Daniel first holder of Solomon Professorship in quality improvement
By Patrick Wascovich
Dr. Will Daniel, Vice President and Chief Quality Officer, has been selected to be the inaugural holder of the William T. Solomon Professorship in Clinical Quality Improvement at UT Southwestern Medical Center.
The Solomon Professorship was established through a generous gift from Southwestern Medical Foundation and honors Mr. Solomon for his years of service and leadership. A Foundation trustee since 1981, Mr. Solomon became Chairman of the Board in 2008 and led the group for the next six years.
“Bill and his wife, Gay, are strong supporters of UT Southwestern and the community at large,” said Dr. Daniel K. Podolsky, President of UT Southwestern. “Their efforts as advocates for UT Southwestern, particularly in the area of clinical care enhancement and superior service, have strengthened our clinical practices and patient care.”
Dr. Daniel, a UT Southwestern Medical School Class of 1990 alumnus who returned to campus in late 2016, is an experienced leader in driving clinical improvement, quality measures and tangible outcomes, and positive transformational changes. He was recruited from Saint Luke’s Health System located in the greater Kansas City, Missouri, area, where he recently served as Vice President and Chief Quality Officer, providing medical executive leadership for quality and patient safety, data measurement, clinical excellence, and process excellence to an integrated delivery network with 10 hospitals.
“I am honored and excited to hold the Solomon Professorship in Clinical Quality Improvement at UT Southwestern Medical Center,” Dr. Daniel said. “Mr. Solomon has provided vision, leadership, and longtime support of our clinical quality improvement efforts here, especially related to patient experience and outcomes. Support through this generous endowment will allow us to continue improving our ability to help our patients live as well as they can, for as long as they can by providing them with safe, timely, effective, efficient, equitable, patient-centered care.”
Mr. Solomon has had the distinction of serving as Chairman of the most successful fundraising campaigns of two of UT Southwestern’s three Presidents – the Innovations in Medicine campaign under now President Emeritus Dr. Kern Wildenthal and the Building the Future of Medicine campaign under Dr. Podolsky.
During 2000, when Innovations in Medicine was in the quiet phase, Mr. Solomon organized and led a committee of 100 civic and business leaders and became Chair of the campaign, an eight-year effort that had a stated goal of $500 million and ultimately raised $772 million. The Solomons committed a $1 million lead gift before adding a $10 million donation in 2003 to endow enhanced patient services and to create the William T. and Gay F. Solomon Division of General Internal Medicine at UT Southwestern. Their ultimate GIM goal was lofty: to create a model for improved doctor-patient relations in Dallas and other environments across the country. In 2004, Mr. and Mrs. Solomon received the Charles Cameron Sprague Community Service Award, the Foundation’s highest volunteer service honor.
In 2011, the Building the Future of Medicine campaign, which supported construction of the $800 million William P. Clements Jr. University Hospital, was initiated. Mr. Solomon again led the effort to raise $200 million in community support, and the couple personally gave $1 million for the state-of-the-art hospital, which opened in late 2014.
“This Professorship is meant to recognize and sustain in perpetuity the leadership Bill has brought to patient-centered, humanistic, and quality care at UT Southwestern,” said Kathleen Gibson, President and CEO of the Foundation. “With the exception of the founders, no one has made a greater contribution in leadership, governance, and community support for Southwestern Medical Foundation than Bill Solomon.”
Robert B. Rowling, Chairman of Southwestern Medical Foundation, said, “It has been remarkable for me to contemplate the enormous impact Bill and Gay Solomon have made on the Foundation and UT Southwestern.”
Mr. and Mrs. Solomon also have a long history of involved time and effort. At UT Southwestern, both were members of the Board of Visitors for more than a decade, and both joined the new UT Southwestern President’s Advisory Board (PAB). Mr. Solomon serves as an at-large member of the PAB Executive Committee. He also helped establish and then led the Community Advisory Committee – now the Patients Services Committee, whose primary focus is quality assurance of the Medical Center’s clinical services. Mrs. Solomon chairs the Arts and Interiors Committee, which was instrumental in selecting the interior features and artworks in Clements University Hospital.
A graduate of Princeton University, Dr. Daniel is a cardiologist who completed his residency at Washington University/Barnes Hospital before returning to UT Southwestern for his cardiology fellowship. He completed a year of advanced Cardiovascular Interventional Fellowship training at Saint Luke’s Mid America Heart Institute. Dr. Daniel also has served as a Clinical Professor of Medicine at the University of Missouri in Kansas City. He previously served as the Medical Director of Quality for the Mid America Heart Institute.
Dr. Podolsky holds the Philip O’Bryan Montgomery, Jr., M.D. Distinguished Presidential Chair in Academic Administration, and the Doris and Bryan Wildenthal Distinguished Chair in Medical Science.
