MedStar Health News

Curtis Whitehair, MD, FAAPMR, program director for the Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation residency program at MedStar National Rehabilitation Hospital/MedStar Georgetown University Hospital is one of just 10 recipients of a 2016 Parker J. Palmer Courage to Teach Award from the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME).

Cancer Care and Infusion Services (CCIS) at MedStar St. Mary’s Hospital recently received a donation for $3,334 from Ledo Pizza’s corporate office in Annapolis, Maryland.

Being doused with chocolate syrup is not often included in a high school lesson plan, but it was all in a day’s work at MedStar Southern Maryland Hospital Center’s MiniMedical School.

Thomas J. (T.J.) Senker, FACHE, has been named president of MedStar Montgomery Medical Center effective Feb.1, succeeding Peter W. Monge. Senker also serves as senior vice president for MedStar Health.

MedStar Health is in the vanguard of health systems across the country that are embracing transparency and adopting practices to immediately communicate with patients and families—and other members of the care team—when something goes wrong. MedStar has been following the principles of communication and disclosure for several years, and was asked to develop and pilot the toolkit for the Communication and Optimal Resolution (CANDOR) program of the federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). AHRQ made the toolkit available today to hospitals and health leaders at no charge to encourage transparency everywhere.

Healthcare systems must create an environment that encourages patients to voice concerns about their care by adopting strategies for encouraging reporting and for responding in real time to address concerns, concludes report.