The Exec: Hospital’s Inaugural CMO Focused on Quality, Patient Safety, and Communication

“I do not agree with the us-versus-them dynamic of administration and clinical staff,” Hill-Reinert says. “The hospital will function better if we collaborate and share information.”

To improve communication, Hill-Reinert, who participates in the senior administrative team’s meetings every other week, is playing the role of liaison between the administrators and clinical staff as well as convenor.

Boosting care quality

Efforts to promote care quality are two-fold, according to Hill-Reinert.

“First, you must enhance the patient experience and patients’ perception of the quality of care that they are receiving,” Hill-Reinert says. “At the end of the day, when patients fill out surveys, they make the call on the level of their experience.”

“Second, you must provide patient-centered care and evidence-based medicine as well as measure your quality metrics,” Hill-Reinert says. “Part of this effort is continually educating your staff and training them to drive quality improvement.”

The hospital’s nursing staff and a regional group at WVU Medicine play a key role in monitoring quality metrics.

“We follow many metrics such as length of stay, days on antibiotics, central line infections, and catheter infections,” Hill-Reinert says.

A CMO is an essential player in efforts to promote care quality, Hill-Reinert explains.

“I need to engage the physicians and get them involved in the peer review committee as well as the processes that we are working on and trying to improve,” Hill-Reinert says. “Just being cognizant of what we are doing is important.”

Bolstering patient safety

Engaging the frontline staff is essential to promote patient safety, according to Hill-Reinert.

The hospital is working on new ways to hold staff accountable for patient safety events.

“We have stood up a peer review committee,” Hill-Reinert says. “We also have a new system called Origami for filing patient safety events or complaints. These reports come back to me if they involve any of our providers.”

Origami is a web-based program that any staff member can go into and type in a patient’s information. Then, the system will present a form to detail a patient safety event. Reports of medical errors are forwarded to Hill-Reinert, a root-cause analysis is conducted, and the hospital’s peer review committee decides whether there was a deviation from care quality. The response to a medical error depends on the severity of a patient safety event.

A CMO plays a central role in promoting patient safety, Hill-Reinert says.

“I can lead staff training and encourage them to practice safely,” Hill-Reinert says. “I can make sure that we are thorough and try to hold people accountable.”

Keys to hospitalist success

Hill-Reinert has several years of experience working as a hospitalist, and successful hospitalists have several characteristics, according to Hill-Reinert.

“You must have the right physicians,” Hill-Reinert says. “They must be responsible, good communicators with patients and the care team, and good with time management. They should not only be timely with their care but also mindful of documentation and other providers.”

“When we start medical school, one of the first things we are told is that staying up to date is like drinking from a fire hose, and that never stops,” Hill-Reinert says. “You must learn how to manage staying current.”