Dr. Kelleher leads the quality and safety team at Phoenix Children’s, one of the top-ranked pediatric health systems in the West, overseeing efforts to ensure safe, high-quality care through clinical innovation, standardization and a culture of continuous improvement. Her team’s close collaboration with IT has produced tools with measurable patient safety impact. For instance, the “WATCHER” surveillance program, which uses a predictive algorithm to flag hospitalized children at risk for deterioration, has identified more than 400 children in need of a higher level of care and contributed to a 200% decrease in preventable code events in acute care units. An AI-driven malnutrition identification algorithm flags pediatric patients at high risk, with 60% to 80% of those identified subsequently diagnosed with malnutrition and placed on treatment plans. Dr. Kelleher also introduced an inpatient eating disorders team that decreased the length of hospital stays for patients with eating disorders by 47%, and helped launch the clinical nurse attending role, described as the first of its kind in the nation. Phoenix Children’s achieved its lowest serious safety event rate ever under her leadership and has maintained zero preventable code events outside the ICU for more than 36 months.
