Tag Archives: Quality Improvement and Patient Safety

Commitment to quality of care and patient safety takes the spotlight

-PRN, ,
Mamta Reddy, Vijay Babu Rayudu Endowed Chair of Patient Safety, with some of the 2022-23 QIPS Faculty Scholars Kevin O’Rourke, Valerica Mateescu, Kevin Gray, Majdi Hamarshi, Alicia Daggett and Geetha Kamath.

Betty Drees, M.D., was just a few years into her term as dean of the UMKC School of Medicine in 2007 when Vijay Babu Rayudu, one of her medical students, died unexpectedly.

“This was very much a life-changing event for many people,” Drees said, during the school’s 10th annual Vijay Babu Rayudu Quality and Patient Safety Day on May 5.

Today, the event Drees was instrumental in establishing highlights the school’s commitment to improving the quality of care and patient safety. Each year, medical students, residents and fellows present research conducted throughout the year focused on the topic of quality and patient safety.

During a morning session of the event, 49 poster presentations were made to a panels of judges that selected the top two student posters and the top two resident/fellow posters. Medical students Paige Eichhoff and Sydney Edson, resident Ramy Ghaly, M.D., and fellow Anna Nelson, M.D, received the top poster awards.

A record 58 abstracts were submitted on various topics related to the quality and patient safety, 36 of those from medical students. A panel of 30 judges also selected the top two student and top two resident/fellow presentations that were given as oral presentations during the afternoon session of the event. Medical students Madeline Glodowski and Mallika Joshi, resident Fouad Jaber, MD and fellow Edward Lyon, DO, received the top abstract awards.

Julie Banderas, right, receives the Faculty Mentor award from Betty Drees.

In addition, Julie Banderas, Pharm.D., assistant dean for graduate studies and allied health, was presented with a Faculty Mentor of the Year Award. Drees also received special recognition with a Quality and Patient Safety Lifetime Achievement Award.

Sanjay Saint, M.D., MPH, chief of medicine at the VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System and the George Dock Professor of Internal Medicine at the University of Michigan Saint, gave the day’s keynote address focused on implementing change to enhance patient safety.

“When I was in training, we would just tolerate those things that we couldn’t change,” he said. “Now, I think we’ve got an army of people out there who are going to change the things we can no longer tolerate.”

Patient safety, implementation science, and medical decision-making make up a large part of Saint’s research efforts. He has written nearly 350 peer-reviewed papers, more than 110 of those appearing in the New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA, The Lancet or the Annals of Internal Medicine. He is also a special correspondent to the New England Journal of Medicine and an elected member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation (ASCI) and the Association of American Physicians (AAP).

In 2011, members of the Rayudu family gave a gift of $500,000 to establish a Vijay Babu Rayudu Endowed Chair of Patient Safety. Mamta Reddy, M.D., currently serves the school in that role. Two years later, the School of Medicine conducted its first Vijay Babu Rayudu Quality and Patient Safety Day.

“To see what’s going on today makes me feel really proud to be here at UMKC,” Drees said.

To see a list of all the presentations given at this year’s event, go to the school’s Quality Improvement/Patient Safety page.

School of Medicine celebrates 9th annual Quality Patient Safety Day

-PRN, Quality Improvement & Patient Safety (QIPS), Research, , , ,
Mamta Reddy, M.D., endowed chair of patient safety (left), and Betty M. Drees, M.D., dean emerita, present a quality and patient safety lifetime achievement award to Lawrence Dall, M.D.,assistant dean of student research.

Quality care and patient safety took center stage as Julia Snodgrass and Wes Weske received the top honors from among students and Drs. Erica Wee and Jeremy Beyer earned the top resident/fellow awards with their research abstract submission at the UMKC School of Medicine’s 9th annual Vijay Babu Quality and Patient Safety Day.

Judges selected the winners from among 23 medical student and 17 resident/fellow research submissions. The four were chosen to give oral presentations of their research during the day-long event.

