Editors’ Note

Prior to his current role, Dr. Brian Doran was Medical Director of Greenwich Hospital’s Emergency Department. He joined the Greenwich Hospital Medical Staff in July 2000. Doran earned his Doctor of Medicine degree from the Chicago Medical School and completed his residency in emergency medicine at Yale-New Haven Medical Center where he served as Chief Resident. He is board certified in emergency medicine. Doran has been accepted into Harvard University School of Public Health where he is pursuing a Master’s degree in health care management.

How did you end up working with Greenwich Hospital?

About a year after I had finished my residency at Yale, a position opened up with Greenwich as an emergency physician and I eventually became the Department Director of the emergency department.

Today, as Senior Vice President of Medical Services, how broad is your focus, and what does the position entail?

It’s a broad focus. When I was a department director, I was concerned specifically with my work unit and its provision of services to our patients. The emergency department is very broad – we take care of a lot of different people and we interact with other departments but it’s still managing one major department. In my current role, I’m managing multiple units and I’m responsible for the integration of these units and how they work together. I’m also involved in medical staff governance and formulating policy that’s implemented throughout the entire hospital and medical staff.

How much of an impact is technology having in terms of dealing with patients?

Greenwich Hospital has been at the forefront of medical information technology. Our electronic records are accessible. In the emergency department, for instance, when patients come in, we’re able to pull up their last visit on-screen. Our X-rays and CT scans are transmitted electronically – we don’t use cellulose X-ray film anymore. Our physician orders are now entered electronically. This has all been in development for many years, and it has helped Greenwich become a leader in terms of use of health information technology. We use something called bedside medication verification where the patient wears a bracelet with a bar code on it to identify themselves, and it’s electronically linked to an order for medication so the right patient gets the right medicine at the right time. Technology has made this environment much more efficient and safer for patients.

For you personally, now in more of a management role, do you miss the patient interaction?

The interaction between a physician and a patient is very special, and it’s very hard to duplicate that in any other arena or environment, so I continue to do some clinical medicine on my schedule, and that’s a very important thing for me. The leadership here supports this, and this is a testimony again to Frank Corvino’s vision. He wants you to be able to maintain that initial interest that brought you into the field in the first place.