Keck Medicine of USC tapped Santhi Iyer Kumar, MD, to serve as the first chief quality and patient safety officer at Keck Medical Center of USC in Los Angeles.
As chief quality and patient safety officer, Dr. Kumar will work with multidisciplinary teams across the organization to ensure patients are receiving high quality, safe and patient-centered care. She will also focus on ensuring the hospital meets national hospital quality and safety regulatory requirements, including The Joint Commission and CMS accreditation.
"Our goal is to create continuity across the medical center so that regardless of which physician or nurse is treating a patient, that care will be consistent, high quality and compassionate," said Dr. Kumar in an emailed release.
Dr. Kumar is also an assistant professor of clinical medicine at the Keck School of Medicine of USC and serves as director of the medical intensive care unit at Keck Hospital of USC.
Dr. Kumar earned her medical degree from Drexel University College of Medicine in Philadelphia. She completed both her residency in internal medicine and her fellowship in pulmonary/critical care medicine at USC in 2007.
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