Dr. Eric Wei serves as Senior Vice President and Chief Quality Officer for NYC Health + Hospitals, the largest municipal safety-net health system in the United States. He is a Clinical Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine at NYU Grossman School of Medicine and Adjunct Professor at NYU School of Global Public Health. Dr. Wei serves as the fellowship director for the NYC H+H Clinical Leadership Fellowship and faculty for the Greater New York Hospital Association/United Hospital Fund Clinical Quality Fellowship Program. He is a fellow of the American College of Emergency Physicians. He serves on the board for MetroPlus Health. He is a practicing Emergency Medicine physician rotating through all 11 Emergency Departments in NYC Health + Hospitals. Previously, Dr. Wei served as Interim CEO of NYC H+H/Elmhurst Hospital and NYC H+H/Harlem Hospital, and Interim Chief Quality Officer and Associate Medical Director for Quality, Safety, and Risk for LAC + USC Medical Center. Dr. Wei received his Bachelor’s degree in Molecular, Cell and Developmental Biology at University of California, Los Angeles. He completed the combined MD and MBA program at University of California, Irvine. Dr. Wei completed his Emergency Medicine residency at the University of Michigan. Dr. Wei was named in the Becker’s Hospital Review Top 50 Experts Leading the Field of Patient Safety, Modern Healthcare’s 50 Most Influential Clinical Executives, and Crain’s Business New York 40 Under 40.
Presentation Synopsis
HM8: Creating Sustainable Culture Change through Kindness, Humanism, and Continuous Quality Improvement
Many US cities have lost their safety-net healthcare systems, which has had devastating effects on the most vulnerable communities. The largest municipal system, NYC Health + Hospitals, was in dire straits with a $1.6 billion structural deficit and multiple voices calling for hospital closures. A new leadership team took over NYC H+H in 2018, determined to save NYC’s safety-net. They found a punitive and defeated culture, staff suffering from learned helplessness and low morale, and a system in a negative spiral. Changing the culture was going to be the most difficult challenge.
Determined to put the focus back on our most precious resource, our staff, the team worked to rebuild trust and psychological safety through bringing humanism back into the system, reinforcing a kind but just culture, and empowering transformation to happen from the bottom up. In less than five years, the structural deficit is closed, NYC H+H played an outsized role in NYC’s COVID-19 pandemic response, patient volumes are at record levels, and the system is once again thriving. Attendees can learn a framework for building and sustaining a positive culture.
Presentation Synopsis
HM12: Helping Healers Heal: Providing Emotional and Psychological Support for Healthcare Workers through the COVID-19 Pandemic
The Helping Healers Heal (H3) program was launched in the second largest municipal safety-net system, Los Angeles County Department of Health Services, in 2016 to address second victimization, burnout, compassion fatigue, and vicarious trauma. H3 spread to the largest municipal safety-net system, NYC Health + Hospitals in 2018. H3 is built upon a three tiered model that aims to flip the old culture of Medicine on its head. To turn the healing powers that healthcare providers give freely to patients and their families towards one other.
When COVID-19 hit NYC in early 2020 like a tsunami, NYC Health + Hospitals was disproportionately affected due to its vulnerable patient population. The H3 team evolved and expanded to rise to the occasion to support H+H's 42,000 staff through the pandemic. H3 learned from the US Department of Defense regarding combat stress management and resilience techniques to create HERO-NY that together with H3 was spread across the globe to 37 countries. Attendee can learn about the holistic H3 wellness model and bring its concepts to their own hospitals, clinics, and healthcare systems.