Physician leaders participated in GNYHA’s recent inaugural chief medical officer (CMO)/physician executive (PE) reception, which featured networking opportunities and keynote speaker Jonathan B. Perlin, PhD, MSHA, MACP, FACM. Dr. Perlin, The Joint Commission (TJC) President and Chief Executive Officer, detailed TJC’s “HELP Agenda,” which is strategically focused on health care equity, environmental sustainability, learning/enabling responsible artificial intelligence, and performance integration and improvement. It “grew out of direct operational experience” and is “focused on sustainable health care” in a “brutally complex time.” He cited data and case studies that highlight the unintended consequences of health care’s impact on the environment. If worldwide health care were a country, Dr. Perlin said, it would be the fifth largest producer of greenhouse gases in the world. Three hundred tons of waste would be saved if the health care industry simply transitioned from disposable gowns to reusable ones, he added.
GNYHA’s Erin DuPree, MD, Senior Vice President and Physician Executive, Quality and Clinical Initiatives, said CMOs and PEs stand “at the forefront of health care leadership” and “our shared insights are the key to overcoming the most dauting obstacles.”
GNYHA President Kenneth E. Raske told attendees that “the essence of what we produce is engineered by you,” adding that one of GNYHA’s core focuses is to leverage the fact that “the needle of public opinion already overwhelmingly wants affordable, accessible health care.”
Participant feedback praised the CMO/PE forum and described the networking opportunity as especially valuable.