Dr. Ravi Chari has been named Vice President of Clinical Excellence, a new position at HCA.
Dr. Chari is no newcomer to HCA though; he's been with us close to four years now having joined HCA in 2008 as the Chief Medical Officer at Centennial Medical Center in Nashville. He moved up to Interim Administrator/Chief Operating Officer of the Sarah Cannon Cancer Centers for HCA's TriStar Division in 2009 and became Chief Medical Officer of TriStar in 2010. The TriStar Division includes 17 hospitals and 9 ambulatory surgery centers in Tennessee, Kentucky and Georgia.
Dr. Chari will now be responsible for strengthening physician engagement and eliminating unnecessary clinical variation in ongoing efforts to improve patient care. He has worked extensively with physicians in the past to identify opportunities that optimize such practices as reduced length of stay.
Jonathon B. Perlin, President of HCA's Clinical and Physician Services Group and Chief Medical Officer under whom Chari presides says, "Dr. Chari is a physician leader who brings academic credibility, clinical and management skills, and a track record of success in engaging physicians in the ongoing improvement of patient care. We are pleased he is joining us in this new role to help advance HCA's agenda for high quality, high performance healthcare."
Before joining HCA, Dr. Chari was Professor of Surgery and Chief of the Division of Transplantation at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. He is originally from Edmonton, Alberta, graduated from the University Of Saskatchewan College Of Medicine in 1989 and completed his surgical residency at Duke University.
He entered fellowship training at the University of Toronto in Hepatobiliary Surgery and Abdominal Organ Transplantation. In 2008, Chari received his MBA degree from the Owen Graduate School of Management at Vanderbilt University.