It is twenty years since the IOM reports on “To Err is Human” and “Crossing the Quality Chasm” catalyzed a transformation in our healthcare delivery system focused on clinical quality and patient safety. Virtually every healthcare delivery system has created an elaborate multi-million dollar infrastructure to comply with regulatory requirements for data collection and reporting. A cottage industry of “rankings” has accompanied the regulatory requirements, increasingly accompanied by public shame or financial penalties for suboptimal performance. Unquestionably, there have been improvements particularly in hospital acquired conditions. But the complexity and interpretation of many of the measures alludes most frontline team members as the world of quality is increasingly owned by payers and regulators rather than providers and patients. In sum, the tyranny of quality measurement has become a stick rather than the carrot. It is time to re-center the US Healthcare Quality system around measures that matter to patients and providers.
We will discuss:
What is the structure of the current quality system?
How should the quality system be re-imagined?
How does a Lean management system facilitate a new approach to healthcare quality?
Richard P. Shannon, MD serves as the Chief Quality Officer for Duke Health. He is responsible for the overall direction, leadership and operational management of the quality and safety programs of Duke Health, and provides leadership in strengthening a quality culture where everyone is engaged and respected.
Prior to joining Duke Health, he served as executive vice president for health affairs at the University of Virginia, where he worked with faculty and staff to transform the UVA Health System into the premier health care provider in Virginia. Dr. Shannon has also served as the Frank Wister Thomas Professor and Chair of the Department of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, and as Chair of the Department of Medicine at Allegheny General Hospital in Pittsburgh. He has received numerous teaching awards from Harvard Medical School, Drexel University College of Medicine, and the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.
Dr. Shannon received his BA from Princeton University and his MD from the University of Connecticut School of Medicine. He completed his training in internal medicine at Beth Israel Hospital, his cardiovascular training at Massachusetts General Hospital, and was the Francis Weld Peabody Fellow and Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School before becoming the Claude R. Joyner Professor of Medicine at Drexel University College of Medicine.
Dr. Shannon's pioneering work in patient safety is chronicled in the chapter “First, Do No Harm” in Charles Kenney’s The Best Practice - How the New Quality Movement is Transforming Medicine. His innovative work also has been featured in the The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, on CNN and CNBC news segments and on ABC's "20/20", and was a centerpiece for the PBS report entitled "Remaking American Medicine."
Dr. Shannon is an elected member of honorary organizations, including the American Society for Clinical Investigation, and served as a senior fellow of the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics at the University of Pennsylvania. He currently is a teaching fellow for the Institute of Healthcare Improvement. Dr. Shannon serves as a Director of the National Institutes of Health, Clinical Center Research Hospital Board; and a member of the Boards of Directors of the Kaiser Foundation Hospitals and Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, Inc., where he chairs the Quality Health Improvement Committee.