2020 Quality Improvement Symposium

4th Annual Unified Quality Improvement Symposium

Hosted by The REACH Initiative and Vidant Health Quality Office
East Carolina Heart Institute at ECU
February 5, 2020

The symposium is a showcase of initiatives happening throughout East Carolina University’s Health Sciences Campus and Vidant Medical Center/Vidant Health related to quality improvement, patient safety, population health, and interprofessional practice. The goal of the symposium is to provide academic and community physicians, health professionals, health care teams, residents, fellows, and students the opportunity to present their work in systems improvement and practice redesign to an audience of peers and health system leaders.

2020 Unified QI Symposium Winners Announced

The fourth annual Unified Quality Improvement Symposium was held on Feb. 5 at the East Carolina Heart Institute at ECU. The symposium showcased 26 projects related to quality improvement, patient safety, population health and interprofessional practice from ECU and Vidant Health.

With more than 190 attendees, the symposium provided health sciences faculty, residents, fellows and students, as well as Vidant Health physicians and employees, the opportunity to present their quality improvement work to an audience of peers and health system leaders.

Charles Harr, MD, MBA, Rear Admiral (RET), US Navy and current chief medical officer, WakeMed Health and Hospitals, provided a keynote presentation sharing his quality journey throughout his career in the Navy and civilian health care sectors. He spoke of creating a management system to ensure quality measurement and improvement. He challenged the participants to strive to improve the health care system to improve the lives of the patients we serve.

Accepted presentations were categorized into three categories—oral, quick shot oral and poster presentations. The symposium’s award for outstanding podium presentation went to Samantha Curtis, M4, LINC Scholar, for her presentation “Bilirubin turnaround time (TAT) in an outpatient pediatric clinic: improving efficiency of time-sensitive lab tests.” The award for outstanding quick shot podium went to Christopher Chase, M3, LINC Scholar, for his presentation “Improving Diabetic Retinopathy Screening at ECU Family Medicine.” Outstanding poster was awarded to Jonathan LeCrone, M4, LINC Scholar, for his project, “Reducing Door-to-CT Times for Acute Stroke Patients: A Quality Improvement Initiative.”

The symposium offered three concurrent learning sessions. “Pitch Perfect” from John Kohler, MD, Amy Campbell, MSN, RN, and Dmitry Tumin, PhD, offered guidance on planned or ongoing QI projects and their potential, providing real-time consultation to those engaged in QI, from process to implementation. “What’s with all the Metrics?” from Joseph Pye, MD, Dave Michael MD, and Timothy Reeder, MD, reviewed types of data used for quality and reimbursement, measures for quality improvement and useful tools for data visualization. Participants used real-life scenarios to demonstrate the implications from and variation between types of data application. During a session by Suzanne Lea, PhD, MPH, “Population Health: What is it and Why is it Important?” participants learned to identify the basic elements and definitions of population health and discussed successful population health initiatives and strategies for testing and implementation.

Keynote Speaker

Charles Harr, MD, MBA, Rear Admiral (RET), US Navy, Chief Medical Officer, WakeMed Health and Hospitals

A devotion to service, a passion for cardiac medicine and a commitment to patient care have helped define the career of Dr. Charles Harr. Not only is he a highly accomplished cardiovascular and thoracic surgeon, he is also a retired rear admiral of the United States Navy with more than 23 years of service to this country.

Dr. Harr joined WakeMed from the Novant Health Heart & Vascular Institute in Charlotte, N.C, and Charlotte Cardiothoracic Surgical Associates (of the Carolinas Healthcare System), where he spent more than 20 years performing state-of-the-art cardiac, thoracic and vascular surgical procedures.

A respected physician and hospital leader, Dr. Harr has helped develop, implement and maintain systems and processes that have enhanced patient care, improved patient outcomes and reduced healthcare costs. Sharing his expertise with medical residents and working collaboratively with multi-disciplinary medical teams for the benefit of the patient are also among his many strong suits.

Prior to his time in Charlotte, Dr. Harr served as a rear admiral of the U.S. Navy and was a recognized medical expert among his military colleagues, performing general, thoracic, vascular and trauma surgery for soldiers both on and off the battlefield. Relied upon for his strategic vision and medical and professional expertise, Dr. Harr was chosen to serve in various leadership positions for the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Marine Corps. Awards such as the Legion of Merit, the Navy/Marine Corps Commendation Medal and the National Defense Service Medal were all bestowed upon Dr. Harr and help illustrate his successful military career as well as his commitment to service and professional excellence.

Symposium Objectives

At the end of this symposium, participants will be able to:

1. Explain the quality improvement process as illustrated through inpatient, acute care, ambulatory practice and interprofessional improvement projects.
2. Describe how the quality improvement process can impact clinical care and system’s based practice.
3. Provide a platform for participants to describe how they would change rules, habits, policies, or procedures to improve care delivery.