was a Clinical Research Nurse and Clinical Nurse Coordinator for group of Cardiac Surgeons in Blue Island, IL, and started in health care as a Coronary Intensive Care Unit staff/charge nurse at Christ Hospital in Oak Lawn, IL.

In addition to her PhD from VCU, she holds a Masters of Science in Public Health in Health Policy and Administration from the University of North Carolina School of Public Health (1989), a Bachelor of Science in Nursing and Psychology from Elmhurst College, Elmhurst IL, (1986) and a Diploma in Nursing from Illinois Masonic Medical Center School of Nursing, Chicago, IL (1981).  She is an active member of the National Healthcare Quality Association, and Academy Health.   Lea Anne currently resides in Cherry Hill, New Jersey with her two teenage children.