Quality Improvement and Patient Safety Track

Goals, Learning Objectives, & Outcome

Goals

This 24-month track will support residents & fellows to gain the knowledge, skills, and methods necessary to: (a) become leaders in healthcare system's quality and safety committees, initiatives, and activities and (b) prepare them for careers in this field.

Learning Objectives

1. To obtain knowledge in quality improvement methods
2. To apply quality improvement methods to a healthcare gap in quality
3. To identify system failures and medical errors in health systems and report them in the appropriate hospital error reporting system.

Outcome

Upon completion of the track, residents will be awarded a certificate of distinction in Quality Improvement and Patient Safety from Emory University School of Medicine.

Components

Topics and Schedule

Application Process

Participation will be restricted to residents and fellows at the PGY-2 or higher level. Applications are due in the Spring (deadline of April 30) and are open to residents or fellows who will be PGY-2 or higher level as of July 1 of the same year.

The application must include the following components:

• A personal statement describing why you would like to participate in the residency track, your interest in Quality Improvement and Patient Safety, and your expected goals and outcomes.  The personal statement should be limited to no more than 1 page.
• A brief letter of support from the Program Director. A letter of support from the applicant's program director must be included as part of the application process.  The letter should indicate support for the resident's participation in the Quality Improvement and Patient Safety track including allowing the resident to attend the required Small Group Learning sessions and EHC Quality Academy course.

Each year, please submit your application to Dr. Vanessa Fields no later than April 30 for consideration in the cohort starting in July. 

Name: Nicole Rainville  

Specialty: Urogynecology and Reconstructive Pelvic Surgery

Interests: As a fellow in Urogynecology, I am passionate about helping women achieve improved quality of life with pelvic floor disorders. My goals for the Quality Improvement and Patient Safety track are to improve our patients' access to care, improving health literacy surrounding pelvic floor disorders and how they can be treated, and also improving patient safety both in the operating room and in the clinic.

Name: Elizabeth Thayer

Specialty: Gynecology Oncology

Interests: I have a particular interest in perioperative quality improvement, and especially in developing adaptable systems that can improve perioperative care despite differences in baseline protocols in different institutions. I am also interested in how patient education impacts improvements in care provision and patient safety. I was involved in perioperative patient education and QI initiatives in residency and look forward to building on that experience through Emory's QI/PS track. 

Name: Hope Elizabeth VanCleve

Specialty: Pediatric Critical Care

Interests: I am deeply committed to quality improvement research in the pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) because of its potential to significantly enhance the safety and overall care of critically ill children. Specifically, my current research is focused on assessing the efficacy of total plasma exchange in reducing duration of veno-arterial extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (VA ECMO) support for calcium channel blocker toxicity in pediatric patients. 

Name: Monica Mehta

Specialty: Pulmonary Critical Care

Interests: As a pulmonary/critical care fellow, I am most interested in improving sepsis care as sepsis continues to be a disease with a high mortality. I would like to focus on how our healthcare system implements the Surviving Sepsis guidelines and how their effectiveness is studied. Additionally, I am interested in learning more about the implementation of rapid response teams and identification of patients who are at a high risk of declining. Implementing evidence-based practices within a healthcare system is complex but is where the patients actually derive benefit. I want to focus on learning more about and engaging in projects to improve the delivery of care for patients with sepsis and other critical illnesses. 

Name: John Wagner

Specialty: Pediatric Cardiology

Interests:

Name: Margot Hillyer 

Specialty:Pediatric Critical Care

Interests:  I am interested in enhancing processes and developing efficient and sustainable models of care. My current work focuses on utilization of antimicrobials to benefit patients and minimize waste within our system. I hope to contribute to the development of evidence-based practices that promote cost-effective, patient centered care for critically ill children.   

Name: Mary Katherine Douthit 

Specialty:  Pediatric Endocrinology

Interests: Optimizing and using the EMR system to improve workflow, physician burn out, patient care and safety. Within Pediatric Endocrinology, I'm particularly interested in addressing care gaps related to pediatric to adult healthcare transition. For my next project, I hope to leverage EPIC to identify and respond to patients with Type 1 diabetes who are ill-equipped to transition to adult care as well as to better document healthcare transition discussions in clinic. 

Name: Madelinn Rice

Specialty:   Anesthesiology

Interests: The operating room can be a fast-paced and high intensity area of care in the hospital. As a resident based primarily in the operating room, I have found situational awareness and high-quality transitions of care to be essential during emergency situations. I am interested in improving and standardizing both situational awareness and transitions of care to improve surgical outcomes. 

Name: Pavitra Srinivasan 

Specialty: Neurocritical Care

Interests: I hope to utilize the knowledge I gain from this experience to help improve the neurological care of our critically ill patients, ideally from pre-hospital stabilization to discharge from the hospital. This field is highly collaborative and as a neurointensivist in training I look forward to working with the various fields to help identify those at high risk for neurological decline to establish prompt evaluation and minimize delays in care. I acknowledge resource limitation in many hospitals and would like to help allocate the appropriate tools to maintain a high quality of care to ensure patient safety. 

