Dora Hughes
Dora Hughes, M.D., M.P.H., was named the Acting Chief Medical Officer and Acting Director of the Center for Clinical Standards and Quality (CCSQ) for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) in July 2023. CCSQ is primarily responsible for executing all national clinical, quality, and safety standards for healthcare facilities and providers, as well as establishing coverage determinations for items and services that improve health outcomes for Medicare beneficiaries.
Previously, Dr. Hughes served as Chief Medical Officer at the CMS Innovation Center. She led the Center’s work on health equity, advised on care delivery, payment and data collection strategies for the Center’s models and initiatives, and represented CMS on clinical and cross-agency working groups within HHS.
Earlier in her career, Dr. Hughes served as the Counselor for Science & Public Health to Secretary Kathleen Sebelius at the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. In this role, she helped with passage and early implementation of the Affordable Care Act and provided oversight and guidance on priority issues regarding public health and prevention; workforce and the safety net; food, drug and device regulatory matters; and biomedical research innovation.
In addition to federal service, Dr. Hughes was an Associate Research Professor at the Milken Institute School of Public Health at George Washington University (GWU), where her work focused on the intersection of clinical and community health, health equity, healthcare delivery and teaching. She remains on faculty at GWU’s School of Medicine and Health Sciences. Dr. Hughes also has served as Senior Policy Advisor at Sidley Austin, where she advised on regulatory and legislative matters in the life science industry.
Dr. Hughes began her career in health policy as Senior Program Officer at the Commonwealth Fund, and subsequently as Deputy Director for the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee under Senator Edward M. Kennedy. She then served as the Health Policy Advisor to former Senator Barack Obama.
Dr. Hughes received a B.S. from Washington University, M.D. from Vanderbilt and M.P.H. from Harvard. She completed internal medicine residency at Brigham & Women’s Hospital.
Jean Moody-Williams
Jean D. Moody-Williams, RN, MPP, is the Deputy Director of the Center for Clinical Standards and Quality. Jean is a member of the leadership team responsible for one of CMS’ Centers that has more than 400 employees and a $3 billion annual budget. She is responsible for working with a great team to lead policy activities for Quality Improvement Programs, End Stage Renal Disease Networks, Survey and Certification, Quality Measurement and Health Assessment, Clinical Standards, Coverage and Analysis, Quality Innovations Models and many of the agency’s Value Based Purchasing and public reporting programs for hospitals, physicians and ambulatory settings.
Prior to this, she was the Group Director for the CMS Quality Improvement Group (QIG) in CMS and provided oversight for the nation’s Quality Improvement Organizations, or QIOs, and the End Stage Renal Disease Quality Networks which provide a national infrastructure to support technical assistance, learning and action networks, and a variety of value and quality improvement efforts across the entire continuum of care. She also served as the Director of Quality for CMS Medicaid Programs.
Prior to joining CMS, Ms. Moody-Williams served as an executive at a number of state and private entities working to improve care for patients and families including, the Maryland Health Care Commission (MHCC), the National Resource Center for Health Policy and Strategies, Quality Improvement Organizations and a health care system in Dallas. She is also a clinician.
She is the author of the book, Transitions, Trust and Triumph: A Daily Devotion for Caregivers. She received her Bachelors of Science in Nursing from Hampton University and a Masters of Public Policy and Management from the University of Maryland, College Park.
Tamyra Garcia
Tamyra Garcia, MPH was named Acting Deputy Director of the Center for Clinical Standards and Quality (CCSQ) for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) in November 2023. Tamyra works alongside Senior Executives to lead Center operations, supporting workforce and business functions for an organization with over 800 staff and a multi-billion-dollar budget. Mrs. Garcia is responsible for cultivating the organizational infrastructure necessary to improve safety, quality, equity, and coverage across the healthcare continuum. She enjoys working alongside an extremely talented interdisciplinary workforce to meet CCSQ priorities.
