William O. Cooper, M.D., MPH, Cornelius Vanderbilt Professor of Pediatrics, professor and vice chair for Faculty Affairs in the Department of Pediatrics, and professor of Health Policy, has been promoted and will have two new roles. He will now also serve as associate dean for Faculty Affairs within the Faculty Affairs & Career Development Office in the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine and as director of the Vanderbilt Center for Patient and Professional Advocacy (CPPA).
In addition to these new roles, Cooper will continue to serve as vice chair of the Department of Pediatrics directing the department’s Office for Faculty Development and continuing his involvement in other programs within the department.
As director of the CPPA, Cooper will assume the center’s leadership role from its founder Gerald Hickson, M.D., who was recently promoted to senior vice president for Quality, Safety and Risk Prevention for VUMC.
“The important work conducted through the CPPA and the Faculty Affairs and Career Development Office contributes significantly to the success of our hospitals and clinics,” said C. Wright Pinson, MBA, M.D., deputy vice chancellor for Health Affairs. “The support and guidance for our faculty through the School of Medicine along with numerous, focused quality and safety initiatives through the CPPA have helped move Vanderbilt’s patient care to the national forefront. Bringing deep institutional knowledge and strong skills to these new roles, Dr. Cooper is an outstanding choice to assume these interconnected responsibilities.”
Cooper will be responsible for oversight of the CPPA and its ongoing mission to promote patient and professional satisfaction within the health care experience.
“Bill is an outstanding professional, educator and internationally recognized researcher. His skills and vision will make him a great center director,” said Hickson, assistant vice chancellor for Health Affairs and Joseph C. Ross Professor of Medical Education and Administration.
“It has been an honor to work with so many distinguished Vanderbilt colleagues in building CPPA, a Vanderbilt and national resource for promoting kinder, safer and more reliable health care. The center’s development took its origins from our research programs designed to address unnecessary malpractice risk, disclose adverse events and medical errors and address behaviors that undermine a culture of safety,” he said.
The CPPA is a national leader in ongoing quality improvement, promotion of patient safety and reduction of malpractice risk through interventions based on patient and family assessments of health care services.
Each year, the CPPA’s faculty host more than 200 training programs to help professionals further their skills in adverse event disclosure, patient and provider communications and professional accountability.
“The CPPA has done a tremendous job establishing a national reputation for setting the highest standards, and for helping medical schools and hospitals ensure provider professionalism,” Cooper said.
“I look forward to working with the Center’s faculty and staff to continue this presence and will work to enhance the center’s existing scholarship effort as we assess interventions the center has put in place and associations between provider professionalism and patient-related outcomes. With the CPPA’s broad reach, this is a very exciting opportunity to be able to have such impact by providing information to hospitals and health care providers across the country that will help facilitate improvement and enhanced interactions with their patients.”
As associate dean for Faculty Affairs, Cooper will work closely with David Raiford, M.D., associate vice chancellor for Health Affairs and senior associate dean for Faculty Affairs, to facilitate issues of professionalism for Medical Center faculty.
“I am delighted to have the opportunity to partner with Dr. Cooper in his new leadership roles,” Raiford said. “He is already an accomplished leader in faculty development, not only within the Department of Pediatrics. He has keen insight into the many facets of faculty professionalism and considerable experience in fostering this important attribute.”
The mission of the Faculty Affairs & Career Development Office is to serve the school’s faculty through oversight for appointments and promotions, academic development, training and compliance, and conflict of interest assessment and management.
“The CPPA started here at Vanderbilt to help us find ways to equip our providers,” Cooper said. “The new role as associate dean for Faculty Affairs allows me to continue the important work of helping our home team address these issues. We use information we learn here as an opportunity to inform what we do through the CPPA to help guide other hospitals and health care providers. Ultimately what we want is for the patients we take care of to have the best experiences and the best health outcomes.”
