The 29 mid-career health professionals that made up the 12th class of the Clinical Quality Fellowship Program (CQFP) graduated in a virtual ceremony on October 7, completing some 18 months of training to prepare them for becoming the New York area’s next health care quality leaders.
“CQFP is a leadership program of greater and greater importance, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic,” said CQFP chair Rohit Bhalla, MD, senior vice president of clinical affairs and quality and chief clinical & quality officer at Stamford Health. “These change agents adapted to a crisis of unprecedented proportions over the past year.”
United Hospital Fund and Greater New York Hospital Association launched the program in 2009 to expand the number of medical professionals with the skills needed to lead quality improvement and patient safety efforts in their hospitals and other health care settings. Including the current class, CQFP has enrolled more than 260 Fellows since its launch, drawing from more than 50 health care facilities across the metropolitan area. Many have gone on to assume leadership positions in their home facilities, while alumni serve as mentors to new classes of Fellows.
The 2020-2021 class of 30 Fellows, chosen from some 60 applicants, included 20 physicians and 10 nurses from 23 health care facilities.
Although the fellowship usually consists of in-person retreats, dinner meetings, and learning sessions, as well as webinars, the 2020-2021 class of Fellows attended one in-person retreat in January 2020 and then participated in the remaining learning sessions virtually, due to the pandemic. The program content and format were revised to allow for instruction, discussion, and networking to take place in a virtual environment.
Central to the Fellows’ experience—and a key benefit of the program—is a capstone quality improvement project implemented at each Fellow’s home organization, planned and executed with the guidance of a faculty mentor.
“The capstones were all excellent this year, and very, very diverse,” said Joan Guzik, UHF director, Quality and Efficiency, Quality Institute.
Four of the Fellows presented their capstone projects at the graduation ceremony:
• Svetlana Chernyavsky, DO – Mount Sinai/Beth Israel
“Real-Time Readmission Reviews: A Case Management Led Approach to Reducing Hospital Readmissions”
• Anjna Ganatra, MD, NYC Health + Hospitals/Metropolitan Hospital
“Ambulatory Care Practice Cycle Time”
• Santiago Lopez, MD, North Shore University Hospital and Hofstra School of Medicine
“Implementation of Upstream Palliative Care as a Strategy to Increase Palliative Care Consultation and to Decrease 30-Day Readmission for Patients with a Diagnosis of Pneumonia and Covered by the Hospital Readmission Reduction Program”
• Jana Romm, MD, NYC Health + Hospitals/North Central Bronx
“Pediatrics MyChart Activation”
Now that they have completed their program, the Fellows will bring their new knowledge, skills, and strategies back to their health care organizations, where they will be prepared to take on leadership roles and act as agents of change.
CQFP is accepting applications for its 2022-2023 class of Fellows until November 15, 2021. The brochure and application materials can be found here.
2020-2021 fellows:
Oluyemisi Ariyibi, MD, MPH, CUNY Sophie-David School of Medicine and SBH Health System
William Bodeker, MS, FNP-BC, CEN, CCRN, Mount Sinai Health System
Kimberly Cartmill, MD, NYC Health + Hospitals/Jacobi
Kelly Sessler, MPH, RN, CCRN-K, CLNC, NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital
Jodi Galesi, DNP, RN, APN-C, NE-BC, Hackensack University Medical Center
Surafel Tsega, MD, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and Mount Sinai Hospital
Omar Fattal, MD, MPH, NYC Health + Hospitals/Bellevue
Lee Donner, MD, NYC Health + Hospitals/Lincoln
Santiago Lopez, MD, North Shore University Hospital and Hofstra School of Medicine
Karyn Singer, MD, MPH, NYC Health + Hospitals/Woodhull
Donato Pacione, MD, NYU Langone Medical Center
Poroshat Shekarloo, MD, Maimonides Medical Center
Janett Pike, MPA, BSN, RN, CIC, NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital
Jinel Scott, MD, MBA, NYC Health + Hospitals/Kings County Hospital Center and SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University
Julie Wan, MS, RN, NYU Langone Hospital-Brooklyn
Danielle Wheelwright, RN, MN, Mount Sinai Health System
Bernadette Springer, MS, FNP-BC, RN, Mount Sinai Queens
Allison Driansky, MD, Northwell Cohen’s Children Medical Center
Jana Romm, MD, NYC Health + Hospitals/North Central Bronx
Laura Butler, MSN, RN, Mount Sinai Hospital
Marwa Moussa, MD, NYU Langone Brooklyn
Julissa Cardona, MSN, RN, NYC Health + Hospitals/Coler
Anjna Ganatra, MD, NYC Health + Hospitals/Metropolitan Hospital
Abdo Kabarriti, MD, NYC Health + Hospitals/Coney Island
Anya Weerasinghe, MD, NYC Health + Hospitals/Harlem
Colleen Vessell, MD, MPH, NYC Health + Hospitals/Correctional Health Services
Svetlana Chernyavsky, DO, Mount Sinai Beth Israel
David Rhee, MD, MS, NYU Langone Brooklyn
Jeremy Rose, MD, MPH, FRCP, Mount Sinai Beth Israel