Biography
Amanda Sammann, MD, MPH is an Assistant Professor of general surgery at the University of California, San Francisco and the Founder and Executive Director of The Better Lab; a venture that uses design to study and fix health care challenges. Dr. Sammann is a general surgeon who practices trauma surgery, acute care surgery and surgical critical care at the Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center (ZSFG).
Dr. Sammann received a bachelor's degree in human biology from Stanford University, a Masters in Public Health from Columbia University and a Medical Degree from the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). She completed her surgical training at UCSF and her critical care fellowship at Oregon Health & Sciences University. Dr. Sammann also spent two years as the Medical Fellow and Medical Director at the Silicon Valley design firm, IDEO.
Dr. Sammann has spent a lifetime trying to make things better. She has built novel content for health websites, developed surgical training curriculum, designed medical products and fixed dozens of health care systems challenges. Dr. Sammann has expertise in Human Centered Design (HCD) and is leading research at ZSFG to implement and study the HCD process in the health care setting. She lectures on innovation and design locally and nationally.
Education
Institution | Degree | Dept or School | End Date |
---|---|---|---|
University of California, San Francisco | M.D. | Medicine | 2008 |
Board Certifications
American Board of Surgery, General Surgery
American Board of Surgery, Surgical Critical Care
Clinical Expertise
General Surgery
Trauma Surgery
Acute Care Surgery
Surgical Critical Care
Program Affiliations
The Better Lab
In the News
Research Narrative
Dr. Sammann is the Founder and Executive Director of The Better Lab, a multidisciplinary venture that conducts human centered design research. The goal of her research is to develop new ways to fix health care challenges through greater empathy and better design and to study these novel methods and their outcomes with rigorous public health methodologies. Early research initiatives are focused on health care systems quality improvement at the Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center.
Research Interests
Quality Improvement and Outcomes
Innovation
Human Centered Design
Implementation Sciences
Trauma Care
Underserved Populations
Transitions of Care
Shared Decision Making
Surgical and Medical Education
Publications
- Comparison of 3 optimized delivery strategies for completion of isoniazid-rifapentine (3HP) for tuberculosis prevention among people living with HIV in Uganda: A single-center randomized trial.| | View in PubMed
- Implementation, feasibility, and acceptability of 99DOTS-based supervision of treatment for drug-susceptible TB in Uganda.| | View in PubMed
- Using a human-centered, mixed methods approach to understand the patient waiting experience and its impact on medically underserved Populations.| | View in PubMed
- Using Architectural Mapping to Understand Behavior and Space Utilization in a Surgical Waiting Room of a Safety Net Hospital.| | View in PubMed
- Facilitating Integrated Perinatal Care for Families Affected by Substance Use.| | View in PubMed
- Risk factors associated with student distress in medical school: Associations with faculty support and availability of wellbeing resources.| | View in PubMed
- Completion of isoniazid-rifapentine (3HP) for tuberculosis prevention among people living with HIV: Interim analysis of a hybrid type 3 effectiveness-implementation randomized trial.| | View in PubMed
- Use of Telehealth for Routine Postoperative Care in a Safety-Net Population.| | View in PubMed
- Using human centered design to identify opportunities for reducing inequities in perinatal care.| | View in PubMed
- Digital adherence technology for tuberculosis treatment supervision: A stepped-wedge cluster-randomized trial in Uganda.| | View in PubMed
- The DISTANCE study: Determining the impact of social distancing on trauma epidemiology during the COVID-19 epidemic-An interrupted time-series analysis.| | View in PubMed
- Developing Virtual Reality Trauma Training Experiences Using 360-Degree Video: Tutorial.| | View in PubMed
- Iterative Adaptation of a Tuberculosis Digital Medication Adherence Technology to Meet User Needs: Qualitative Study of Patients and Health Care Providers Using Human-Centered Design Methods.| | View in PubMed
- Medical students in distress: The impact of gender, race, debt, and disability.| | View in PubMed
- Study protocol and implementation details for a pragmatic, stepped-wedge cluster randomised trial of a digital adherence technology to facilitate tuberculosis treatment completion.| | View in PubMed
- Impact Evaluation of a Training and Capacity Building Program for Inguinal Hernia Repair with Mesh in Ghana.| | View in PubMed
- Opportunities to improve digital adherence technologies and TB care using human-centered design.| | View in PubMed
- The Anesthesia Patient Safety Foundation Stoelting Conference 2019: Perioperative Deterioration-Early Recognition, Rapid Intervention, and the End of Failure-to-Rescue.| | View in PubMed
- Designing an Information and Communications Technology Tool With and for Victims of Violence and Their Case Managers in San Francisco: Human-Centered Design Study.| | View in PubMed
- Protocol for the 3HP Options Trial: a hybrid type 3 implementation-effectiveness randomized trial of delivery strategies for short-course tuberculosis preventive therapy among people living with HIV in Uganda.| | View in PubMed
- Rapid Response of an Academic Surgical Department to the COVID-19 Pandemic: Implications for Patients, Surgeons, and the Community.| | View in PubMed
- Improving Efficiency and Meeting Expectations Without Compromising Care on Trauma Surgical Rounds.| | View in PubMed
- Decision Making Among Patients with Unruptured Aneurysms: A Qualitative Analysis of Online Patient Forum Discussions.| | View in PubMed
- Why So Glum? Understanding the Challenges in Meeting User's Needs on Trauma Surgical Rounds.| | View in PubMed
- The mangled extremity score and amputation: Time for a revision.| | View in PubMed
- Aggressive and minimally invasive surgery for pulmonary metastasis of sarcoma.| | View in PubMed
- VATS lobectomy facilitates the delivery of adjuvant docetaxel-carboplatin chemotherapy in patients with non-small cell lung cancer.| | View in PubMed
- Novel video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery metastatectomy technique equivalent to open thoracotomy for identification of numerous and small lesions.| | View in PubMed
- Pulmonary metastasectomy: Improving survival with less invasive, more aggressive surgery.| | View in PubMed
- Impact of preclinical exposure to organ donation on knowledge and attitudes of medical students.| | View in PubMed
- Integrating surgical skills education into the anatomy laboratory.| | View in PubMed
- Operating room assist: surgical mentorship and operating room experience for preclerkship medical students.| | View in PubMed
- 105. An Integrated First Year Surgical Skills Training Curriculum Enhances Students’ Skills and Improves Interest in Surgery.| | View in PubMed
- QS44. Surgical Mentorship and Operating Room Experience For Preclerkship Medical Students.| | View in PubMed
- A surgical skills elective to expose preclinical medical students to surgery.| | View in PubMed
- P29 Teaching surgical skills in the pre-clinical years: Suggestions for improvement on the operating room assist (“OR Assist”) elective.| | View in PubMed