S. Nicholas R. Desai
402 Olmstead Park Drive • Sugar Land, TX 77479
(281) 732-7414 •
PHYSICIAN MANAGEMENT EXECUTIVE PROFILE
Senior physician management professional with 15+ years of combined focused clinical and healthcare experience in large scale IDNs with a proven track record of developing strategic direction and implementation in various incumbencies while embedding a focus on quality, safety, process, and technology. Consistently recognized for improving organizational effectiveness and efficiency through exceptional leadership, change management, and lean philosophy to align business and clinical processes for cost realization, accelerate performance, and develop strategic flexibility. A builder of high-performance teams and a natural leader, mentor, and motivator who thrives in environments requiring a high-level strategist and a big-picture thinker. Strong background in operations, strategy, clinical support and revenue cycle management. Talented, results-driven, and versatile to quickly assess and utilize the appropriate response to meet the specific needs of the organization.
CORE COMPETENCIES
Program Leadership • Strategic Planning • Clinical Quality & Informatics Improvement• Business Continuity
Organizational Development• Global Collaboration • Project Management • Business Integration
Performance Optimization • Financial & Clinical Reimbursement Mapping & Analytics
Process Improvement • Personnel Management
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
Houston Methodist Hospital System, Houston, TX 2010 to Present
Chief Medical Information Officer 2013 -present
System Medical Director, Information Technology 2011-2012
Medical Director, Information Technology 2010
· Led large-scale clinical transformation and implementation of new clinical information system conversion from Allscripts & Meditech to Epic at all 7 legacy hospitlas including onboarding the newest 8th hospital in the Woodlands and 650+ enterprise employed physicians with achieving Epic’s Level 8 GOLDSTARS recognition within 8 months of go live
· Responsible for design, development, and governance of a multidisciplinary clinical practice committee and development of a physician informatics department across the enterprise including designing KPI dashboards and performance monitioring metrics
· Spearhead all facility-based project management issues related to physician and clinical informatics improvement initiatives
· Converted entire physician organization of 650 + providers from the disparate systems and leverageing a single enterprise data warehouse to collect business and clinical intelligence while still coverting them from their disparate solutions of paper, NexGen, and Athena to Epic, Meanigful Use, and developing Quality Data Indicators
· Connected the organization to Greater Houston HealthConnect, “regional health information exchange”
· Led the first ever birdirectional connectivity between Athena and Epic for data conversion
· Redesigned and facilitated streamlining the development of over 350+ comprehensive, evidence based, real time alerting, quality driven widely accepted enterprise endorsed order sets using Zynx (HEARST) & InORDER (Elsevier) Evidence Based Mapping tool
· Launched clinical decision support and business intelligence rules around strategic market and enterprise initiatives including population health, automating tools to streamline transitons of care, and quality outcome measures in target ACO and research populations
· Launched enterprise wide direct secure messaing tool to improve physician directed secure communication to reduce length of stay and enhanced patient safety
· Designed an effective facilitated remote and inperson EMR physician centric training strategy first of its kind for Epic with success of traning 99% of providers at each entity prior to Epic go live
· Created a “pay it forward pay it back” support model with contract support for go live readiness which reduced the expense of large scale support team recruitement, allowed support to be available 24/7 during go live, and allowed flexibility to tactically reduce support to operations mode within 2-3 weeks post go live
· Achieved 100% adoption of Epic EMR in all areas of the hospital and ready for stage & attestation for HIMSS EMR Stage 7 within 4 weeks of go live at all Epic go live sites equally facilitating restoration in positive increase charge and revenue realization between 4-20% across the enterprise
· Negotiatied an enterprise combined Nuance contract including Dragon Speech to Text/Voice Recognition
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· Implemented Dragon Medical Advisor within the integrated Dragon Medical One to automate virtual intelligence for realtime chart review to provide feedback to capture specificity of condition, to improve CMI, and to appropriately risk adjust through proper HCC coding
· Responsible for the design and execution of enterprise physician ICD10 training on appropriate documentation requirements defining most accurate medical picture for the patient including shift from ICD9-10 and its impact to Risk Ajustment Factor (RAF) scores along with creating physician reporting dashboards
· Particiapted in enterprise design and development of a single biling and centralized billing office combining ambulatory and inpatient
· Enrolled over 100K patients on the MyChart portal within 9 months of go live for care coordination and access
· Served as physician champion sponsor for MIDAS Quality Outcomes Improvement & Strategic Performance Partner as our enterprise solution for assessing financial impact on quality, improved quality outcomes
Houston Methodist Podiatry Associates, Sugar Land, TX 2013 to present
· Established first podiatric foot & ankle surgical practice within the Specialty Physician Group of 650 providers
· Leveraged administrative role as CMIO to use this clinic as an active prototype lab to best serve the needs to organization
Memorial Hermann Sugar Land Hospital, Sugar Land, TX 2005 to 2010
Director, Medical Informatics, 2005-2010
Primary Role: Lead Physician Executive (member of the Sugarland Executive Leadership Team) to integrate CERNER Clinical Application Suite within a community hospital.
