William Cooper, MD, MPH, President of Vanderbilt Health Center for Patient and Professional Advocacy (CPPA), has been named Senior Vice President for Professionalism and Clinical Excellence for Vanderbilt University Medical Center.
In this newly created role, Cooper, Cornelius Vanderbilt Professor of Pediatrics and Health Policy at the School of Medicine, will be responsible for promoting and ensuring the highest standards of professionalism and performance among faculty, clinical staff, trainees and students throughout the health system. He will oversee initiatives that support professionalism for individuals and teams across VUMC’s education, research and clinical areas while providing leadership development at all levels of the organization.
VUMC is among the first health care institutions in the country to establish this type of senior leadership role dedicated specifically to professionalism and clinical excellence.
“Dr. Cooper is the perfect person for this leadership role, and the role itself symbolizes our commitment to best practices in health care provider professionalism,” said Donald Brady, MD, Executive Vice President for Educational and Medical Staff Affairs. “Vanderbilt has been at the forefront of professionalism and professional accountability for 25 to 30 years through our work with CPPA, and having this priority elevated and recognized at this level of leadership signals how seriously we take making this a wonderful place to work and deliver care.”
As Senior Vice President, Cooper will lead comprehensive programs to identify and address unprofessional behaviors using existing VUMC systems, including the Patient Advocacy Reporting System (PARS) and the Coworker Observation Reporting System (CORS). He will also oversee ongoing professional practice evaluation programs (OPPE and FPPE) to ensure clinical excellence across all credentialed professionals.
“What’s unique about this role is that it allows Vanderbilt to align all of our accountability efforts across physicians, nurses, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, and in our learning environments with students, residents and fellows, in addition to our network of hospitals,” Cooper said.
The position emphasizes that professionalism is achievable regardless of daily challenges.
“You can be credo even if you’re feeling kind of grumpy or in a bad mood that day,” Cooper said, highlighting how a complex organization like VUMC needs everyone operating at their highest level.
CPPA’s approach to professional accountability focuses on helping individuals achieve their best performance.
“A complex place like Vanderbilt needs everyone to operate with their A game,” he explained. “What we think about professional accountability, it is not about being punitive — it’s about giving course corrections to help someone get from their A-minus game back to their A game, because that’s how we continue to excel and innovate as an organization.”
The new role will also involve collaboration with national and international organizations to enhance clinical training and professional development opportunities, representing VUMC at conferences and working with other academic institutions to share best practices in professionalism and clinical excellence.
Cooper will maintain his clinical practice while continuing to lead CPPA’s work, which provides services, education and research that support the pursuit of professionalism and high reliability for medical centers and health systems worldwide.
“One of the more satisfying things about my job is helping people be the best version of themselves,” Cooper said. “Having this as an even more focused part of my professional portfolio is really exciting.”
