Patrick Connor, MD
Consultant, Joint Commission Resources, Inc.
Patrick Connor is a board certified emergency medicine physician with more than 18 years of emergency medicine experience. He specializes in error reduction, appropriate emergency department (ED) staffing, human engineering, cognitive learning, antibiotic utilization and electronic medical records. He also focuses on global medical tourism and its implications, primarily on US health care.
Dr. Connor has a profound understanding of the problems facing academic institutions as well as community hospitals in urban, suburban and rural hospitals. He was instrumental in the implementation of the following programs in community hospitals: interventional cardiology, chest pain evaluation center, cardio-thoracic surgery, pediatric services, urgent care centers and hyperbaric medicine. He was also instrumental in the expansion of two separate occupational medicine programs.
Between 1996 and 2006, he was the ED director at Provena St. Joseph Hospital, Elgin, Illinois– a multi-hospital corporation and the largest health care provider in Illinois. During his tenure, he served on the following committees: Medical Executive, Surgical Steering, Credentials, Bylaws, Medical Records, Pharmacy and Therapeutics (P&T), as well as chairing the Emergency Department CQI Committee. Dr. Connor was also asked to serve on the Physician Leadership Committee at Provena Health.
As chair of the Medical Records Committee, he reduced the number of incomplete records from 23 percent to 7 percent. As chair of the P&T Committee, his focus was on reducing errors due to inappropriate standing orders. In 2002, he computerized the ED. This led to a reduction in time to be seen after triage to an average of 6 minutes, a reduction of patients leaving without treatment to less than 0.1 precent, and there have been no incomplete charts in the ED since 2002.
He currently practices clinical medicine and serves as an associate professor of medicine at the Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University, in Chicago, Illinois. He is also clinical assistant Professor of Medicine at University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, New Mexico. In previous roles, Dr. Connor has served as an emergency department director as well as an occupational medicine director.
Dr. Connor received his bachelor of science in biology from Catholic University, Washington DC; and his doctor of medicine from The Medical College of Virginia, Richmond, Virginia. He received his training at Northwestern University, Chicago, Illinois, where he served as chief resident in emergency medicine from 1989-1990. He trained in hyperbaric medicine at Nix Hospital, San Antonio, Texas and is a certified medical review officer.
Dr. Connor is a Fellow of the American Association of Emergency Medicine. He is licensed to practice medicine in both Illinois and New Mexico, and his professional affiliations include American College of Physician Executives and American Academy of Emergency Medicine. Dr. Connor has also served on numerous advisory boards. He is fluent in Spanish and has a good understanding of French.