Name: Kathleen Cao

Specialty: Pediatric Critical Care, PGY-5

Interests: I am interested in improving recognition and treatment of pediatric sepsis through quality improvement. Currently, I am working on identifying areas of improvement in systems processes through informatics within the Epic system using sepsis alerts, order sets, etc. My overall goal is to improve sepsis recognition, decrease time to initial management, and improve sepsis outcomes through quality improvement.

Name: Taylor Ford, MD

Specialty: Pediatric Hospital Medicine, PGY-4

Interests: My goals for fellowship include continuing my professional development of quality improvement and patient safety. Quality and patient safety research will be fundamental in my career and I look forward to learning from more experienced mentors. Specific interests include antimicrobial stewardship and health equity.

Name: Timothy Arleo, MD

Specialty: Interventional Radiology- Integrated, PGY-2

Interests: With patients faced with rising costs in the face of increasing hospital volume, it is paramount to strategically improve efficiency and cost effectiveness of our healthcare system while meeting high-quality, high-reliability standards. As a radiology resident, I am passionate about utilizing system wide data to streamline our internal processes and identify potential failure points within the realm of imaging. This track serves as an excellent opportunity to build foundational knowledge in quality improvement to better effect positive change.

Name: DeAngelo Harris, MD

Specialty: Diagnostic Radiology, PGY-4

Interests: Participating in the Emory Quality Improvement and Patient Safety Track provides an excellent opportunity to hone my budding skills as an improvement specialist and implementation scientist while learning the art of radiology. Thus far, my specific interests include improving the efficiency of communicating actionable incidental findings on radiology reports and optimizing patient safety by utilizing clinical decision support at the time radiology report creation. My vision is that, at the completion of the track, I will have acquired a unique set of skills and experiences that will allow me to one day serve as a quality leader. 

Name: Chidiebere Victor Ugwu

Specialty/PGY: Pediatric Emergency Medicine. PGY-5

Interests: Improving processes, workflow and quality of care delivered in the pediatric emergency department with specifics on admission, discharge, transition of care processes and clinical pathway development. I also have interest in providing quality and patient safety education globally to medical organizations and hospitals in both underdeveloped and developed countries.

Name: Jennifer Handan Li

Specialty/PGY: Internal Medicine PGY-2

Interests: What I look forward to the most throughout my day is seeing my patients and being able to utilize whatever tools and resources are at my disposal to help them – in larger, systemic-based ways or even smaller ones. I have discovered that what I get most frustrated by are the systems-related issues that affect us as trainees and providers from providing the quality and efficiency of care we strive for and of course for our patients. I am interested in encouraging and enforcing patient safety and improvement through medical education and helping improve systemic inefficiencies in the healthcare system, especially in the inpatient setting. My goals are to be able to develop and merge my passion for patient safety and improving systems to enhance patient-cared care with the educational aspects that I believe are important in carrying forward new changes.

Name: Christian Gomez 

Specialty & PGY: Radiology, PGY3 

Interest: Interested in referral provider patterns with regards to delivering high quality diagnostic care, optimizing imaging workflows, and healthcare equity in the radiology space. 

Name: Megan Fellows  

Specialty & PGY: Pediatrics PGY-2 

Interest: My current quality improvement and patient safety interests include resident/provider perceptions of patient safety in a teaching environment as well as provider-nursing communication challenges that impact patient safety, quality of care, nurse-provider relationships, and workflow. 

Name: Yael Subar

Specialty & PGY: Child Neurology PGY-5 

Name:  Mary Margaret Barr

Specialty & PGY: Pediatrics PGY-2 

Specific Interests in Quality/Patient Safety: Interested in medication safety and patient education, especially for children and adolescents with chronic medical conditions. 

Name: Hope Arnold

Specialty: Neonatology Fellow PGY-5 

Specific Interests: Improving transitions of care, discharge of medically complex infants, improving neurodevelopmental outcomes, health equity

Name:  Monika Sullivan

Specialty and current PGY level: Pediatrics, PGY-2

Specific Interests in Quality/Patient Safety: Optimizing patient safety and outcomes in an equitable way is one of the primary goals in practicing medicine. I have a particular interest in analyzing variations in inpatient management and determining when standardized protocols can improve the quality of care. I also have an interest in improving the discharge process, specifically ensuring timely and productive outpatient follow-ups to prevent readmissions or complications.

