Patient Experience – Stanford Medicine Center for Improvement

Decreasing Overbook Appointments – Cancer Infusion by Janice Kolsovsky

The Cancer Infusion areas have too many overbooks (definition in background), leading to delays in treatment for patients and schedules over-capacity during peak hours of operation.

Optimizing the Cardiac Clearance Process in Head & Neck Surgery by Julia Noel

Receiving clearance forms and instructions less than 1 week in advance of surgery can result in time intensive and herculean staff efforts to avoid surgery cancellation or issues. This has implications for patient safety and cancer outcomes as well as resource utilization. We chose this project to focus on because of the direct impact on our workflow and was able to be intervened upon in a meaningful way.

SEEing More Patients in the OR at the Byer’s Eye Institute by Nicole Choo

Many patients at Byers wait months for surgeries despite the fact that some OR rooms are only partially utilized every week. It minimizes patient dissatisfaction, maximizes OR utilization, and keeps our providers schedules full.

Cancer Center South Bay Real Time Location System Badge Retention by Jacque McCoy

Cancer Center South Bay requires a minimum of approximately 200 Real Time Location System badges per day based on a unique patient volume of approximately 300. Several times a week we do not have the required number of badges in circulation, and this has a negative impact on patient care and the patient experience.

Reducing Unproductive Visits for Thyroid Cancer Patients – Kaniksha Desai

The Problem: Patients with thyroid cancer were often arriving for their follow up visits without necessary labs or imaging leading to an unproductive visit. This information would need to be reviewed at a later time asynchronously with the patient, leading to delays in treatment and inefficient workflow. As we sought to understand the different causes of this problem, we prioritized […]

Karen Frush, MD, is the former Chief Quality Officer at Stanford Health Care. She is a Clinical Professor of Emergency Medicine and Pediatrics. She also serves as a member of the Stanford Medicine Center for Improvement Advisory Committee.

Dr. Frush has been an MCHB funded researcher and helped lead an effort funded by the CMS Innovation Center to improve patient safety and quality across 70 small community and rural hospitals through the LifePoint Hospital Engagement Network. LifePoint was recognized with the John M Eisenberg Patient Safety and Quality Award in 2017 for this work. Dr. Frush has published peer review manuscripts in the areas of pediatric emergency care, patient safety and quality, teamwork, safety culture, interprofessional care, and quality improvement, and she has authored multiple books on these subjects, including Improving Patient Safety through Teamwork and Team Training, with Eduardo Salasin 2012. She is a Team STEPPS Master Trainer and served on the Department of Defense, Team STEPPS Technical Expert Panel (2008-2010). She is an alumnus of the AHA-NPSF Patient Safety Leadership Fellowship program, served on the American Academy of Pediatrics Steering Committee for Quality Improvement in Pediatrics(2006-2011), and has been named one of 50 experts leading the field of patient safety by Becker’s for the past five years. She served on the Board of Advisors and the Board of Directors for the National Patient Safety Foundation and currently serves as Chair of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI)Certification Board for Professionals in Patient Safety.

Former Leadership positions include Chief Patient Safety Officer of the Duke University Health System (2004-2018); member of the Board of Trustees, North Carolina Center for Hospital Quality and Patient Safety (2005-2012), and Vice President for Quality, LifePoint Health and Duke-LifePoint Healthcare (2011-2018). Dr. Frush received a BSN from the University of Pittsburgh School of Nursing and then attended the Duke University School of Medicine where she earned her MD.

Alice R. Georgitso, MPH, joins the SMCI Advisory Committee as our first Patient Partner. Alice has served as a Patient Partner with the Stanford Health Care (SHC) Patient & Family Partner Program for over 4 years and was appointed Chairperson of the Adult Congenital Heart Program Patient & Family Advisory Council in January 2020. She assisted in developing the Stanford Adult Congenital Heart Program’s Peer-to-Peer Program and serves as a Mentor to ACHD patients pre-and-post-organ transplantation. Alice has presented Stanford Health Care’s C-I-CARE framework for structuring best practice communications and developing relationship-based care approaches with patients and colleagues to 500+ Stanford Medicine Directors, Managers and Clinical Staff.

Alice is a Patient Relations Manager at Stanford Health Care. Within her role, she provides a channel for problem resolution to promote the highest quality of care and service excellence. Alice has also worked as an Unrelated Donor Search Coordinator with the Blood & Marrow Transplant at Stanford Health Care to coordinate allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplants through collaborative planning and partnership with the National Marrow Donor Program and SHC clinicians. Prior to her work with SHC, she was the Community Service Foundation Director at San Mateo County Medical Association where she partnered with local stakeholders and clinicians to expand county-wide community health programs to diverse populations. She has also delivered invaluable community health services through her work with the American Heart Association.

Alice earned her Bachelor of Arts in Sociology and Biology at Saint Bonaventure University in Olean, NY and her Master of Public Health from SUNY Buffalo in Buffalo, NY. Alice is a member of The Beryl Institute and Adult Congenital Heart Association professional associations, Donor Network West partner advocating for organ, eye, tissue, and blood donation, and remains an active volunteer with SHC. Alice continues to promote patient-and-family-centered care in both hospital and community settings to support precision health and improve the healthcare experience for patients, families, and clinicians.