Robin Wood, a senior clinical director at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, has been named a 2024 Carol Emmott Fellow.
Wood, who is also currently Penn Medicine Transfer Chair in Penn Medicine, has worked at Penn Med since 2006, when she started as a staff nurse in the Emergency Department at HUP. Since then, she has held various positions, including nurse manager and clinical director of Emergency and Observation Nursing.
She led the transition of West Philadelphia's community hospital, Mercy Catholic Medical Center — Mercy Philadelphia Campus, to HUP Cedar Avenue when financial difficulties almost forced its closure. When Afghan refugees came to Philadelphia in 2021, she also organized the nursing response from Penn Medicine.
The fellowship is under the Carol Emmott Foundation, a nonprofit organization named after Carol Emmott, a pioneer in the healthcare sector. It is committed to gender equity and diversity in all facets of healthcare by connecting women health leaders nationwide.
The 14-month fellowship program focuses on expanding women's leadership and impact. Wood is among 24 selected fellows in this year's class, the fellowship's largest class since its inception in 2017. The group includes women from all facets of healthcare leadership, including clinical care, data science, and operations.
As part of the fellowship, each fellow will design and complete an impact project to make a difference in their health communities. Additionally, fellows are given oversight by mentors who are nationally recognized executives.
Wood will review a practice started by her team in the spring of 2023 called "geographic population cohorting," in which hospitalist teams are assigned to a specific inpatient unit under the expectation that most of the team's members will stay assigned to a particular patient.
With the help of the fellowship, Wood will be able to analyze how effective geographic population cohorts can be, looking specifically at inpatient length of stay, patient outcomes and experience, and provider and nurse communication and teamwork.
"I'm excited to develop as a leader, as well as use my fellowship research to directly impact hospital operations, as well as influence decisions about how we improve patient care in the future," Wood said to Penn Medicine News.
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