Matthew Carroll, M.D., named Cook Children’s new Chief Quality Officer
We are excited to announce that Matthew Carroll, M.D., has been named as Cook Children’s Health Care System’s new Chief Quality Officer.
Dr. Carroll came to Cook Children’s in 2014 as a pediatric hospitalist. Eight years ago, he joined the Quality Team. This month, he moved into the Chief Quality Officer role, where he oversees more than a dozen programs and teams, including Accreditation, Health Outcomes Improvement, the clinical pathways program, Case Management, Social Work, Language Services, and Health Information Management, just to name a few. He worked with many of these teams in his previous role, but is excited to continue to do so at a broader scope.
We sat down with Dr. Carroll to talk about his team’s goals and what he is most excited about in his new role.
Q: What does Quality Improvement mean to you?
A: Quality Improvement is how we look at our outcomes and processes and ask, ‘how do we make them better?’ If there are areas where we're not doing as well as we would like, we need to understand why that is, what are those issues we need to address, and then work together to systematically address those issues and measure the impact.
Q: What are some of your short-term goals?
A: One of the things I'd really love to see us do is to look at how we support quality improvement throughout the system. There's been so much work as it relates to safety, and that's incredibly important work that we'll continue to work heavily on. But how can we expand what we do to include not just safety but broader quality improvement work? How can we support departments and teams at the front line as they engage in this important work? I would love to see us be a resource to them, where we could partner with clinical leaders, physicians, nurses and other team members, and if they're interested in doing quality improvement work or a project, we could provide support for that work, including data analysis and additional quality improvement expertise.
Q: Why is that partnership a priority for you?
A: There's a lot of great quality improvement work that's happening throughout the System. For some departments and units, they've got the resources and they've got the expertise to be able to do the work. But I think in some other areas, there's not that same amount of bandwidth to be able to take it on. So we want to partner with those areas to help them do that, because they're the ones with the great ideas for improvement projects. We just want to help facilitate and support that important work.
Q: How does that partnership start?
A: It starts with listening. We’ve got to understand what their needs are how we can help them in their improvement efforts.
Q: What’s your long-term goal in this position?
A: Success would be continuing to be one of the safest pediatric systems where patients can access care, and through data, education and partnerships, we're able to help frontline clinical leaders drive further improvements in their particular area. So we’re not just satisfied with our great performance now, but we’re striving to be even better.
Q: What made you decide to dedicate your career to Cook Children’s?
A: Cook Children’s is truly a special place. We do medical education and we do research, which are both really important, but our primary focus is always going to be on the patient and what's best for the patient, and our commitment to our Promise. I think that’s unique.
Q: What are you excited about in this new position?
A: With the massive growth that we're seeing in our expansion, it's an exciting time to be here. We want to continue to make sure we've got the infrastructure in place from a quality and safety standpoint, so that we can safely take care of those patients that are coming through our doors, and continue to deliver the high level of care that we're known for.
Q: To help people get to know you more, do you have any fun hobbies?
A: I live in Fort Worth and enjoy playing racquetball. I have a wife and two young kids, and so the two young kids definitely keep me busy. I feel like between work and kids and family, there's not a ton of time for hobbies, but racquetball, I enjoy. And… well, I don't know if I enjoy jogging, but I go jogging.
Thank you Dr. Carroll for talking with us and we’re excited to see what the team does next!