Congratulations to Jennifer Holder-Murray, MD, FACS, FASCRS, who was recently appointed Vice Chair for Quality Integration of the Department of Surgery. Dr. Holder-Murray succeeds Kevin O. Garrett, MD, FACS, who served as our department’s Vice Chair of Quality for the past five years. Dr. Garrett led our quality initiative to new heights as he started many quality improvement projects and oversaw several benchmarking tools and metrics. Dr. Garrett has taken on a new challenge as Director of the UPMC Passavant/St. Margaret General Surgery Service Line.
In her role as Vice Chair for Quality Integration, Dr. Holder-Murray will serve as our quality point person for our relationship with the Wolff Center at UPMC. She will also work to roll out new quality initiatives across the department and assist our clinical programs with the development of quality assessment/quality improvement programs.
Dr. Holder-Murray joined the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine faculty within the Division of Colon and Rectal Surgery in 2011 after completing her general surgical training at the University of Chicago and a colon and rectal surgery fellowship at the Mayo Clinic. She has already served in many important capacities as part of our quality initiatives. She is a champion for the National Surgical Quality Improvement Program (NSQIP) and has partnered with the Wolff Center to improve UPMC clinical outcomes. Additionally, she serves as co-director of the UPMC Enhanced Recovery Program, which is active at six hospitals and across 10 surgical specialties and continues to expand to additional sites and into new service lines. Dr. Holder-Murray has received funding from the Beckwith Institute to assess pre-operative functional optimization during the surgical experience and continues to investigate enhanced recovery after surgery and other perioperative optimization efforts as a research interest. She was recently elected to receive a UPMC Award for Commitment and Excellence in Service (ACES), an award that recognizes fewer than 1% of the UPMC staff for their commitment to excellence in patient care.