Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital (RWJUH) has named Lewis Rubinson, MD, PhD, FCCP, as its senior vice president, chief medical officer (CMO) and chief quality officer (CQO).
With more than two decades of C-suite, clinical, academic and government experience, Dr. Rubinson brings expertise in critical care medicine and public health to New Jersey’s largest academic medical center, which is also one of the three state-designated Level I Trauma Centers in New Jersey. He will draw on his experience in academic medicine and government disaster response efforts to advance clinical care and patient outcomes at RWJUH.
In his role as CMO, Dr. Rubinson will work with the Medical Staff Executive Committee to engage and lead the nearly 2,000 physicians and advanced practice providers at RWJUH, who are comprised of Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School faculty, RWJBarnabas Health Medical Group physicians and community practice physicians. As CQO, Dr. Rubinson will drive clinical performance standards at RWJUH in terms of quality and safety metrics with the goal of achieving superior patient care delivery and outcomes. He is responsible for integration and coordination of clinical practices across all service lines, alignment of physician activities with the RWJUH strategic plan, quality and patient safety strategies, infection control and performance improvement initiatives.
“Dr. Rubinson’s extensive experience in academic medicine, emergency response and his commitment to clinical excellence will propel Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital as we build New Jersey’s first premier academic medical center,” said Bill Arnold, president and chief executive officer of RWJUH. “He joins an exceptional leadership team at RWJUH that I believe will change the landscape of health care in our state, and especially for our vulnerable populations who cannot leave New Jersey for specialized care.”
RWJUH board of directors Chair Jack Morris adds, “Dr. Rubinson’s leadership is pivotal towards Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital becoming the top hospital in New Jersey and a nationally-recognized academic medical center. We are confident in his ability to contribute significantly to our strategic plan initiatives around quality and safety, patient experience and clinical excellence.”
Dr. Rubinson joins RWJUH from Morristown Medical Center where he was chief medical officer, working on numerous optimizations and expansions, as well as overseeing the hospital’s COVID-19 response. Previously, he held multiple leadership positions at the University of Maryland, including as the first director of their critical care resuscitation unit, where he developed a clinical model to ensure transfer patients get timely access to expert care for time-sensitive non-trauma cases. He also served as the assistant CMO, and vice president and deputy chief clinical officer and was professor of medicine in the Trauma and Critical Care Program at the R. Adams Crowley Shock Trauma Center at the University of Maryland, School of Medicine.
Additionally, Dr. Rubinson has served in local and federal government, including as the disaster medicine director for Seattle-King County Public Health, and at both the Centers for Disease Control and the Department of Health and Human Services. He was the CMO for the federal medical response to Super Storm Sandy and has been a ‘boots on the ground’ responder for numerous disasters, including Hurricane Katrina, and was the clinical lead at the Ebola unit in Kenema, Sierra Leone in September 2014.
Dr. Rubinson attended medical school at Northwestern University and earned his Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in Clinical Investigation from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. He completed his residency in Internal Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, as well as a fellowship at Johns Hopkins University in Pulmonary and Critical Care. From 2009-2013, Dr. Rubinson served as a Commander in the United States Public Health Service.
About Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital:
“Founded in 1884, Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital (RWJUH) New Brunswick is an academic medical center whose Centers of Excellence include cardiovascular care from minimally invasive heart surgery to transplantation, cancer care, stroke care, neuroscience, orthopedics and women’s and children’s care, including The Bristol-Myers Squibb Children’s Hospital (BMSCH).
BMSCH serves as the focal point of New Brunswick’s growing children’s health campus, which includes the Child Health Institute of New Jersey, PSE&G Children’s Specialized Hospital, and Ronald McDonald House-New Brunswick. The free-standing, state-designated, acute care children’s hospital is a state-of-the-art facility that is specially designed to care for children. From pediatric surgery, urology, and cardiology to oncology, hematology, and pulmonology, BMSCH’s specialists and intensivists provide advanced care for children of all ages—from fragile newborns to adolescents.
As the flagship cancer hospital of Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey and the principal teaching hospital of Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in New Brunswick, RWJUH New Brunswick is an innovative leader in advancing state-of-the-art care. Featuring a Level 1 Trauma Center and the first Pediatric Trauma Center in the state, RWJUH’s New Brunswick campus serves as a national resource in its ground-breaking approaches to emergency preparedness.”
About Lewis Rubinson, MD, PhD, FCCP:
I am the Chief Medical Officer at a large referral medical center. My focus is on development, expansion and iterative improvement of highly reliable, complex clinical operations. Prior to my current role I was Professor of Medicine and a senior hospital executive at a major academic medical center. Clinically, my focus is on resuscitation medicine and I have extensive experience in disaster medicine. I have significant surgical/ trauma critical care and ecmo experience in addition to medical critical care. Lastly, I have formal doctoral training in clinical investigation and still am an active methodologist.
Sources:
News: https://njbmagazine.com/njb-news-now/rwj-university-hospital-appoints-rubinson-as-chief-medical-officer/
School: https://www.rwjbh.org/rwj-university-hospital-new-brunswick/about/
Lewis Rubinson, MD, PhD, FCCP: https://www.doximity.com/pub/lewis-rubinson-md