Quality leaders — Ryan Moran

By April Frawley Birdwell

Ryan Moran/Photo by Maria Belen Farias

In hospitals, central line infections are among the most deadly complications, with one in four infected patients dying as a result, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. As a new faculty member in the pediatric intensive care unit in 2010, Ryan Moran, M.D., M.P.H., quickly turned his focus on this problem, an issue he’d studied closely while earning a master’s in public health during his fellowship training at Vanderbilt University.

Moran joined a hospitalwide committee dedicated to reducing the numbers of patients who develop central line infections. He also helped establish a committee to regularly review patient safety reports in the pediatric intensive care unit in order to identify opportunities for improvement.

“I’ve always had an interest in how we approach illness from a systematic level,” said Moran, an assistant professor of pediatrics in the College of Medicine.

In 2011, Moran’s focus on quality shifted outside of the PICU to children’s health as a whole when he was named the physician director of quality for pediatrics. He and other faculty members in the department have since established a quality and safety committee to review patient safety reports that deal with issues that affect the entire department, such as patient transportation. Reviewing these reports systematically not only allows the committee to make policy suggestions or establish groups to evaluate problems, but also increases the chances reports will be filed in the first place. All reports are reviewed in a non-punitive manner, with the sole goal of improving quality and safety.

“There is a definite culture of safety that is developing,” Moran said. “We have many miles to go, but things are definitely in a process of development in pediatrics. Everyone is excited how we are integrating things interprofessionally.”