Deborah Schwab, RN

Education:
University of California, San Francisco, MSN

Professional Affiliations:
National Certification, ANCC, Adult Health Nurse Practitioner, Sigma Theta Tau

Personal Statement:
CTAF’s unique approach as a public forum for reviewing new healthcare technologies is consistent with my personal view that difficult and costly healthcare decisions require consideration by an experienced, multi-disciplinary panel representing various perspectives. I am proud to be part of a team that bases their recommendations about the effectiveness of technologies on existing evidence, independent of marketing, coverage and financial incentives.

Related Activities:
Consultant, Health Care Strategy, Product Development, Program Operations, Practicing Adult Nurse Practitioner

Maria Chaves, RN

Wade Aubry, MD

Position:
CTAF Senior Medical Advisor
Senior Clinical & Policy Advisor for the Center for Medical Technology Policy
Associate Clinical Professor of Medicine at UCSF and a core faculty member in the Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies

Education:
Dr. Aubry is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Stanford University and received his medical degree from the UCLA School of Medicine.  He completed his postgraduate training in internal medicine and endocrinology at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.

Professional Affiliations:
Dr. Aubry serves or has served on numerous national health care advisory panels for CMS (MedCAC), NIH, IOM, NCQA, AHRQ (Effective Health Care Stakeholder Group), AMA, ACRIN, and others.
He has served as Senior Vice President and Chief Medical Officer for Blue Shield of California, National Medical Consultant and Chairman of the Technology Evaluation Center (TEC) Medical Advisory Panel at Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, Vice President for the Lewin Group, and Chief of Staff of Saint Francis Memorial Hospital in San Francisco.

Personal Statement:
Establishing the efficacy of new technologies is an essential step towards improving the real value of the health care services delivered to the public. CTAF is making important contributions to the growing field of evidence-based care, helping to determine when new technologies truly improve health outcomes and patient safety.

Related Activities:
Dr. Aubry has many publications on technology assessment, coverage, and managed care and is the co-author of a comprehensive case study on the rise and fall of a controversial treatment for breast cancer entitled False Hope: Bone Marrow Transplantation for Breast Cancer, published by Oxford University Press in 2007.

Sandra Mills, RN

Position:
CTAF Program Consultant

Education:
R.N., Bachelor of Science in Health Science
Certification in Health Care Quality and Management

Professional Affiliations:
Diplomate of the American Board of Quality Assurance and Utilization Review Physicians (ABQAURP) since 1995

Personal Statement:
I have been involved with CTAF and its predecessor since 2001 and strongly believe that one of the ways that we as a society can provide quality medical care to patients is through a thorough evaluation of the safety and effectiveness of medical devices, treatments and diagnostics. It is important to ensure that these devices add value to patient care and outcomes. It is an honor and exciting to be part of a team involved in this work.

CTAF Consultants

The California Technology Forum contracts with the faculty from the Division of General Internal Medicine at the University of California-San Francisco (UCSF) to conduct systematic reviews and technology assessments of new medical technologies.  In total, they have performed more than 100 assessments for CTAF, the United States Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF), and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ).

CTAF consultants work in tandem with the UCSF-Stanford evidence-based practice center (EPC), and serve as consultants and educators within the Clinical and Translational Science Institute at UCSF. The UCSF consultants to CTAF have also developed clinical practice guidelines and performed cost-effectiveness analyses for the USPSTF, and have previously served as medical technology consultants on projects and panels for the World Health Organization (WHO), the Blue Shield Foundation, and the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

The UCSF consultants draw from specialized training in public health, clinical research, and epidemiology, as well as from a rich tradition of collaboration with international experts at the UCSF Schools of Medicine, Pharmacy, Dentistry, and Nursing. They are recognized authorities on a broad range of health technology-related issues, including advanced research methods, clinical decision-making, and medical ethics and have published more than 120 articles in peer-reviewed medical journals.  The consultants have also served as principal investigators on multi-center clinical trials, and as directors and members of a wide variety of committees dedicated to increasing the quality of human research, medical technology, and health care in the United States.