Patrick O'Shaughnessy, DO, may no longer practice emergency medicine, but he has taken the lessons from his time in the field to the C-suite to improve the quality of care for the thousands of patients his system serves.
Dr. O'Shaughnessy is executive vice president and chief clinical officer of Rockville Centre N.Y.-based Catholic Health Services. He previously served as senior vice president and CMO of the system. Prior to joining CHS, he was chairman of the department of emergency medicine of St. Catherine of Siena Medical Center in Smithtown, N.Y., before becoming CMO of the hospital.
Dr. O'Shaughnessy earned his doctorate of osteopathic medicine from the New York College of Osteopathic Medicine in Old Westbury, his master's in business administration and healthcare administration from Garden City, N.Y.-based Adelphi University, and a master's of population health and population health management from Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia. He recently spoke with Becker's and answered our seven "Corner Office" questions.
Editor's note: Responses have been edited lightly for length and style.
Question: What's the one thing that really piqued your interest in healthcare?
Dr. Patrick O’Shaughnessy: It's hard to decide on one thing, but I think all of us in the healthcare space — whether we're clinicians or administrators — got into healthcare to make a difference and ultimately help ease pain and suffering, help improve quality of life and longevity, and support the overall human condition. I think at heart, we're all humanists, so we believe in really trying to make our workspace better to improve the health and lives of those we care for.
Q: What do you enjoy most about Long Island?
PO: So I live pretty much right in the middle of Long Island in a town called Dix Hills, New York. CHS has a footprint that extends along Nassau and Suffolk Counties, the North Shore and the South Shore. Along with a nice blend of thought leaders at the system, we have a mix of academic and community infrastructure, and a very astute population. Our patient population has challenges, so I think one of the things I enjoy most about Long Island is the opportunity we have as part of CHS to strengthen the communities we serve by providing the very best of care across all populations. We have some of the wealthiest communities in the country, and we have a mix of communities that are struggling. It really brings everything together in one small environment.
I personally love the diversity of environments in Long Island. I think we've got some really great beaches and we're close to New York City, which is great. We're only about 45 minutes out of Manhattan so it's easy to get into the city, but Long Island also has a lot of unique geography to explore. I'm also a pilot. It's just beautiful flying over the beaches, over the East End, up through the North Fork, up into Massachusetts and Martha's Vineyard. It's just a beautiful area.
Q: If you could eliminate one of the healthcare industry's problems overnight, which would it be?
PO: There are so many, but I think my choice would be eliminating silos. There are administrative silos in how we process care, there are silos in policy between the state and federal level and then there are silos of clinical care. There's an incredible amount of waste. I think really creating an enhanced, unified approach both from a policy perspective and a payer perspective is what I would do. How do we eliminate some of the burden for patients and providers?
Q: What is your greatest talent outside of the C suite?
PO: We do a lot of mission-based work at CHS because we're a faith-based organization. I am a person of faith and a family person. When I'm not working, I'm with my family. I'm incredibly lucky to be a dad and have a wonderful family. My daughter is one of my proudest accomplishments, so spending time with her and seeing her mature into an incredible human is probably the most gratifying thing I do outside of work.
I actually started college in aviation school and was taking the military route before I changed my mind. However, a lot of what I learned there in terms of training around safety mechanisms, effective communication, and checklists, I brought to CHS as part of our safety work. I also speak nationally on this topic relating to healthcare safety and quality. Even though those lessons came from outside the C-suite, I apply them to the C-suite and I apply them to healthcare delivery.
Q: How do you revitalize yourself?
PO: I'm an avid fitness enthusiast. I believe in taking time outside of work to take care of your body. I believe if you take care of your body, it'll take care of you, so I work out quite a bit. I also fly, and there's nothing more gratifying than watching the sunset over Montauk Point or flying the Hudson and going up to West Point. Those are things I do to kind of recharge and revitalize.
Q: What's one piece of advice you remember most clearly?
PO: There are so many. Something that has been very influential in my career is the fact that I'm a survivor of the attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001. I gained a sense of commitment to teamwork and working together from that — the idea that when working collectively together as a team, you could really take any horrible situation and try to make the best possible outcome out of it.
Then as an emergency physician, part of our training is really about analyzing problems effectively but acting and executing. I've taken that to my administrative work; I've taken that to my life. In fact, I worked on a phrase and trademarked it, called "Triage your Life." If you think about it, you have to prioritize problems, you have to analyze them, but you have to be able to execute. I think a lot of people get caught up in over-analysis and failure to act and it's just part of your training. As a young physician, there were so many influential people in my career that that's how you were trained. I think that's why I can't tell you how many times I now run across emergency physicians who are in administrative roles, such as myself, or even running healthcare systems because of those attributes.
Q: What do you consider your greatest accomplishment at CHS so far?
PO: It's our reduction in preventable harm and the high reliability journey, which I have the privilege to lead. We've taken the concept of high reliability science and, looking at how humans make errors, we trained our over 18,000 employees and 5,000 medical staff and affiliated clinical team members on these error prevention training techniques.
We've eliminated vertical power distance between our personnel and created an enhanced culture of safety where people understand why errors occur. They look for them, they track them and they mitigate them before they reach the patient. We've had significant reductions in related harm events and hospital associated events that have saved hundreds, if not thousands, of lives. That's what gets me up every morning, that's why I come to work. Even though I'm not at the bedside anymore, someone told me when I moved into administrative work, "Patrick, if you're in a busy ED during a 12-hour shift, you impact the lives of maybe 30 people that come in to see you. In this position, you can literally impact thousands of lives." I feel like I'm doing that, and that's what keeps me coming back every day.