Medical University of South Carolina case study: A structured approach to improving quality metrics for achieving maximum pay-for-performance incentive payments

Author's Biography

Danielle Bowen Scheurer Dr Scheurer is an adult hospitalist physician and the Chief Quality Officer at Medical University of South Carolina Health. She completed undergraduate studies at Emory University Medical School and the University of Tennessee and her combined medicine-paediatrics training at Duke University. She then joined the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) as a hospitalist and completed her master’s degree in clinical research. Next, Dr Scheurer practised as a hospitalist and the medical director of the inpatient medicine service at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston for five years before returning to MUSC in 2010. She is a certified trainer in Just Culture and TeamSTEPPS, a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt, a national Baldrige Examiner and a certified mediator. As MUSC’s chief quality officer, Dr Scheurer oversees all quality, safety, population health, patient experience and regulatory efforts for the health system.

Kimberly Adelman Dr Adelman is a senior manager in the Performance Transformation Division at ECG. Over the course of her career, she has held executive leadership roles in nearly every healthcare setting, including acute care, home care and hospice, skilled nursing, rehabilitation and ambulatory care. She has valuable knowledge regarding the coordination of care and transition of patients to the most appropriate, least expensive care setting and is an expert in leading the implementation of new and improved care delivery processes, particularly under alternative and bundled payment models. Dr Adelman’s work at ECG focuses on quality and operational improvement, service line strategy and development, organisational transformation and care coordination. She is a Fellow in the American College of Healthcare Executives (ACHE) and is also a senior examiner and team leader for the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award Program.

Sandra Myerson Sandy is a principal who leads the Hospital Performance Improvement practice at ECG. As a visionary healthcare leader and registered nurse with more than 25 years of experience, she is known for delivering innovative and strategic approaches to improving the care experience for patients and providers alike. Sandy is an expert in acute care patient flow optimisation and proficiently diagnoses outdated and inefficient practices and processes, benchmarks operational and quality data to quantify and prioritise specific areas of opportunity, and quickly outlines root causes of inefficiencies to develop approaches for making requisite improvements. Prior to joining ECG, Sandy served as the inaugural chief patient experience officer for Mount Sinai Health System in New York, where she led the innovation, implementation and evaluation of transformational programmes that enhanced the delivery of compassionate, coordinated care for patients and families across the care continuum.

Lisa Carley Reed Lisa is a senior manager who provides project management leadership for large-scale, multidisciplinary engagements and supports clients in the development and execution of transformative initiatives, typically with a substantial technology component. Her rich background in project management and healthcare operations, IT and finance allows her to translate healthcare organisations’ most ambitious goals into actionable plans and realised outcomes. Over the last few years, she served as the project director for Epic implementations at a national ambulatory provider and an academic medical centre, leading the project and supporting each organisation in realising the benefits of an integrated, welladopted electronic health record (EHR). Before joining ECG, Lisa worked as a project manager at Epic, where she led revenue cycle implementations and developed a deep understanding of revenue cycle best practices, health system finance and clinical workflows.