Orientation to Clinician Excellence at Cincinnati Children's

Aimee Gardner

Let's start with a number. In fiscal year 26, Cincinnati Children's recorded 138,671 hours of Continuing Medical Education. Not people, hours. And that's just one line on a long list. There were 17,374 learners trained through the Center for Simulation and Research and 7,285 Patient Services staff trained, plus 2,263 nursing students, 491 Graduate Medical Education learners, 370 allied health students, and 209 student job shadows. Nursing Grand Rounds presentations drew 2,622 people online and 1,944 live and in-person.

Aimee Gardner

One caveat matters here. These are numbers of learners trained, not unique learners. The same person can show up in more than one count. And the Patient Services figures includes onboarding, Transition to Practice, and ongoing education and training development.

Aimee Gardner

That's a lot of education. And it raises a quiet question. With all of this happening across the hospital, how do we know the right education is reaching the right clinician at the right time? That question is why Clinician Excellence exists. I'm Aimee Gardner, and I help lead this work. This is a short orientation to who we are, what we're aiming for, and how you can reach us.

Aimee Gardner

Our mission is to drive clinician excellence through innovative and evidence-based training methods and clinical resources, so clinicians have the knowledge, skills, and resources to deliver top quality care. The people we serve are bedside clinicians. And what we do, in practice, is collaborate with bedside clinicians and education groups so that high-level education is easy to reach.

Aimee Gardner

We're a group of Cincinnati Children's employees with expertise in educational development, implementation, measurement, and research. The work began in 2024 under the name Clinician Competency, and it has since grown into Clinician Excellence.

Aimee Gardner

Here's how we're organized. We do our work within a council. The council has leaders, members, and ad hoc contributors. The council meets monthly, on the first Friday, and all council members contribute to a subgroup. Subgroups are where the work happens. There are seven, and they meet one to two times a month. Each has a lead, and those leads meet monthly with the council leaders. Ad hoc contributors don't have to attend council meetings. They're people we can call on when the work lines up with their expertise.

Aimee Gardner

That ad hoc list is long, with more than twenty-five areas. It includes Pharmacy, Child Life, Emergency Management, Building Maintenance for fire safety and prevention, and Protective Services. Education touches nearly everything, so we want those voices close by.

Aimee Gardner

The council is led by Michele Scott, Gary Geis, and me. Michele is an Assistant Vice President in Patient Services with the Center for Professional Excellence. Gary is a Professor of Emergency Medicine. I'm an Assistant Vice President in the Chief of Staff Office. Ingrid Roque and Michael Radcliffe provide project management. We report to the Health Delivery Committee through our sponsors, Whittney Brady and Dr. Rich Falcone.

Aimee Gardner

The seven subgroups each have a lead and HDC-approved long-term goals for 2030.

Aimee Gardner

Intake, led by Piper Coleman, gives clinicians an efficient way to access or develop high-quality education. Safety Event Mitigation, led by Gary, works to improve the education action plans that follow safety events. Clinical Resource, led by Brad Sobolewski, aims to provide a digital repository every clinician can reach for point of care assessment, diagnostics and management information.

Aimee Gardner

Outcomes and Evaluation is co-led by Madison Archer and Carl Scheiner. Their goal is to increase the measurement of course quality by 50 percent. Content Delivery and Access, led by Laura Werts, wants 90 percent of education to be rated as relevant, and 50 percent of it to be team based. Education Assets and Support, led by Melissa Scott, is optimizing how programs select, use, maintain, and share their education resources. And Clinical Faculty Education Structure, which I lead, is building structure, tracking, and accountability for bedside faculty.

Aimee Gardner

On rhythm: Intake and Safety Event Mitigation present to the full council every month. The other five present every five months, and more often if needed.

Aimee Gardner

If you have an education or training question, start with the CEC Intake Request link which you can find on our Centerlink page. The intake subgroup meets monthly and works to get you feedback quickly. I'll be honest about one limit. We don't have the bandwidth to fully partner on most requests. What we can do is act as educational consultants, often by pulling in the other subgroups.

Aimee Gardner

For anything else, or to set up an orientation meeting, email me at Aimee dot Gardner at cchmc dot org. Thank you for taking the time to learn about Clinician Excellence.