Team focused, patient-centered medical care sum up the bedside manner of Dr. Scott Ellner. The key members of that team, said Ellner, are the patients themselves.
“My approach is to always listen to my patients and let them contribute to their care as a part of the team. I think it helps to foster a trust and a rapport that the patients are looking for, that they come to understand that you’re going to do everything in your power to see them through their surgery or illness as safe as possible.”
The team approach, Ellner explained, means that he draws expertise from all disciplines of medicine to care for his patients, and tries to instill a “leveling of the authority grades” with his team to help empower each team member to speak up as advocates for their patients without fear of recrimination.
“I don’t think it should all be physician-based. It’s collaboration with nursing, physical therapy, physician assistants, nurse practitioners and others. You can’t work in a silo. We all have a stake in improving patient health and in helping patients become more educated about their own care,” he said.
Ellner graduated from Western University of Health Sciences’ Osteopathic Medicine program. His patient-centered approach and work in improving overall medical care and access for the general population long preceded his desire to attend medical school. By that time he had already completed a master’s degree in public health and had been involved in several projects promoting health education and protection.
“Before even considering medical school,” he said, “I was inclined toward helping populations improve their own health through community education — for instance, encouraging children to eat right, exercise more, etc.”
Ellner brings his public-interest approach of improving overall health standards and patient care to his role as director of surgical quality at Saint Francis Hospital and Medical Center. The board-certified general and trauma surgeon is also vice chairman of surgical review, holds a teaching appointment as assistant professor of surgery at the University of Connecticut Medical Center, is a surgeon champion for the National Surgical Quality Improvement program, a Patient Safety Leadership Fellow with the American Hospital Association and National Patient Safety Foundation and a founding member of the Connecticut Surgical Quality Collaborative.
He is a strong advocate for outcomes — and evidence-based hospital care performance improvement and has achieved significant success in this area at St. Francis. Over the past few years, Ellner successfully led the introduction of a best practices initiative designed to reduce the occurrence of catheter-related urinary tract infection. His team’s efforts over the past two years, he said, have reduced the occurrence of infection by 56 percent, adding that, “since March of this year, there has not been one incident of post-operative urinary tract infection.”
Dr. Jeffrey Steinberg, chairman of Saint Francis’ Department of Surgery, said that Ellner has set the quality standard for other hospitals through his approach and practice.
“Scott Ellner has brought to Saint Francis a level of sophistication in the area of surgical quality which sets the standard for all hospitals in the region. As one of a few select National Patient Safety Fellows in the U.S, his dedication to process improvement, patient safety and medical quality is truly contagious. Physicians, nurses and orderlies alike have welcomed his program with open arms. He’s made a huge difference in how we do our work in just a short few months as director of surgical quality.”
For Ellner, keeping it simple while adapting to an extraordinarily fast changing medical care provider environment is critical.
“For me,” he said, “it’s always going to be about the patient. After they’ve had some intervention by me, even if it’s just an office visit, it’s going to be that confidence I see in their eyes, that they trust me, that they were pleased with how I listened to them, how I was a partner in their care, and the satisfaction that they get from being a patient at St. Francis and that I was the physician who helped contribute to that satisfaction.”
STATS:
Title: Director of Surgical Quality Work place: Saint Francis Hospital and Medical Center
Address: 114 Woodland St., Hartford, CT 06103
Web site: www.stfranciscare.org
