Patient Safety & Quality Healthcare

By Chris Cheney The new CMO of Ascension Alexian Brothers has extensive experience in emergency department management. Bruce McNulty, MD, was named CMO of the Elk Grove Village, Illinois, hospital in September. Prior to joining Ascension, McNulty had served as senior vice president and CMO of Endeavor Health Swedish Hospital in Chicago for nine years.

As International Infection Prevention Week wraps up, we want to thank infection preventionists for all the hard work they do every day. And thanks to Inovalon for sponsoring the week’s activities. In Friday’s issue of Patient Safety & Quality Insider, we’re recapping the content we ran this week for IIPW.

What role should physician leaders play in infection prevention? And what are practical ways to bring a host of teams — including environmental services, sterile processing, pharmacy, and frontline clinicians — all to the same table to create one coordinated quality and safety framework? Answering these questions and more is Ebony Alford (MPH, CIC), an infection prevention application support specialist at Inovalon.

By Chris Cheney Northwell Health has launched the Institute for Healthy Aging to improve the care and health outcomes of older adults. By 2060, the number of Americans who are at least 65 years old is expected to nearly double, with those over 85 projected to triple, according to a study published in 2025.

By Jennifer Cordell CIC, Senior Manager, Application Support, Inovalon Every October, Infection Prevention Week gives health systems a reason to look at how infection prevention works across the whole organization. In behavioral health, that look usually turns up some hard problems. Inpatient psychiatric units and residential treatment programs were built around patient safety and a therapeutic community. Patients eat together, share bathrooms, and spend much of the day in group rooms.

Healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) can increase patient risk, extend hospital stays and drive up healthcare costs, making effective infection prevention a critical priority. This report explores how universal nasal decolonization (UND) can help reduce infection risk, standardize prevention protocols and protect patients across diverse healthcare settings. Fill out the form below to have the report delivered to your email address.

By Chris Cheney In this episode of HL Shorts, get valuable insights on the primary best practices for stroke care from John Cunha, DO, who is the new CMO of Holy Cross Health. Cunha has extensive experience in stroke care, including serving as medical director of the city of Oakland Park Emergency Medical Services in Florida, member of the Broward County Stroke Council, member of the Stroke Steering Committee at Holy Cross Health, and member of the Broward EMS Stroke Commission.

Program Date/Time: Wednesday, November 04, 2026, at 1 PM ET Many factors influence whether clinicians can, or believe they can, access mental health care without fear of personal and professional repercussions. To understand clinician perceptions of barriers to access mental health care, the Heart of Safety Coalition surveyed more than 2,000 nurses, nurse practitioners, physicians and physician assistants (PAs).

By Chris Cheney A multidisciplinary and team-based approach is essential to reduce Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infections in the hospital setting, according to the chair of the Infection Prevention and Control Committee at Holy Cross Health. MRSA is a type of bacteria that is resistant to treatment by several antibiotics, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Program Date/Time: Wednesday, October 21, 2026, at 11 AM ET In this one-hour webinar, a panel of experts will discuss the primary challenges facing hospital infection prevention and control teams as well as how to rise to the challenges.