Hospital administrators consistently emphasize the importance of physician leaders in promoting quality improvement activities and note the difficulty in identifying physician quality “champions” within their organizations. Additionally, it remains a challenge to sustain quality improvements following the conclusion of a formal program.

In response to these concerns, GNYHA and the United Hospital Fund (UHF), as part of UHF funding from a larger Quality Improvement Initiative, created the Clinical Quality Fellowship Program (CQFP) to develop a cadre of local physicians trained in patient safety and quality improvement. The ultimate goal of the CQFP is to cultivate and grow the resource of physician quality leaders dedicated to driving culture change and moving the quality agenda forward in the region. Recognizing the importance of the interdisciplinary team approach, GNYHA/UHF and CQFP Advisory Panel members determined that Year 3 Fellows should include nursing professionals in addition to physicians.

Following the successes of the Year 1 and Year 2 classes of fellows, the Year 3 class has reached several important milestones, including:

• The thirteen mid-career physicians and five nursing professionals selected as Class #3 fellows participated in two two-day retreat training sessions which included introduction to safe systems, how information technology solutions impact patient safety, accountability in health care quality, and the team approach to root cause analysis.
• Faculty mentors are currently mentoring fellows as they develop quality improvement capstone projects.