Tamyra comes into this acting role with over 20 consecutive years of public service. Her skills offer a unique combination of data analytics, policy development, and operations. In her role as Deputy Director of the Quality Measurement and Value Based Incentives Group, she was responsible for executing programs and policies that leverage quality measures and value-based incentive programs in hospitals, dialysis facilities, nursing homes, psychiatric facilities, and physician offices to promote optimal healthcare across the nation.
Her public health and policy expertise vary in scope. Prior to joining CMS, she collaborated with non-governmental organizations to examine the quality of care provided to patients at maternal and child health clinics in the Dominican Republic. She also worked as an Epidemiologist for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and led Focus Areas for the Healthy People 2010 Initiative as an Emerging Leader Fellow.
Tamyra graduated from Spelman College and obtained her Master’s in Public Health with a focus in Epidemiology, from Columbia University. She is passionate about improving healthcare, establishing positive work environments, and caring for her loving family.
Shari M. Ling, M.D.
Dr. Shari M. Ling is currently the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), Deputy Chief Medical Officer serving in the Center for Clinical Standards and Quality (CCSQ), responsible for assisting the CMS Chief Medical Officer in the Agency's pursuit of higher quality health care, healthier populations, and lower cost through quality improvement. Dr. Ling's long-standing focus is on the achievement of meaningful health outcomes through delivery of high quality beneficiary-centered care across all care settings, with a special interest in the care of persons with multiple chronic conditions and functional limitations, and reducing health disparities.
Dr. Ling has served as the lead coordinator and facilitator of the CCSQ Measures Forum. Dr. Ling represents CMS on the Health and Human Services (HHS) Multiple Chronic Conditions workgroup, and the National Quality Forum Measures Application Partnership Post-acute Care/Long-term Care workgroup, and chairs the Measures and Data sources sub-workgroup for the HHS Action Plan for Healthcare Associated Infection (HAI) Prevention in Long-term Care facilities. Dr. Ling also serves as the clinical sub-group lead for the HHS National Alzheimer's Project Act.
Dr. Ling is a Geriatrician and Rheumatologist who received her medical training at Georgetown University School of Medicine where she graduated as a member of the Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Society. Dr. Ling received her clinical training in Internal Medicine and Rheumatology at Georgetown University Medical Center, and completing Geriatric Medicine studies at Johns Hopkins University., remaining on faculty at Johns Hopkins for 5 years, after which she joined the Intramural Research Program of the National Institutes of Health at the National Institute on Aging as a Staff Clinician for 8 years studying human aging and age-associated chronic diseases with attention to musculoskeletal conditions and mobility function.
Dr. Ling continues to serve as a part-time faculty member in the Division of Geriatric Medicine and Gerontology at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and in the Division of Rheumatology, Allergy and Clinical Immunology at the University of Mary-land. Dr. Ling volunteers at the Veterans Administration Medical Center in Baltimore. She is a Gerontologist who received her training in Direct Service from the Ethel Percy Andrus Gerontology Center, at the University of Southern California, and served as the co-director of the Andrus Older Adult Counseling Center.
Dr. Ling resides in Maryland, is married and has two children.
Michelle Schreiber, M.D.
Dr. Schreiber is the Deputy Director of the Center for Clinical Standards and Quality for the Centers (CCSQ) for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). In addition, she serves as the Group Director for the Quality Measurement and Value-Based Incentives Group (QMVIG). In this capacity, she is responsible for executing the quality strategies of CMS including quality measurement, and value based incentive programs to encourage the transition to value based care. Dr. Schreiber is a general internal medicine physician with over 25 years of health care experience. Prior to her work with CMS/CCSQ, she was the Senior Vice President and Chief Quality Officer of Henry Ford Health System (HFHS) in Detroit, Michigan. Prior roles at HFHS included the Division Head of General Internal Medicine, and the SVP of Clinical Transformation and IT Integration, where she was the clinical lead of the system-wide Epic implementation. The Epic implementation and use earned HFHS a Davies Award in 2018. She has also held senior leadership roles at the Detroit Medical Center, where she was the Chief Quality Officer, and with Trinity Health System where she was the national system Chief Medical Officer, and acting interim Chief Medical Information Officer.
