Joseph Mari, Susan Lerner, MD,; and Marc Napp, MD grill the medical students after hearing their patient safety and quality care improvement proposals.
InFocus 7 at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai culminated with third-year medical students participating in the School’s first Med Ed Tank—a series of student pitches modeled after the popular ABC television series “Shark Tank.” InFocus weeks are part of the School’s new MD Program curriculum, where students are immersed in innovative courses outside of the classroom to focus their training on research methods, global health, service learning, leadership, scientific innovation, and patient safety and quality care—the latter being the focus for InFocus 7.
The third-year class—broken into 12 teams and divided into inpatient and outpatient care
The in-patient team members, posing with Marc Napp, MD, are all smiles after their Med Ed Tank win. Their winning- proposal focused on identifying the lags in patient discharge from the medical floor to an acute rehab center.
focus—applied their training in patient safety and improvement and analyzed the health care delivery process, identifying inefficiencies and jeopardies to patient safety. Each group recommended two solutions to improve the process, pitching to members of the Mount Sinai Health System leadership, including: Brian Radbill, MD, FACP, Chief Medical Officer and Vice President of Medical Affairs, Mount Sinai Queens; Theresa Soriano, MD, MPH, Senior Vice President of Care Transitions and Population, Mount Sinai St. Luke’s; Ramiro Jervis, MD, Internal Medicine Associates and Preventing Admissions Care Team, Mount Sinai Health System; Beth Raucher, MD, Chief of the Division of Quality Improvement in the Department of Medicine, Mount Sinai Beth Israel; Marc Napp, MD, Senior Vice President of Medical Affairs and Deputy Chief Medical Officer; Susan Lerner, MD, Assistant Professor of Surgery and Medical Education; and Joseph Mari, Executive Director of Health Systems and Process Improvement and Project Management, Mount Sinai Health System. The support from the preceptors and leadership—representative of the entire Mount Sinai Health System—was invaluable to the success of the School’s initiative and the student’s experience.
The outpatient team to win this year’s Med Ed Tank focused on the perioperative process at the The Mount Sinai Hospital.
Closing out the Med Ed Tank, Brijen Shah, MD, Assistant Professor of Medicine and Gastroenterology, and Dennis Chang, MD, Assistant Professor of Medicine encouraged the third-year class to vigilantly seek ways to improve their self, team, and the health care process by engaging with the community, being a patient advocate, and continuing to learn and teach—enlightening future third-years and others. Although only two teams emerged from the tank with winning proposals, all participants were rewarded with the tools needed to identify problems and create innovative solutions to improve the health care process—skills which will undoubtedly enhance their medical careers beyond the Icahn School of Medicine’s doors.