SBH Health System is one of the few institutions in the country to offer a two-year clinical fellowship in quality and safety.
The program, which will admit one fellow beginning July 1, 2021, is open to graduates of internal medicine, emergency medicine and pediatric residencies.
“One of our goals has always been to drive quality and safety first,” says Dr. Daniel Lombardi, senior vice president/chief academic and chief quality officer at SBH. “So it only made sense to create an academic program around these tenets.”
Members of the medical and nursing faculty at SBH have graduated from the 15-month fellowship program offered by the Greater New York Hospital Association and United Hospital Fund that teaches clinicians the skills needed to lead quality improvement and patient safety initiatives at their hospitals. All members of the SBH faculty have considerable experience in quality and safety.
Graduates of the SBH clinical quality fellowship program, says Dr. Lombardi, will be well prepared to eventually assume such hospital leadership roles as chief quality and patient safety officer, medical director for quality improvement, or chief medical officer.
The fellow, who will be expected to complete a capstone project at the completion of the program, will also be offered the opportunity to complete a Master’s degree in Public Health. The individual will spend 60 percent of their time practicing in their chosen specialty and 40 percent dedicated to the fellowship program. This will include developing competencies in core quality and safety concepts, hospital safety, including event reporting, safety huddles and root cause analysis; population health; information technology in health care; QA methodology; the accreditation process; change management; medication safety; risk management; leadership; strategy; and motivation.
