Medical Officer
Center for Quality Improvement and Patient Safety,
Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality
Department of Health and Human Services
Washington, DC
Amy.Helwig@AHRQ.hhs.gov
Dr. Amy Helwig, M.D. currently serves as a Medical Officer in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Service - Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality’s Center for Quality Improvement and Patient Safety. As the lead physician on the team charged with implementing the Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Act, she is a specialist in the development of Patient Safety Organizations and the national reporting structure for patient safety events. Additionally, she brings her family medicine practice experience to AHRQ’s involvement in adverse event trigger development for electronic health records, patient safety culture, clinical team dynamics, and medical errors research.
Prior to her current position, Dr. Helwig served as the Medical Director, Clinical Strategy and Policy for the Washington, DC based eHealth Initiative. In this role she developed programs to successfully engaging clinicians in health information exchange and the use of HIT and HIE to operationally transform medical practices.
Dr Helwig is a board certified family physician and previously practiced family medicine at Quad/Med, the medical division of Quad/Graphics, in Sussex, WI. In addition to her clinical responsibilities, as the Associate Corporate Medical Director she directed their unique multi-state health care and disease management system that offered on-site primary care clinics for employees and families of Quad/Graphics.
Dr Helwig is a graduate of the Medical College of Wisconsin. She has a Master’s degree in Medical Informatics from the Medical College of Wisconsin and the Milwaukee School of Engineering. At the Medical College of Wisconsin, Dr. Helwig served as an Assistant Residency Director in the Department of Family and Community Medicine and researched the use of handheld computers to deliver point-of-care, evidence based medicine reviews to practitioners.