Get to Know the New CQI Medical Director

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The Collaborative Quality Initiatives (CQIs) are pleased to welcome Scott Regenbogen, MD, MPH, as the portfolio’s new medical director.  

Regenbogen is a colorectal surgeon at the University of Michigan specializing in the evaluation and management of benign and neoplastic diseases, as well as minimally invasive laparoscopic and robotic techniques for the management of colorectal cancer, diverticular disease and inflammatory bowel disease. He is a health services researcher, with expertise in performance evaluation, costs of care, surgical safety and process improvement.

He is a core faculty member in the University of Michigan Department of Surgery and St. Joseph Mercy Hospital Residency in Colon and Rectal Surgery. Additionally, Regenbogen brings more than 10 years of experience working with the CQIs, having served as a program director and strategic advisor for the Michigan Value Collaborative (MVC).  

Why is Quality Improvement meaningful to you? 

I have always been interested in the gap between what we know and what we actually achieve in medicine. I trained in health services research because I think that we have reached a point where we have just as much to gain by improving how we do the things we’ve already discovered as we do through new discovery. The science of improvement is a fascinating mix of technology, behavior, numbers, and people, and its potential is great.

As the new CQI Medical Director, what are your focus areas for the CQI portfolio?

• Attend to the most significant public health problems facing our state and ensure that the CQIs continue to focus on what is most important to the health of Michiganders
• Align the goals and initiatives of the CQIs with the top priorities for health systems, hospital leaders, and BCBSM. The CQIs are a critical component of how we deliver and pay for care and I want to solidify that essentiality and ensure that the CQIs continue to be central to how we keep Michigan a national leader in health care quality and value
• Modernize our data infrastructure to capitalize on opportunities for automation and optimization of our information technology. This will allow us to dedicate more resources to proactive improvement and collaboration than we do to collection.

Value is a key focus area for MVC. Why is that an area of interest for you?

Like my comparison between new discovery and fidelity of implementation, learned through my time with the Michigan Value Collaborative how important it is to understand cost amidst our work in improving quality. As we experience continued escalating costs of health care in the US, we all know that we face enormous challenges to maintaining our institutional focus on improving outcomes if we can’t also contain how much it costs to provide care. MVC was a great opportunity for me to see that from so many perspectives –clinicians, health system leaders, chief quality officers, academic researchers, payers, and others.

You have more than 10 years of experience working within the CQIs. How would you describe the progression of the portfolio from your perspective?  

At the beginning, most CQIs were born from the academic and clinical interests of a small group of specialists, encouraged by the BCBSM Value Partnerships leaders, and their success was largely a factor of shared interest among care providers from hospitals across the State. All of that remains, but what has grown is awareness of and attention to the biggest contributors to morbidity and mortality, a broader focus on chronic health conditions rather than specialty and procedural care. The CQIs have become even more focused on the most important public health issues in the State.

The CQI portfolio involves nearly 400 faculty and staff. What is most important for your new colleagues to know about you related to this role?

I value the expertise and skills of my collaborators and team members. I realize there is so much that I don’t know and need guidance on, and I will look to the CQI community to shape our vision and goals for the next decade of quality improvement in Michigan.  

For people who are unfamiliar with the CQIs, what would you want them to know about their work and impact?

Michigan’s Collaborative Quality Initiatives are a unique environment, in which nearly every hospital in the State makes active contributions to an improvement community, with a culture on non-competitiveness and shared improvement that we don’t see everywhere. Participants set aside their market competition, brand advertising, and self-interest in the name of collective growth and a learning system. The rewards come from participation more than comparative achievement.

What made you want to be a physician/surgeon?  

I had the chance to work as a medical assistant in a large HIV practice in San Francisco in the mid-1990s. I observed physicians who went far beyond their clinic rooms to think broadly and ambitiously about how to fight for the health of their patients. I wanted to be a physician to have the experience of shared purpose with patients that I saw in that clinic. And I became a health services researcher, and came to Michigan to base my work in the CQIs, so that I could find that broader opportunity to change health care beyond the walls of my own institution.

Time for the dreaded/loved fun fact! Unrelated to health care, what is something people may not know about your life outside the hospital?  

I am a US Soccer Federation certified Referee and I referee both youth and adult leagues in my free time.