Sean Kelly, MD, has been appointed associate medical director of the Office of Outpatient Referral Assistance (OORA), and Matthew O’Malley, MD, who previously held that role, will be assuming the medical directorship vacated by Rob Hood, MD, who has stepped down after successfully leading OORA since 2012.
“Dr. Hood is one of the founding members of the OORA group. It has been a great honor and pleasure to work with him and learn from him over the past few years,” said O’Malley, assistant professor of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery. “I look forward to the opportunity to serve as medical director of the group and hope I can maintain and expand upon the high standard that Dr. Hood has set for the group’s performance. I will be perpetually grateful to Dr. Hood for his dedication and service to both the OORA group and our medical enterprise.”
OORA ensures that patients receive timely and appropriate medical attention and optimizes uncompensated care delivery through case reviews and determinations that have dramatically increased over the last four years. OORA has seen steady growth of patient and guidance referrals by Vanderbilt Health providers, increasing from 403 in 2012, to more than 8,000 per year. As associate medical director, Kelly will assist O’Malley with case reviews to manage the increased case volume and assist in the education and support of the OORA mission within the Vanderbilt Medical Group.
“OORA has developed such crucial and innovative strategies to ensure that patients receive the care they need. I am thrilled to join this dedicated team and to have this opportunity to contribute to serving VUMC’s most complex and vulnerable patients,” said Kelly, associate professor of Medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases.
Hood, who is associate chief medical officer for VUMC, medical director of Vanderbilt Health One Hundred Oaks, and a practicing cardiologist, was the recipient of a 2018 Five Pillar Leader Award for his leadership of the OORA team, and his office received the Elevate Team Award in 2020.
“OORA’s mission, to address the obstacles which our clinicians face when being asked to provide care for the uninsured or for those who are out of network, is important and very challenging work. To ensure that such patients receive their needed care (be it at Vanderbilt or elsewhere) while also ensuring that neither our institution nor our patients experience unnecessary financial risk requires the efforts of a first-rate team,” Hood said.