Our Mission
The mission of the Department of Infectious Disease is to provide patients with technologically advanced, compassionate medical care. We provide inpatient care, including general infectious disease consultation services and subspecialty service lines including solid organ transplant, bone marrow transplant, bone and joint infections, neuroinfections, cardiothoracic, medical/surgical ICU services. We also provide transition of care to outpatient for all patients discharged on parenteral antimicrobials via our Community Outpatient Parenteral Antimicrobial Therapy Program (CoPAT).
Chairman’s Message
Steven Gordon, MD
Cleveland Clinic has implemented an Institute-based structure to maintain its leadership position in healthcare and to compete as a patient-centered, high-value health care system. The Department of Infectious Disease is integrated into the Medicine Institute where we are guided by the following principles:
- A focus on maintaining our recognized excellence in patient care (including providing a medical home for HIV infected patients and patients discharged on parenteral antimicrobial agents);
- Medical education
- Provide opportunities for our department to grow our business organically by partnering with colleagues in multidisciplinary teams organized around specific medical conditions;
- Expand clinical research opportunities and build a core program integrated with the Medicine Institute that can successfully compete for external funding; and
- Execution of goals and measurement of our results.
We have 11 inpatient infectious disease consultative services (two solid organ transplant services; bone marrow transplant; two endocarditis and cardiac device infection services ; an intensive care unit infectious disease service; a bone and joint infections; and three general infectious disease consult services) and a neuroinfection service ( introduced in October 2010). All consultative services are available 7 day a week and provide continuity of care in outpatient clinics and have been well received by the patients, our internal customers (medical and surgical colleagues), and the infectious disease staff physicians.
We must continue to deliver value to encourage investment to allow expansion of our core business and growth of new initiatives. The department has been fiscally responsible in containing our costs (we have one of the lowest support staff-to-staff ratios) and is committed to reviewing our processes for opportunities to improve efficiencies, (e.g. e-billing all encounter and using Epic to request inpatient infectious disease consults).
Medical education is another “core” business for our department, and we are fortunate to have Carlos Isada, MD leading our resident and fellowship education programs. Dr. Isada is passionate about medical education and a recognized leader in problem-based learning. He is obtaining an advanced degree in psychometrics (measuring competency) and has introduced the innovative MOODLE (a web-based teaching tool for the infectious disease fellows). We will expand our Fellowship to nine fellows (three fellows for third year) starting July 2010. Kristin Englund, MD has a passion for bringing healthcare to the underserved and has been instrumental in helping the department improve access for patients.
Research initiated by members of our department continues in the areas of transplant infectious disease, infectious disease diagnostics, healthcare epidemiology and HIV/AIDS. In 2009-2010, sponsored departmental research activities accounted for a budget of $500,000 and provided $102,000 back to the Medicine Institute in salary support. Notably, Ume Abbas, MD received a Gates Foundation award and has NIH funding (R21) for modeling HIV epidemic; Marisa Tungsiripat, MD is in the middle of a 5-year K23 award; and Robin Avery, MD received renewed funding from the CDC for continued research of fungal infections in lung transplant patients. We have also secured $225,000 in Ryan White Funding for 2010-2011, and Dr. Nabin Shrestha received $100,000 in funding from industry for outcomes in patients on Co-PAT. We anticipate new opportunities for innovation with new leadership in the Division of Laboratory Medicine, including a new specimen repository for immunocompromised patients and expansion of the successful molecular diagnostic platforms for infectious agents.
In 2010, we welcomed the addition of Dalia El-Bejjani, M.D. (Case Western University), and Eric Cober, MD (University of Michigan) and Christine Koval, MD (University of Rochester) in the summer of 2010. We also added a third year transplant fellowship position for 2010-2011.
In summary, I am surrounded by colleagues who have a commitment to excellence. My goal is not to grow just to be bigger, but to use the additional resources to be great.
Respectfully Submitted,
Steven Gordon, MD
Chairman
Infectious Diseases