All Children's Hospital Foundation

Summer 2015 17 Staff Q&A You wear a lot of hats right now. Can you tell us about a few of them? One of my roles is chief patient safety and quality officer, overseeing a division that leads and supports many quality initiatives, maintains our dashboard, which reports our progress in more than two dozen areas, and works in infection prevention – all activities that allow us to compare ourselves with other hospitals. Patient safety and the provision of high-quality care require interdisciplinary collaboration, and our department plays a vital role. I am also the vice president of medical affairs, so I am involved with anything to do with the medical staff: credentialing, mentoring, discipline, and being a voice both for the physicians and the administration. I was also recently named the interim director of the Cancer & Blood Disorders Institute. Our cancer institute is already in a good position, and we are recruiting for a permanent director, but we shouldn't wait to grow further and improve our services for our patients and families. We are determining for the institute what services we excel in and where we need to improve. For example, we can do more in hematology and with our formal affiliation with Moffitt Cancer Center, especially in the areas of long-term survivorship and the treatment of adolescents and young adults. We can do more to mentor the physician faculty and help them develop their careers. Is there more that we can do to educate people about the diseases we treat and the care we offer? Quality and safety are major initiatives for the hospital, and you have made some significant changes in process. Can you describe a few of them? Quality and patient safety are really why I came to All Children's. They are my passion. The organization has been so open to making changes, and they are ongoing. We have implemented a seven-days-a-week morning hospital-wide safety call, which discusses safety issues. The other Johns Hopkins hospitals have implemented it as well because of our success with it. We are focusing more than ever on these initiatives to ensure the best environment for our patients, families and staff. We want the best outcomes. We are also creating a new quality and safety elective program for the residents, which will start this summer. Residents will be able to spend a month participating in all kinds of safety and quality activities. We are able to provide this opportunity thanks to philanthropy. It's a great opportunity for the residents, and I'm very excited about the chance to train physicians right out of the gate on the importance of safety and quality. Because you oversee so many areas in the hospital, you must be aware of some funding opportunities. When it comes to funding, there is so much opportunity. For example, in oncology, grant funding through the National Institutes of Health has become extremely difficult to get due to the federal budget. Thus, philanthropy plays a major role, not only in supporting research projects but also, for example, in sponsoring a fellowship for a young physician who wants to specialize in an area such as brain tumors, bone marrow transplant or a blood disorder. In terms of quality, safety and child life, we are already benefiting greatly from the generosity of donors who contribute to the James Dolan Patient Safety Fund and the Barbara Sansone Patient Safety Endowment Fund. The Wann Robinson family is specifically supporting our Great Catch award program that honors staff when they catch a problem before it reaches the bedside. But there is always more that needs to be done. We'd like the ability to bring in quality experts. We'd like to send more people for specialized training and have a lecture series. And if I'm thinking big, an endowed chair for quality and safety would guarantee that it would all continue long after I'm gone. There are opportunities big and small for philanthropy – the need is definitely there, and we are so appreciative when donors recognize that need and step up to help.

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