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Joshua D Lenchus, DO, RPh, FACP is Associate Director, UM-JMH Center for Patient Safety, a position he has held since September 2007. He is charged with the day-to-day operations, creating and implementing curricula, spearheading patient safety projects, overseeing the Center’s employees, and providing leadership and guidance to the Center. Dr. Lenchus has developed an innovative approach to invasive bedside procedural teaching, successfully melding simulation-based training with real-life experiences on hospitalized patients. Beginning as a pilot program in the medicine residency, it has since expanded to incorporate other training programs and divisions throughout the hospital. In December 2007, he received curricular approval for medical students to participate on an elective basis. He has attended numerous national meetings presenting this work.
Dr. Lenchus was appointed Chair of the Jackson Health System’s Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation Committee in 2006. The committee leads the charge to redefine the community standard as it relates to CPR certification for the health system’s employees. Under his leadership, the committee changed the bylaws for medical staff and created a novel policy for all other employees with direct patient contact, essentially mandating current and active certification as a condition of employment. The committee was also able to lead the initiative to standardize the health system’s defibrillators. After several near misses, the committee, working in conjunction with the UM-JMH Center for Patient Safety, built a case for this capital expenditure.
During his four years at the University of Miami, Dr. Lenchus has distinguished himself clinically, educationally, and administratively. He is the Division of Hospital Medicine’s “point person” at Jackson Memorial Hospital, the tertiary-care, urban, academic medical center affiliated with UM. Appointed the Medical Director of the medical consultation service last year, he and his co-director have successfully overhauled the curriculum, bolstering the educational value of the rotation. Dr. Lenchus provides coverage to a general medical ward team throughout the year, during which he has consistently scored superior marks in teaching. Indeed, this past year he was ranked within the top 3% of all Department of Medicine attendings for his teaching prowess and has received several teaching awards.
His clinical and teaching activities are supplemented by his administrative responsibilities. He was appointed inaugural Chairman of the Pharmacy and Therapeutics Committee for the newly purchased University of Miami Hospital (formerly Cedars Hospital), Vice Chairman of Jackson’s Credentials Committee, and a member of the Executive Subcommittee of the institution’s Graduate Medical Education Committee. He serves as a member on a host of other committees from Induced Hypothermia and Invasive Procedure Monitoring to Pressure Ulcer Prevention and Quality and Patient Safety. He has become a well-respected member of the medical staff during his short tenure. In 2008 the Dean of the College of Medicine asked Dr. Lenchus to represent the university as its delegate to the United States Pharmacopeia. Finally, he has been tapped by the Florida Legislature to sit on two committees: the Medicaid Drug Utilization Review Panel/Prescribing Practitioners Review Panel, of which he was subsequently elected Chairman, and the Pharmacist Prescribing Committee.
With special interest in venous thromboembolism, Lenchus has begun to publish on this topic and has been called upon as a consultant and speaker. He also serves as sub-investigator on two industry-funded medical trials. He has a passion for health care policy and has represented the hospital and university for the past six consecutive years at the state and federal government levels. In 2006 he received the Florida Chapter of the American College of Physicians Key Contact Award for outstanding legislative advocacy. He was recently elected a Fellow of the American College of Physicians and is a member of the faculty of two state pharmacy schools.
For his extensive involvement in multiple aspects of medicine, Dr. Lenchus was named an “emerging leader in Florida medicine,” as published in the Journal of the Florida Medical Association in the spring of 2008.
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Joshua D. Lenchus, DO, RPh, FACP