Colleen R. Schmitt, MD, MHS, FACG, MASGE, has been appointed President of the GI Quality Improvement Consortium, Inc. (GIQuIC), a national endoscopic registry and clinical benchmarking tool for gastroenterologists that is jointly managed by ASGE and ACG. Founded in 2010, currently, there are over 4,500 physicians participating in the registry and there have been more than 21.5 million colonoscopies, and more than 4.3 million esophagogastroduodenoscopies recorded in the registry.
“It is a great honor to be a part of the GIQuIC Registry leadership team, particularly at this time as we expand the Registry and move into the MIPS Value Pathway reporting. I am excited to work alongside the expert staff and a fantastic Board of Directors and Committee Members and extend our sincere gratitude to Dr. Costas Kefalas for his superb leadership,” noted Dr. Schmitt.
Dr. Schmitt has served on the GIQuIC Board of Directors since 2015. She is Past President of the ASGE and a Trustee and Vice-Chair for the ASGE Foundation. Dr. Schmitt previously served on the ACG’s Practice Parameters, National Affairs, and Publications Committees. She is a past president of the Tennessee Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy, serves on the Board of Directors for the Chattanooga Hamilton County Medical Society, and is active with the Tennessee Medical Association. She is a founding physician for Volunteers in Medicine, and a volunteer for Project Access, an organization that provides healthcare for the uninsured.
Dr. Schmitt recently retired from the gastrointestinal specialty arm of Galen Medical Group where she served as its President. She was chief of the Division of Gastroenterology at the University of Tennessee College of Medicine, Chattanooga Unit, and founder and Medical Director of Memorial Research Center. Dr. Schmitt attended Jacksonville State University where she graduated with a B.S. in Biology and earned her medical degree at the University of South Alabama. She completed her internship and residency at Beth Israel Hospital in Boston before completing joint fellowships in Gastroenterology at Duke University Medical Center and Health Services Research at the Durham VA Hospital, while finishing a Master’s degree in Biometry and Informatics.
Dr. Schmitt assumes the role of GIQuIC president from Costas H. Kefalas, MD, MMM, FACG, FASGE, who served on the GIQuIC Board of Directors for five years and as GIQuIC President from 2021 to 2024. He is currently Vice President of the ACG and will assume the role of ACG President in 2026. Under Dr. Kefalas’ leadership, the registry began expanding to include inflammatory bowel disease, endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography, and endoscopic bariatric therapy measures, and has maintained its status as a Qualified Clinical Data Registry so participating gastroenterologists can report specialty-specific quality measures to the CMS Merit-based Incentive Payment System. GIQuIC, along with its member societies, ACG and ASGE, recognize Dr. Kefalas for his years of service and for his leadership in growing this important quality improvement initiative.
GIQuIC also welcomes Michael B. Wallace, MD, MPH, FACG, FASGE, to its Board of Directors. Dr. Wallace is the Fred C. Andersen Professor of Medicine at Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, FL. His clinical and research interests focus on advanced imaging technologies for early gastrointestinal cancer detection and therapy, including fundamental research in tissue spectroscopy, narrow band imaging, optical coherence tomography, and AI-computer vision systems.
The other members comprising the Board of Directors are Brett B. Bernstein, MD, MBA, FASGE; Katie F. Farah, MD, CPE, FASGE; Aasma Shaukat, MD, MPH, FACG, FASGE; Joseph J. Vicari, MD, MBA, FACG, FASGE; and Jay N. Yepuri, MD, MS, FACG.
About GIQuIC
The GI Quality Improvement Consortium, Ltd. (GIQuIC) is a clinical medical registry established by gastroenterologists in 2010. A joint collaboration of the American College of Gastroenterology (ACG) and the American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy (ASGE), GIQuIC improves patient outcomes by allowing participating physicians to benchmark quality, identify gaps in care, and develop specific and targeted quality improvement initiatives. The registry also contributes data to advance GI research and to assist the GI societies in developing guidelines for patient care. Visit www.giquic.org for more information.