Brian C. Griffith, MD, MMCi
For this week’s faculty spotlight, we talk to Brian C. Griffith, MD, MCCi. In this interview, Griffith talks about his Master’s of Management in Clinical Informatics (MMCi) degree, using EHR data to support quality improvement, using mobile technologies to engage patients and other subjects.
How long have you been at Duke? How long have you been at the division?
In total, I am in my 14th year at Duke. I came here for medical school training and was fortunate enough to have stayed for residency training in Internal Medicine. After residency, I joined our Hospital Medicine group at Duke University Hospital with a faculty appointment within the Division of GIM. I had a brief hiatus from that role in 2010-2011 when I served as Chief Resident for Duke University Hospital for the Internal Medicine Training Program.
What are your responsibilities within the division? What does a typical day for you look like?
After my Chief Residency, I returned to clinical work within the Hospital Medicine program and became increasingly involved in clinical informatics in the health system. I received additional training from the Masters of Management in Clinical Informatics program that at that time was offered through Duke University at Fuqua School of Business (it has since migrated to being offered through School of Medicine).
Presently, my time is split roughly equally between patient care and medical education with the Hospital Medicine program and my responsibilities as a one of the Maestro Care physician champions, where I am involved in ongoing design, build, and refinement of our electronic health record clinical content and workflows and co-chair our Clinical Information Technology Optimization Committee along with Dr. Attarian, the Chief Medical Officer of the PDC. I am very interested in clinical decision support systems to promote reliable and coordinated health-care delivery and how we can use data generated in the EHR to support quality improvement and patient safety initiatives throughout the health system.
A few years ago, you were a co-author of a review article to address changes in ACGME requirements for patient handoffs. What were the findings of this article? Has the article affected how patient handoffs take place at the Duke health system?
The ACGME issued new duty hour guidelines at the start of the year I was chief resident at DUH. A major theme to the work shared amongst the chief residents and residency program director that year was helping evaluate options and implement a response to these requirements. The biggest change meant that our PGY1 housestaff would no longer be working over 16 hours at a time, and the rotations that previously incorporated overnight call for interns required restructuring of several clinical rotations and put an emphasis on safe and effective handoffs in care. In collaborating with a group of housestaff from multiple training programs, we developed recommendations for standardized process, education, and content for handoffs.
Several of the collaborators on that paper took lead on the housestaff education deliverable and developed core training content in handoffs that was incorporated into the onboarding process of new trainees. Leveraging my role as a Maestro Care physician champion, I worked with the clinical documentation analyst team to develop the handoff tools in the Epic EHR to reflect the recommended content standards identified by this group as best practices for written handoff.
One of your interest areas is clinical education for residents and medical students. How are you involved in this kind of work?
I am involved in medical education of residents and medical students when I attend on the General Medicine teaching service as a hospitalist and serve as a member on the steering committee of DukeAHEAD (Academy for Health Professions Education and Academic Development)
Dr. Griffith and his wife, Tammy, enjoy a night out.
Have you read any articles, books, websites, or other material that would be of interest to other members of the division?
I am very interested in the accelerated development of mobile technologies and wearable sensors that could transform how we engage patients outside of the hospitals and clinics in their health care. I remember meeting Dr. Eric Topol during residency when he was an invited guest speaker of one of my chief residents, and he remains a maven in this field. He is an excellent follow on Twitter (@EricTopol) and I’m looking forward to reading his latest book, The Patient Will See You Now.
What’s a passion or hobby that you have outside of the division?
I enjoy playing guitar, taking trips with my wife Tammy and our dogs to the Western NC Mountains, and of course Duke Basketball!
