Jennifer Dawson

Bio: Jennifer Dawson is Vice President of quality and regulatory affairs for Sonic Reference Laboratory in Austin, Texas. She is responsible for oversight of regulatory affairs and for the development of a strategic approach to a robust, best practice quality management system for her lab. Sonic Reference Laboratory is Sonic Healthcare USA’s premier esoteric reference lab which opened its doors in December 2014. Jennifer was one of four executives that built SRL from the ground up. She earned her Masters in Healthcare Administration with a concentration in Quality and Patient Safety from Regis University in Denver, Colorado. Jennifer is a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt, a Certified Professional in Laboratory Quality and holds the Diplomate in Laboratory Management certification from ASCP. She sits on the CLMA Board of Directors, the CLSI Quality Management Systems & General Practices Expert Panel, and the AACC Management Sciences & Patient Safety Division. She also serves on the National Malcolm Baldrige Quality Award Board of Examiners & serves as Vice Chair for the ASCLS Patient Safety Committee. Jennifer also frequently presents posters and publishes articles in trade magazines and journals on the topic of quality in the lab. Jennifer’s areas of interest include ISO 15189 and Baldrige Framework deployment, real-time quality metrics, cost of poor quality, electronic management of non-conformities, creating a culture of quality and quality in the pre-analytical phase.