Chiamaka Aneji, MD, MPH, FAAP | Safety, Quality, Informatics, and Leadership
Dr. Chiamaka Aneji is a physician specializing in Neonatology and Pediatrics. She is currently an associate professor at McGovern Medical School, associate medical director at Children’s Memorial Hermann Hospital Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, and Pediatric Global Health Program co-director. She earned her medical degree at the College of Medicine, University of Nigeria Nsukka, and completed her Pediatric Residency at the University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, Texas. Her goal is to combine her interests in Global Health, Quality Improvement, and Medical Education to improve the health of newborns and children both at home and abroad. Dr. Chiamaka Aneji is a recent graduate of the Safety, Quality, Informatics, and Leadership certificate program, and is now implementing tools gained from the program to solve real-world, health care challenges.
A neonatologist at Memorial Hermann Hospital in Houston, TX, Dr. Aneji has spent the past ten years working on quality improvement. “I wanted a program that would really help me delve deeper into safety and quality and introduce me to informatics. One of the things that I found is we've got a lot of patients, we have a lot of data, but are not able to use it as well as we can,” she explains.
For Dr. Aneji, the global cohort and real-world examples were highlights from her experience in the Safety, Quality, Informatics, and Leadership program. The 2023 cohort was comprised of learners from over 22 countries. Through live virtual lectures and team projects, she was able to meet colleagues from across the world. “Each person was doing something tangible in their field.” She added, “The range of faculty and the quality of the offerings were amazing. It wasn't some lecturer coming to talk to us about something, it was the director or CEO, people who were living it. That's the biggest selling point for this program. People that are doing these things in real-time and know how to work through the everyday challenges.”
A key component of the one-year certificate program is the capstone project, in which students devise a solution to a problem in their home institution or practice. Dr. Aneji’s project focused on improving admission temperatures in newborns admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit from the delivery room. Temperature regulation for babies in general, and particularly in premature babies is not only a key quality indicator but also something that has real-life implications. “Using the tools that I've picked up from this course, I’m able to map our temperature journey...Now that we know the first five minutes is where many of the obstacles happen, we are putting some interventions in place.” Dr. Aneji noted she is excited that she was able to start implementing a solution to a consequential problem she has faced with babies for the past six years.
“I'm excited because I think that compared to before, when we thought we knew the causes of the issues, now, we have better studied our processes and learned the root causes and now also know what to do about it,” she adds.
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