· Created the enterprise’s first medical informatics department with 4 FTEs, including desktop support, nursing informaticst, clinical support personnel and clinical trainer which then became the model design per campus
· Successfully implemented Cerner Millennium Application Suite including Pharm & First Net, developed over 240 comprehensive order sets for use in the hospital inpatient and ambulatory environments with evidence driven decision support
o Achieved 100% adoption of CPOE in ED, Ob/Gyn, Neonatology, Pediatrics within 45 days of launch
o Adopted new KPIs and Clinical IT/Buisness Intelligence tools to tackle Core Measures: Pneumonia, Congestive Heart Failure, Acute Myocardial Infarction, Surgical Care Improvement Project resulting in >97% compliance in all areas from a range of 67% to 86% within 90 days of adoption
o Established >60% CPOE utilization within 20 months of the launch of CPOE and managed to create a physician champion advisory group for order set review/update
o Implemented hardwired clinical decision support to achieve 100% compliance on clinical education on smoking cessation and antibiotic timing/ selection in Pneumonia and Congestive Heart Failure
o Leveraged nursing decision support to reduce pressure ulcer complance from 70% to >95% for >12 months
o Automated bundle compliance for VAP
o Implemented Cerner Discern Advisor for 100% VTE prophylaxis on admitted pateints
· Realigned the hospitalist/inpatient manager service with sustained utilization of CPOE at >75% by hardwiring utilization and quality metrics into the contractual agreements
· Implemented Bar-coding/MedSAFE program in all clinical areas to ensure 100% patient identification and administration of medications at the bedside
· Reduced cost by improving a partnered novel clinical pharmacy driven medication reconciliation program and formulary mapping with 1 dedicated FTE pharmacy technician with over 95k/annual savings in the department
· Hardwired electronic ordering proactive mapping to achieve 100% compliance in antibiotic selection and administration within 1 hour of incision for > 18 months for both ambulatory and inpatient surgery
Chief, Department of Surgery, Memorial Hermann Sugar Land 2006 to 2010
Primary Role: Chief Physician for the Department of Surgery to partner with leadership and quality to develop and implement policies and procedures to continuously improve the department using lean and change management and member of the leadership transition team during hospital relocation from Missouri City to Sugarland location
· Championed enterprise hospital initiatives and provided eduation to staff and providers
o Key highlights: instituted SCIP to maintain 100% compliance of preoperative antibiotic administration, utilization, and discontinuation of prophylactic antibiotics within appropriate 24/48 hour timeframe, ensure delivery of preoperative beta blocker and VTE/DVT prophylaxis within 30 days of initiation of project with sustained performance for greater then 10 consecutive months
· Improved Physician Satisfaction and Patient Throughput using Six Sigma Lean Principles
· Restructured surgical block and created specialty block schedules and reduced turnover time
· Led the design of surgical orderset design for all major specialties using evidence based medicine
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CERNER PowerWORKS/Cerner Corporation, Kansas City, KS 2007 to 2008
Power Works Content Development Partner
Primary Role: Consultant Physician Partner
· Designed the content catalog of computerized digital electronic health record for the specialty of podiatry and structured documentation notes as it pertained to wound care, dermatology, orthopedics, and podiatry.
Kindred/Triumph Hospital Southwest, Sugar Land, TX 2003 to 2008, 2011
Medical Director, Utilization Review/Quality Assurance Committee 2003-2008
Medical Director, Outpatient Wound Care Director 2011
Primary Role: Lead Physician to provide oversight and partner with hospital to implement quality and utilization management programs
· Implemented standardized paper documentation templates to address core measures and UM
· Established a peer-to-peer review committee for clinical and physician peer/quality review
· Drafted policies and procedures to reduce medical records delinquency from >180 to <45 days from discharge
· Created quality reporting data scorecards to monitor Catheter Related Blood Stream Infections, Decubitus Formation, MRSA Surveillance, Antibiotic Selection, /Utilization, VTE/DVT Prophylaxis, ALOS
· Served as the facility spokesperson for media appearances to launch new outpatient programs
· Implemented electronic Wound Tracker Documentation database for the Wound Care Program
· Redesigned process workflow for reduction in medical records delinquency from >180 to <45 days from discharge
Foot Centers of Texas, Sugar Land, TX 2001 to 2013
Founder & Chairman of the Board
Primary Role: Established a private foot and ankle surgical specialty practice with multiple locations with the metro area
· Consolidated two established physician podiatric practices into one parent company then created added multi-specialty services and private groups to complement the practices from one physician to a multispecialty group as a market leader in providing foot and ankle surgical and wound services in Fort Bend County
· Created a GPO for multiple physician practices, centralizing billing and collections, reduced overhead operating expense from 78% to 43%, minimized uninsured bad debt to <5%, outsourced non viable opportunities and inefficiencies by divestment or automation, reduced 180K monthly operating debt within 180 days of merger using six sigma lean methodology and demonstrated an increased revenue 30% yielding annual revenues of 3.9 million
· Negotiated with insurance carriers and network representatives to maximize reimbursement rates using outcome quality data benchmarks pertaining to the specialty
· Implemented CCHIT certified ASP CERNER Power Works Ambulatory EMR & Practice Management System
· Lectured nationally and locally on various new cutting edge products for both the clinical and IT industries, including Pfizer, CERNER, Kinetic Concepts (KCI), Smith & Nephew, Health Point, and Accumed
EDUCATION
Master of Business Administration, Physician Executive/Health Care Concentration
Texas Tech University Lubbock, TX
Executive Education: Physician Leadership & Health Care Executive Management Program
Rice University Jones School of Business Houston, TX
Surgical Internship/Residency: Adult/Pediatric Reconstructive Ankle & Foot Surgery
NYCPM/NY Presbyterian Hospital Network, New York , NY & St Barnabas Medical Center Bronx, NY
Diplomate, American Board of Podiatric Surgery
Fellow, American College of Foot & Ankle Surgery
Medical Doctorate (DPM)
New York College of Podiatric Medicine New York, NY
BOARD APPOINTMENTS
Greater Houston Healthconnect (2014- present), American Heart Association- Go Red (2015-present), Hope Endowment (2004-present), Fort Bend Cares (2013), Memorial Hermann Sugar Land Development Board (2008-2010)