In addition to her health system roles, Dr. Schreiber has served on numerous quality committees including Michigan Hospital Association statewide quality committee, and Board of Directors for the MHA Keystone Center and the Patient Safety Organization, the Board of Directors of MPRO (Michigan Peer Review Organization – the Michigan QIO), the Board of Directors of Health Alliance Plan insurance company, the National Quality Forum Patient Safety Metrics Committee, and the National Quality Partners. She has worked with the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) including as part of its Leadership Alliance, the Pursuing Equity initiative, and an initiative to enhance Board of Trustees engagement in quality through a partnership with IHI and National Patient Safety Foundation. Dr. Schreiber has also served as a member of the Epic Safety Forum, and the Cerner Academic Advisory Group.
Dr. Schreiber’s interests are quality improvement, quality measures, and the intersection with electronic medical records to advance quality and quality measures.
Dr. Schreiber graduated from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio with degrees in humanities/comparative literature and biology, and also attended medical school at CWRU. She completed her internal medicine training at New York Hospital/Weill Cornell University Medical Center in New York City. She is married, with two children; one a physician at Johns Hopkins and one a committed non-physician.
CCSQ Functional Statement
- Serves as the focal point for all quality, clinical, medical science issues, survey and certification, and policies for CMS' programs. Provides leadership and coordination for the development and implementation of a cohesive, CMS-wide approach to measuring and promoting quality and leads CMS's priority-setting process for clinical quality improvement. Coordinates quality-related activities with outside organizations. Monitors the quality of Medicare, Medicaid, and the Clinical Laboratory and Improvement Amendments (CLIA). Evaluates the success of interventions.
- Identifies and develops best practices and techniques in quality improvement; implementation of these techniques will be overseen by appropriate components. Collaborates on demonstration projects to test and promote quality measurement and improvement.
- Develops, tests evaluate, adopts, and supports performance measurement systems (i.e., quality measures) to evaluate the care provided to CMS beneficiaries except for demonstration projects residing in other components.
- Assures that CMS's quality-related activities (survey and certification, technical assistance, beneficiary information, payment policies, and provider/plan incentives) are fully and effectively integrated. Carries out the Health Care Quality Improvement Program for the Medicare, Medicaid, and CLIA programs.
- Oversees the planning, policy, coordination, and implementation of the survey, certification and enforcement programs for all Medicare and Medicaid providers and suppliers, and for laboratories under the auspices of CLIA.
- Serves as CMS's lead for management, oversight, budget, and performance issues relating to the survey and certification program and the related interactions with the States.
- Leads in the specification and operational refinement of an integrated CMS quality information system, which includes tools for measuring the coordination of care between health care settings; analyzes data supplied by that system to identify opportunities to improve care and assess the success of improvement interventions.
- Develops requirements of participation for providers and plans in the Medicare, Medicaid, and CLIA programs. Revises requirements based on statutory change and input from other components.
- Operates the Quality Improvement Organization and End-Stage Renal Disease Network program in conjunction with Regional Offices, providing policies and procedures, contract design, program coordination, and leadership in selected projects.
- Identifies, prioritizes, and develops content for clinical and health-related aspects of CMS's Consumer Information Strategy; collaborates with other components to develop comparative providers and plan performance information for consumer choices.
- Prepares the scientific, clinical, and procedural basis for coverage of new and established technologies and services and provides coverage recommendations to the CMS Administrator. Coordinates activities of CMS's Technology Advisory Committee and maintains liaison with other departmental components regarding the safety and effectiveness of technologies and services; prepares the scientific and clinical basis for, and recommends approaches to, quality-related medical review activities of carriers and payment policies.
- Identifies new and innovative approaches and tests for improving quality programs and lowering costs.