Highland Welcomes Joel Cornell, MBB Program Manager for Performance Improvement

Joel Cornell, MBB
Program Manager for Performance Improvement

Highland Hospital Welcomes Joel Cornell, MBB, as Program Manager for Performance Improvement. Cornell, a graduate of SUNY at Buffalo, formerly served as Supply Chain Transformation Manager at Corning Inc. and has been in corporate level business roles for 30 years. He was attracted to this position at Highland because of its focus on making meaningful and impactful changes. Health care is a new realm for Cornell, and he is excited about the role. “In health care you can actually see how performance improvement changes improve care for patients and families and improve efficiencies for staff, physicians and all involved,” he said.

Cornell has been meeting with key leaders to gain knowledge of the culture at Highland and identify priorities. “My top priority will be to get a better handle on CMS metrics to determine where we stand and what we can do to be more proactive to improve scores, get a higher rating, and boost reimbursement rates,” he said.

His other major priority is to help improve the overall efficiency of the ED, initially to reduce boarders. He will also work with key leaders in areas of admissions, mortality, infection prevention and customer satisfaction and will work closely with Cheryl Ryan, CHRO, on recruitment and retention. Cornell feels his work with Lean Six Sigma translates well into health care. He will also be involved with training in the Lean Six Sigma methodology and has reached the level of Master Black Belt.

Cornell will also work closely with physicians and will be reaching out for input. He also wants physicians and staff to feel free to contact him with challenges and suggestions. “If we improve our processes we will see a connection to better care, better patient satisfaction, and better work satisfaction,” he said.

6/14/2024