Unique, Hospital-Based Volunteer Opportunity for Students/ECP's in Quality/Performance Dept. in Brooklyn, NY

Unique volunteer opportunity for a student or early career psychologist to get involved with a hospital-based Quality Assurance Team. We are looking for someone 1.5 to 2 days a week, at a Brooklyn NY Hospital, and the person would be supervised directly by me. The hours and the days are pretty flexible. We are looking for a minimum of a 6 month commitment. There is a stipend of $500.00

The Quality Assurance Team oversees the outpatient behavioral health department's quality goals and performance improvement projects, such as tracking and improving patient outcomes, ensuring compliance with OMH/Medicaid standards of care, and implementing new processes to improve care and provider behavior.

Responsibilities include working with the team to track current improvement projects, collecting data, data entry, performing clinical reviews and chart audits. The main projects over the next six months involve reviewing/ensuring with the QA team that a) outpatients who have a degree of suicidality and being evaluated and treated appropriately, b) that patients with schizophrenia and co-morbid medical conditions are being prescribed lowest-risk anti-psychotics according to best prescribing practices, c) those who smoke are being tracked into smoking cessation treatment, d) ensuring that treatment planning follows  medicaid regulations, and e) reporting on findings and developing strategies to improve gaps in care. There may also be opportunities to help develop a research improvement project related to patient care.

To be clear, the position does not entail seeing patients or providing therapy, but is focused on QI/PI tasks to help the behavioral health department meet and improve quality of care. It is a unique opportunity that is typically performed by those with a Master's in Public Health, Public Health Administration, and Nursing, however, the department is open to having a psychologist or psychology student get experience in this role. Some of the tasks could seem a bit dry, but all the tasks are really essential to helping the department function well and improve the treatment that patients get. I also think it's a nice opportunity to get some unique and varied skills and experience that are not easy to acquire in psychology - which would be important to have as healthcare will become very focused on measuring and reporting outcomes, and providing accountable care. You will also learn about the NYS Office of Mental Health and federal standards, use of EMR, how to do PDSA cycles, etc.. 

If interested or have questions, backchannel me at jmarr31975@aol.com. Please distribute to other individuals and departments!