New Hanover Regional Medical Center is pleased to announce that West Paul, MD, PhD, has been hired as Chief Clinical Officer. He fills a position created to advance NHRMC’s commitment to offer the highest level of patient safety and clinical quality. Dr. Paul will provide oversight for clinical quality and safety, clinical practices and the NHRMC system medical staff.
Dr. Paul comes to NHRMC from WakeMed, where he served as senior vice president and Chief Quality & Medical Staff Officer. He has been instrumental in transforming the quality and safety structure at WakeMed into a proactive, data-driven service that informs the clinical and frontline staff while educating the system on best practices to achieve aspirational goals.
“Dr. Paul’s quality and safety abilities are unparalleled,” said Dr. Philip Brown, NHRMC Chief Physician Executive. “He spent two decades in a physician-led system at the Mayo Clinic, and that uniquely qualifies him to lead our efforts to achieve perfect care.”
Prior to leading WakeMed’s Chasing Zero efforts to eliminate preventable harm, Dr. Paul worked for 16 years at the Mayo Clinic in a variety of roles, including founding chair of the Division of Consultative and Diagnostic Medicine, where his goal was to manage complex patients and evaluate the “un-diagnosable.”
His list of accomplishments is vast, and his achievements are primarily centered on the goals of improving patient satisfaction and outcomes through improved safety measures.
NHRMC is continually analyzing the safety and effectiveness of our patient care teams. Based on that data, Dr. Paul will act as a catalyst to implement change in daily practices to make the NHRMC system an even better place to receive care.
Dr. Paul describes his own work as a “synergy of medicine, data science, and continuous improvement to patient care.”
“His experience, insight, and scientific approach will enable us to implement changes beyond what is apparent,” Dr. Brown said. “He will help us reach our aspirational goals of attaining the next level of quality and performance. And that means better care for our community, which is the ultimate goal.”
Dr. Paul is a native of Ayden, North Carolina. He completed his undergraduate at Duke University and then became the first student to earn a PhD and MD at East Carolina University. He completed his internship in internal medicine at the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Fla.
He will begin as Chief Clinical Officer at NHRMC on April 29.