Page 30 - Christiana Care Focus June July 2018

Medical Education |
Christiana Care renews portfolio program to assist physicians with maintenance of board certifications
Christiana Care physicians, who strive to be health care innovators by seeking new knowledge and using resources wisely, are increasingly lending their expertise to quality improvements within their service lines.
But identifying the root causes of medical challenges and developing effective interventions is an investment of time in a profession where physicians are already handling many critical responsibilities.
To recognize the importance of delivering sustained advances for patients, Christiana Care is enabling physicians to use their quality improvement projects to achieve another important goal. Over the
last three years, Christiana Care has assisted physicians in fulfilling Part 4 of their maintenance of certification with one or more of the 24 specialty boards that affiliate with the American Board
Cof Medical Specialties.
em Soykan, M.D., is one physician who has been able to dovetail his quality improvement efforts with
his maintenance of certification — through the Multi-Specialty Portfolio Program. Dr. Soykan is associate pediatric hospitalist chief and director of medical education in the Women’s and Children’s Service Line. He said the guidance offered through the Portfolio Program helps physicians achieve the core values of continuously striving
to implement novel and value-added innovations. “In addition, the program streamlines the submission of quality improvement projects and can save physicians hundreds of hours of work as well as maintenance of certification fees," he said.
Dr. Soykan explained that his ongoing quality improvement project deals with the opioid crisis, and the fact that Christiana Care doctors deliver more than 200 babies a year who are exposed to drugs in the womb and develop neonatal abstinence syndrome, a set
of short-term withdrawal symptoms that often require treatment. By establishing a series of best-practice protocols, the babies, on average, now stay in the hospital 11 days less than three years ago.
As one of the physician leaders of the Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome Length of Stay Quality Improvement Project, Dr. Soykan takes pride in the effort to use both pharmacologic management and interventions, such as calming techniques, a quiet environment, nutritional support, and caregiver comfort, to improve newborn care.
He is also happy that Christiana Care’s Multi-Specialty Portfolio Program helped him submit his work on the neonatal improvement project in 2017 to maintain his certified status with the American Board of Pediatrics. Other pediatric team members, who contribute to the neonatal project, have also submitted the quality improvement project for maintenance of certification.
“For physicians, who are busy attending to daily details of a practice, the Portfolio Program recognizes the work already being done to advance the
care of patients and eases some of the
Pediatric hospitalists at Christiana Care work on a Multi-Specialty Portfolio Program project designed to reduce length of stay for babies with neonatal abstinence syndrome. Pictured from left are Cem Soykan, M.D., Dorothy J. Wavrek, M.D., pediatric hospitalist; Laura Lawler, M.D., chief of Pediatric Hospitalists; Preetha Kurian, M.D., pediatric hospitalist, and, seated Han Wie Huang, D.O., pediatric hospitalist.
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