Name:  Domnique S. Newallo

Specialty & PGY: Radiology resident  PGY5/R1

Specific Interests in Quality/Patient Safety: Resident education in QI, Process improvement in the radiology space

Name:  Mustafa Rasheed 

Specialty & PGY: Emergency Medicine PGY-2 

Specific Interests in Quality/Patient Safety: Quality improvement and patient safety in patients through ED workflows, lab work and testing, sepsis, and emergencies that require collaboration with other services/providers  

Name: Zachary Wolner

Specialty/PGY: Dermatology PGY-4

Interests: medical education in quality improvement, clinicopathologic correlation, systemic inefficiencies in healthcare delivery

Name: Krysta Frye

Program: Internal Medicine- Primary Care track

Interests:  2020 was a year that changed healthcare forever. Systems, providers, and patients quickly adopted and adapted to virtual medicine, which was wildly successful for certain outpatient services and could become a mainstay of their care. My QI interests involve virtual medicine analyses, and I am thankful that this GME track will help to hone my research skills and connect me with likeminded individuals. 

Name:  Nicole Herbst

Specialty and current PGY level: Pulmonary/Critical Care, PGY6

Specific Interests in Quality/Patient Safety: medical education, patient/family experience in the ICU

Name: M. Ehsaan Shahnawaz 

Specialty: PGY-5 Pediatric Neurology Resident

My special interests in quality improvement and patient safety are based around improving patient outcomes by improving system processes, rather than focusing on novel treatments, therapies, or diagnostics, because system processes can be implemented immediately and benefit patients, instead of relying upon basic science research which can take years to be ready for practical application. I have begun work on a project with Dr. Ben Siegel (PGY-4 in Pediatric Neurology) on improving effective and efficient management of Status Epilepticus in the CHOA system during our first year in this quality improvement education track.

Name: Shub Shanti Agrawal

Specialty: Internal Medicine, PGY 3

Interested:  Medical education and QI 

Name: Benjamin Siegel

Specialty: Pediatrics/Neurology

QI-PS Interests:

Electronic health systems are powerful tools that increase efficiency and patient safety. However, they can also propagate errors and create undue administrative burden. My QI interest is in using health information technology to optimize the care we provide to patients. In particular, I am interested in how clinical decision support tools can promote evidence-based practice while minimizing alert fatigue.

Name: Lisa Tang

Specialty: Anesthesiology

QI-PS Interests:

The perioperative encounter is typically short but characterized by numerous transitions of care. There are countless opportunities to improve patient safety and quality before, during, and after surgery. I am particularly interested in pre-operative care. My goal for the QI-PS track is to identify ways in which the pre-op visit can be optimized to improve surgical outcomes. 

Name: Abdulatif Gari

Specialty: Emergency Medicine

Name: Christie Chen

Specialty: Pediatrics

Name: Devinder Dhindsa

Specialty: Cardiology Fellow

Name: Erin Fitzpatrick Kallam

Specialty: Pediatrics

Name: Joyce Kim

Specialty: Internal Medicine

Name: Karla Dawson

Specialty: Rollins School of Public Health Student (Audit)

Name: Louisa Phillips

Specialty: Anesthesiology

Name: Tim Jorgenson

Specialty: Anesthesiology

Name: Christopher Michael Haydek

Specialty: Internal Medicine

QI-PS Interests:

Part of the intrigue of QI-PS is the vast amount of information that advancements in technology have yielded us, making way for continual improvement in efficiency and patient outcomes. I am drawn to this constant opportunity for progress which translates into tangible results for patients.

Name: Cicily Vachaparambil

Specialty: Internal Medicine

QI-PS Interests:

I have an interest in transitions of care between the inpatient and outpatient settings, specifically improving communication and coordination between providers to ensure recommended follow-up procedures and office visits are completed.

Name: Alexandra Grace Nicole Lopez-Aguiar

Specialty: Surgery

Name: Amanda Renee Ross

Specialty: Emergency Medicine

Name: Anita S. Deshpande

Specialty: Otolaryngology

Name: Mariam Amin

Specialty: Dermatology

Name: Mohamad Raad

Specialty: Internal Medicine

QI-PS Interests:

To ensure excellent patient care we should always strive to improve the healthcare system. The latter as it exists includes many gaps and insufficiencies in the method, quality and outcomes of the care provided. My goals from the Quality Improvement and Patient Safety Track is to build a solid understanding, knowledge, skills, and methods in the implication of Quality improvement patient safety projects to identify failures and improve in-patient resource utilization and outcomes.

Name: Steve Tucker

Specialty: Ophthalmology

QI-PS Interests:

Name: Vanessa Cousins

Specialty: Emergency Medicine

QI-PS Interests:

In addition to improving workflow, efficiency, and patient centered care as components of quality improvement, I am also drawn to learning to become a resilient and compassionate leader. I am captivated by the utilization of technology to improve patient centered care and bring the healthcare process back to the patient’s bedside

Name: Anna Trofimova

Specialty: Diagnostic Radiology

Name: Chengcheng "Cindy" Ye

Specialty: Internal Medicine

Name: Jake Gissy

Specialty: Anesthesiology

Name: Maria Braileanu

Specialty: Diagnostic Radiology

Name: Martine "Lory" Camille Ridore

Specialty: Emergency Medicine

Name: Vicky Melanson

Specialty: Anesthesiology