Sean R. Townsend, M.D., is Chief Operating Officer at California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco, California where he was previously Vice President of Quality & Safety for 13 years. Dr. Townsend is board certified in critical care medicine and a Clinical Associate Professor of Medicine at University of California, San Francisco. Dr. Townsend attended medical school at the University of Chicago, Pritzker School of Medicine and completed residency at Beth Isreael Deaconess Medical Center and pulmonary and critical care fellowship at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts. He is a nationally recognized leader in patient safety and quality improvement, a faculty member at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement for 20 years, and a founding leader of the Surviving Sepsis Campaign (SSC). Presently Dr. Townsend serves as measure steward for the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Service’s first sepsis quality measure, SEP-1.