White Plains Hospital Appoints Dr. Rafael E. Torres Chief Quality Officer
WHITE PLAINS, NY – The executive team at White Plains Hospital is pleased to announce that Dr. Rafael E. Torres has been appointed Chief Quality Officer.
As the Chief Quality Officer, Dr. Torres is responsible for advancing performance improvement initiatives around patient safety and quality at White Plains Hospital to ensure that the Hospital remains the leading healthcare provider in Westchester County. White Plains Hospital is the only Hospital in Westchester to receive an “A” in the Fall Hospital Safety Grades from the Leapfrog Group and earned the designation of Top General Hospital for excellence in quality measures in 2020. Dr. Torres will lead the multidisciplinary team-based efforts to develop, monitor, and enhance initiatives focused on safety, efficiency, and the patient experience in the inpatient and outpatient settings while working with Hospital leadership on new program development. As the Director of Emergency Medicine at White Plains Hospital for the past six years, Dr. Torres led a team to transform the Emergency Department to exceed all national benchmarks in efficiency, quality, and patient experience.
“Quality has always been our North Star at White Plains Hospital and Dr. Torres’ experience and creativity will be a vital asset as we advance our performance improvement initiatives and build on our success,” said Susan Fox, President and CEO of White Plains Hospital. “He is a proven leader who has been instrumental in guiding the Emergency Department through the COVID-19 crisis while maintaining the department’s high standard of patient care.”
Dr. Torres’ extensive professional development in quality improvement, outcomes measurement, and process management includes the Intermountain Healthcare Institute for Health Care Delivery Research; the Clinical Quality Fellowship sponsored by the Greater New York Hospital Association; and in 2021 a Healthcare MBA with a Certificate in Quality from the George Washington University.
Before joining White Plains Hospital, Dr. Torres was Medical Director for the Montefiore Westchester Square Emergency Department, the first free-standing Emergency Department in New York State, and held the same title at St. Joseph’s Medical Center in Yonkers. Dr. Torres completed his undergraduate work at Johns Hopkins University and received his medical degree from the George Washington University School of Medicine, where he earned honors for academic achievement. Dr. Torres completed his residency in emergency medicine at New York-Presbyterian Brooklyn Methodist Hospital, where he was chief resident and honored as Resident of the Year.
“The hallmark of White Plains Hospital has always been exceptional care combined with an unparalleled patient experience,” said Dr. Torres. “I am honored to be appointed the Chief Quality Officer and help our Hospital meet its organizational goals while always putting the patient first.”
About White Plains Hospital
White Plains Hospital is a proud member of the Montefiore Health System, serving as its tertiary hub of advanced care in the Hudson Valley. The Hospital is a 292-bed not-for-profit health care organization with the primary mission of providing exceptional acute and preventive medical care to all people who live in, work in or visit Westchester County and its surrounding areas. Centers of Excellence include the Center for Cancer Care, The William & Sylvia Silberstein Neonatal & Maternity Center and The Ruth and Jerome A. Siegel Stroke Center. The Hospital’s Flanzer Emergency Department is the busiest in Westchester County, with more than 64,000 patient visits a year. White Plains Hospital performs lifesaving emergency and elective angioplasty in its Joan and Alan Herfort, MD, Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory and Marie Promuto Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory. White Plains Hospital has outpatient medical facilities across Westchester, including multispecialty practices in Armonk, New Rochelle, Somers and Yorktown Heights; and Scarsdale Medical Group locations in Harrison and Scarsdale.
The Hospital is fully accredited by the Joint Commission and earned its recognition as a Top Performer for Key Quality Measures® in 2015 and 2013. The Hospital received Magnet® designation in 2012 and 2016 from the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC). The Hospital earned a three-year accreditation from the National Accreditation Program for Rectal Cancer (NAPRC), one of 16 hospitals in the nation, and the Hospital’s Bariatric Surgical Center is accredited as a Comprehensive Center under the Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery Accreditation and Quality Improvement Program (MBSAQIP). White Plains Hospital has also received full accreditation for its breast cancer program from the National Accreditation Program for Breast Centers (NAPBC) and The American College of Surgeons National Surgical Quality Improvement Program (ACS NSQIP®) recognized White Plains Hospital as a top 10% performing hospital for achieving meritorious outcomes for surgical patient care in 2019. In 2020, White Plains Hospital received the Outstanding Patient Experience Award from Healthgrades® for the fifth time and, was once again named Best Regional Hospital by U.S. News & World Report. https://www.wphospital.org/about/affiliations-accreditations-awards
http://www.wphospital.org.
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