MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Michael Edmond, M.D., chief medical officer (CMO) of the West Virginia University Health System, announced today the appointment of Allison Suttle, M.D., M.B.A., F.A.C.O.G., as the Health System’s chief quality officer (CQO). Dr. Suttle will start her new role in October and does so at a critical time: as the System continues to grow, ensuring consistency in the delivery of care across its 21 owned and managed hospitals is a top priority.
“As we continue to grow as a Health System, we want to ensure we keep delivering on the promise of the WVU Medicine brand, which is to provide outstanding care through outstanding people,” Dr. Edmond said. “To that end, we started to think more about how we could better integrate our quality efforts across a large and complex organization whose service area is rapidly growing. Having one, senior-level clinician, who would have a laser-like focus on quality and patient safety, was critical. Based on her experience in leading efforts such as this in a large, rural health system, we concluded Allison was the best person for the job.”
Suttle most recently served as CMO of Sanford Health, a rural-based, 46-hospital health system in South Dakota. She also served as that organization’s chief medical information officer. As CMO, she led the development of standardization across the system by establishing specialty-specific clinical standards and performance standards.
She spent her earlier days in medicine at the bedside and in the exam room as a member of Sanford Obstetrics and Gynecology, eventually serving as the president of that practice. She received her medical degree from Northwestern University Medical School; did her postgraduate training in OB/GYN at Advocate Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge, Illinois; and studied biochemistry as an undergraduate at Brown. As she started to pivot to senior leadership positions, she earned an M.B.A. from the University of Sioux Falls and completed the Wharton School’s Physician Leadership Academy.
“I’m excited to work with Mike, the WVU Medicine quality team, and the faculty and medical staff across the WVU Health System to further establish it as a national leader in quality and patient safety,” Suttle said. “The opportunity to help build a truly integrated network of care, one whose cornerstones are quality and patient safety, is too much to pass up.”