Medical Staff Bulletin

Our single focus for several years has been on providing care of the highest value to the patients we serve. As a result of successful initiatives such as our journey towards high reliability, clinical redesign and other work, we have made material progress in enhancing value in the hospital setting.

A very important focus for our health system is how our patients experience and perceive the care they receive. No matter how safe or exceptional the technical aspects of our care may be, if patients lose trust in their caregivers or otherwise become disengaged from the healing process, their health outcomes suffer.

Those of you who have kept up with news in Connecticut know that our local healthcare environment continues to be dynamic. As the pre-eminent academic health system in the region, it is essential that we take steps to build on our strengths and think creatively about partnering with like-minded organizations to reduce the barriers to accessing our exceptional services. Additionally, we continue to experience high numbers of patients in many of the health system’s hospitals, adding stress for our physicians and clinical operations in general. We have been working for more than a year to address both issues and in the last few weeks have made material progress.

We began to note a sustained increase in patient acuity and census last fall, and since then have been working to relieve the pressure and risk associated with such an increase.

As much as I love the Northeast’s seasons, Connecticut in the cold and bleak days at the beginning of the year tests my optimism. For many of us on the medical staff, this January was made more difficult by the news of the untimely passing of Drs. Frank Lobo and Deepak Narayan. As I mentioned in an email I sent a few weeks ago, both made huge contributions to the health of our patients, the quality of care provided at this hospital, the human fabric of this hospital & medical staff, and the communities in which they lived. We are privileged to have known them. The weight of those losses reinforced how important it is for us physicians to be resilient in the face of inevitable personal and professional challenges.

Over the past two decades, legislative, technologic and scientific disruption has fostered enormous change in how we care for our patients. Those changes will only continue, and we must have great ambition if we are to fulfill our promise of being one of the nation’s greatest healthcare institutions..

I usually devote these messages to highlight the work we do to improve care for patients. One of the wonderful things about having a large, committed medical staff filled with master clinicians, teachers, international experts and leaders in research, however, is that our organization has deep and productive relationships with people and institutions all over the world.

For the past several years, leadership across the Yale New Haven Health System has prepared an annual business plan, performance improvement plan and unified corporate objectives. These create alignment across our system and articulate a coherent strategy to enhance quality and safety in all our operational areas.

July is a time for renewal at Yale New Haven Hospital, as it is the beginning of the academic year at Yale, when the new house staff and many new members of the medical staff join our team. These new physicians drive our clinical, research, and education programs forward, and the trainees work hard to become the next generation of master clinicians, scientific pioneers, educators and leaders in American health care.

We have made enormous strides to provide our patients with the safest and highest quality care possible. Our journey towards high reliability has changed how we understand, discuss and change our processes to minimize the risk of patient harm.