As part of an ongoing series, Becker's is talking to healthcare leaders who plan to speak at the first Becker's Healthcare Clinical Leadership Virtual Event Sept. 9-10.
Michael Williams, MD, associate CMO for clinical integration at University of Virginia Health System in Charlottesville and associate professor of surgery at UVA School of Medicine, will serve on the panel, "Top Priorities for Chief Clinical Officers in 2020 + Beyond."
To learn more about the conference and Dr. Williams' session, click here.
Editor's note: Responses have been lightly edited for style.
Question: What clinical initiative is taking up the most of your time and attention right now?
Dr. Michael Williams: A combination of COVID-19-specific care and patient progression management.
Q: What is your biggest patient care concern amid the pandemic, and how are you working to address it?
MW: Achieving equitable outcomes in an inequitable time.
Q: What's one lesson you learned early in your career that has helped you lead in healthcare?
MW: LISTEN HARD! Being an active listener to patients and our teams.
Q: What's the most important way clinical leaders can support their team's well-being and resilience during the pandemic?
MW: Recognize the achievements of each day, large and small. Acknowledge that unprecedented times are demanding every bit of all of us and that we need to pay closer attention to self-care.
Q: Where are the biggest opportunities for patient safety or quality improvements in 2020 and beyond?
MW: Reducing, if not completely eliminating, unnecessary variation of clinical task performance is, and I suspect will remain, the greatest opportunity for improvement in patient safety. As for quality improvement, recognizing that health inequity is the greatest barrier to well-being for the communities we serve and that addressing the social determinants of health that inform said inequities is the path to sustainable improvement in quality.
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