Housestaff Patient Safety and Quality Council

Mission Statement:

The mission of the Housestaff Patient Safety and Quality Council is to improve patient care and safety by educating and engaging residents in quality improvement initiatives that promote the delivery of safe, timely, effective and patient-centered healthcare services to all patients who choose to seek care from our facilities. We aim to expand house staff participation in the procedural and decision-making processes to improve the delivery of health care services throughout our institutions.

Vision:

The House Staff Patient Safety and Quality Council specifically addresses patient safety and quality by promoting a culture of safety and clinical excellence.

Goals and Objectives:

• Foster a culture that promotes greater house staff participation by providing resources and opportunities for experiential learning.
• Collaborate across multiple disciplines to develop and implement new systems of care and develop cross-departmental initiatives to address inequalities in the delivery of quality healthcare services.
• Assist residents in developing leadership, communication, and critical thinking skills.
• Demonstrate ability to recognize the role of patient safety in healthcare delivery systems.
• Empower residents to identify issues related to healthcare disparities and initiate improvement projects to improve quality of care, accessibility, and cost efficiency.
• Enhance communication throughout each institution between administration, clinical departments, and support staff.
• Work with hospital administration to ensure that our efforts measurably impact patient care.

Current Projects:

• The House-staff Quality Council has been working to get intraosseous line kits into our crash carts, as well as the training for our residents on how to use them.  This year, we will work to facilitate more resident participation in departmental and hospital wide quality meetings and root cause analysis.  This will provide our residents with a better understanding of the processes of administration and quality improvement, the major projects our administration is working on, and will provide access to potential mentors for future quality improvement endeavors.
• The Housestaff Quality Council makes efforts to reduce the patients’ duration of hospital stay while waiting to get the transthoracic echocardiogram (TTE) before discharge. This project provides an opportunity for the residents to explore the appropriate indications for ordering the TTE in the inpatient setting and how the TTE results will influence further management of the patient. This project will also help the administration to estimate the duration of time taken after placing an order electronically to get the TTE done and the final report released and how it delays the discharge of patients.
• Expansion of QI Participation amongst housestaff- development of database of current and past QI projects; development of database of faculty mentors interested in working with residents on QI and/or patient safety projects.

If you have any questions or would like to get involved, please contact us:

Resident Representatives

Chair of Council:
Maria Buethe, MD, PhD   Dermatology
Email - maria.buethe@downstate.edu

Vice Chair (KCHC):
Chetan Virman, MD   Internal Medicine
Email - Chetan.Virman@downstate.edu

Vice Chair (UHB):
Muthumeena Kannappan, MD, MPH   Family Medicine
Email- Muthumeena.Kannappan@downstate.edu

 

Faculty Representatives

Chief Quality Officer, NYC H+ H/Kings County 
Geralda Xavier, MD MBA FACEP
e-mail: Geralda.Xavier@nychhc.org

Chief Quality Officer, UHB
Mohamed Rami Nakeshbandi, MD
E-mail: mohamed.nakeshbandi@dowstate.edu