The annual patient safety day program provides students, residents and fellows an opportunity to display their work in quality improvement and patient safety to the entire medical school community.

Thirty students, residents and fellows also participated in a poster presentation showcase. A panel of judges selected presentations by Snodgrass and Fahad Qureshi as the top student posters, while Drs. Thomas Cochran and Rueben Joaquim Ricardo De Almedia were recognized for the top poster presentations among residents and fellows.

School of Medicine faculty members Lawrence Dall, M.D., and Rana El Feghaly, M.D., were also recognized for their contributions to quality improvement and patient safety mentorship. Dall, who a docent who also serves as assistant dean of medical student research, received the QIPS Lifetime Achievement Award. El Feghaly, associate professor of pediatrics, received the QIPS Faculty Mentor of the Year Award.

Christopher Moriates, M.D., assistant dean for Health Care Value at the Dell Medical School, University of Texas in Austin, gave a keynote address, speaking “Leading for Where You Stand.” Moriates created a Choosing Wisely STARS program that has spread throughout the United States to generate student-led initiatives in advancing health care value in medical education. He also oversaw the creation of the Del Med Discovering Value-Based Health Care online learning platform used by medical professions throughout the United States.

To view a complete list of student, resident and fellow oral and poster presentation, go online to Vijay Babu Rayudu Quality & Patient Safety Day.

SOM announces research winners from annual Quality and Patient Safety Day

-PRN, Research, Residents, , , ,

Tara Krishnan and Cynthia Liu received the top student honors for their research abstracts at the School of Medicine’s annual Vijay Babu Rayudu Quality and Patient Safety Day. The top resident/fellow awards went to Dr. Heather Morgans and Dr. Anas Al Bawaliz.

The four were chosen from a record 53 submitted abstracts and invited to make oral presentations of their research in this year’s virtual, online event on May 29. More than 100 people participated in the seventh annual event. It included an executive panel discussion of  continuing challenges from the COVID-19 crisis and how it has changed the future of health care.

The School of Medicine presents the annual patient safety day program to provide an opportunity for students, residents and fellows to display their work in quality improvement and patient safety to the entire medical school community.

Both the panel discussion and the oral presentations can be viewed online.

Krishnan, a fourth-year medical student, received a top student award and presented her work on “Beeps, Squeals, and Drones: Reducing the Impact of Noise Pollution in the Operating Room.” Dr. Gary Sutkin served as her research mentor. Liu, a sixth-year medical student, was also mentored by Sutkin and presented “Semantically Ambiguous Language in the Teaching Operating Room.”

Morgans earn one of the top awards for residents and fellows with her abstract, “A Systematic Approach to Improving Metabolic Acidosis in Patients with Stage 3-5 Chronic Kidney Disease in the Nephrology Clinic at Children’s Mercy Hospital.” Dr. Darcy Weidemann served as her faculty research mentor. Bawaliz, mentored by Dr. David Wooldridge, presented on “Reducing Unnecessary Inpatient Laboratory Testing at Truman Medical Center.”

Students, residents and fellows submitting the remaining abstracts were invited to create posters along with 5-minute audios, which were posted online in a virtual poster showcase.

The panel discussion, moderated by School of Medicine Dean Mary Anne Jackson, M.D., included six health care leaders from the QIPS Consortium Hospital Affiliates. The group included Mark Steele, M.D., chief operating officer, chief medical officer, Truman Medical Centers; Peter Holt, M.D., vice president of medical affairs, Saint Luke’s Hospital of Kansas City; Robert Lane, M.D., MS, executive vice president and physician-in-chief, Children’s Mercy Hospital; Timothy Dellenbaugh, M.D., assistant medical director, Center for Behavioral Medicine; Ahmad Batrash, M.D., chief of staff, Kansas City Veterans Affairs Medical Center​; and Olevia Pitts, M.D., chief medical officer, HCA Research Medical Center.