In March, RP announced the launch of the Office of the Chief Medical Officer (CMO), naming 13 radiologists to senior executive leadership roles. One newly named Associate CMO is Dr. Krishna Nallamshetty, Associate CMO for Clinical Value.
Dr. Nallamshetty is a cardiovascular radiologist and Practice President of Radiology Associates of Florida (RAF). He is the Chief of Staff of Tampa General Hospital, the largest academic medical center in the state of Florida, and Associate Professor of Radiology and Cardiology at the University of South Florida. At RP, he serves as Vice Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Presidents Council (PC), Executive Vice President on RP’s Growth team and a member of the Culture and Leadership Support Board. Dr. Nallamshetty earned his medical degree from the Sidney Kimmel Medical College-Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, and completed his residency at Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston. He also completed a joint radiology and cardiology fellowship at Harvard Medical School-Brigham & Women’s Hospital in Boston. He joined RP in 2018.
As Associate CMO for Clinical Value, Krishna will advance RP’s clinical development roadmap; define, develop and train for new clinical programs to quantifiably improve value; promote clinical initiatives and their impact internally; enhance clinical initiatives and their impact externally in support of enhanced patient care outcomes, ensuring radiologists add value and are integral to the continuum of care; partner on PR and business development initiatives; and support payer and policy discussions and initiatives.
We sat down with Dr. Nallamshetty to learn more about his aspirations for RP’s Office of the CMO and his role as Associate CMO for Clinical Value.
Tell us about your tenure/history with RP.
In March 2018, I led RAF into a strategic partnership with RP. I quickly got involved in the President’s Council and on the growth team. I have always been growth oriented at RAF and began interfacing with radiology practices all over the country to share RP’s mission and clinical value. I am intimately involved with RP’s growth in Florida and work closely with health systems to differentiate RP’s value proposition. I joined the RP Culture and Support board to support RP’s practice-wide culture and leadership development programs, including the national Practice Leadership Summit, RP University, and RP Connect.
I enjoy engaging in RP-wide initiatives such as practice operations during COVID-19 and the restructure of the office of the CMO to broaden physician engagement and leadership. I have participated in several RP national leadership teams including RPOT, OPLL and strategic planning committees.
What attracted you to RP?
Three years ago, my local practice was evaluating several potential strategic partners. As the lead physician during that process, I was fortunate to spend a lot of time with RP leaders, including several talented physicians. The mission of transforming radiology strongly resonated with me. I knew that my local practice had always focused on quality and the care we provided our patients and clients, but I felt there was an opportunity to have a larger impact, especially from a clinical perspective. Radiologists are integral in care delivery, however, as a specialty, we do poor job of quantifying our value. RP was the only strategic partner that provided physicians with innovative tools and resources to advance our role in healthcare. The team that RP put together was truly impressive, and I was confident that our engaged physicians and teammates were the ideal team to transform radiology.
How has your experience prepared you for your role as Associate CMO of Clinical Value?
I started my career in radiology like most, focusing on clinical radiology. Cardiac imaging was just developing, and I found myself enjoying building programs and processes to bring new technologies to our patients. I gradually shifted from a clinical to a more administrative role as I felt I could make a bigger impact on patient care. I began to take on more leadership positions within my practice, hospitals and community.
I believe that experience is the best teacher, and I always welcome new responsibilities and challenges. When I became president of RAF in 2013, I was responsible for clinical advancements and operations for our hospitals, outpatient, academic and teleradiology divisions and helped lead practice-wide initiatives such as imaging utilization, quality metrics, strategic planning and growth. These diverse experiences have provided me with a unique perspective — I realized that value was in the eye of the beholder and it was clear that each patient, client, payer or radiologist valued different things. It is now my responsibility to identify those value propositions and help guide RP to cater to them.
What do you want to accomplish in this role?
My goal is to update RP’s clinical road map and accelerate our clinical mission. I would like to create a scalable platform that allows RP to innovate, implement and quantify our value to our patients, clients, payers and radiologists. We need to analyze our value proposition from the perspective of our target audience. For instance, my experience as hospital Chief of Staff has made me realize that radiology’s value can be derived from length of stay reduction initiatives such as lean imaging processes, fast track programs in interventional radiology and chest pain, image utilization and clinical decision support. As a Practice President, I am also aware of how radiologists value providing consistent quality while adhering to the latest guidelines. I think we have a significant opportunity to demonstrate value in other areas of the imaging continuum, in addition to reporting and follow up where we have spent most of our focus to date. Areas like order entry, imaging protocols, acquisition, radiologist workflow, access to information and treatment can benefit from our scale and resources.
What does the future of radiology look like in 5 years? 10 years? How will RP contribute to that?
I feel that the future is extremely bright, and we are just getting started on the transformation of radiology. Our scale allows us to invest in resources unlike any other time in radiology’s history. Technology and artificial intelligence continues to develop at a rapid pace, and I feel that it will help create a platform to streamline the practice of radiology. We will reduce variability in findings and recommendations and provide all radiologists tools to adhere to established best practices. We will continue to innovate new diagnostic and therapeutic procedures and put radiology at the forefront in healthcare and innovation.
Dr. Krishna Nallamshetty is the Associate Chief Medical Officer for Clinical Value at Radiology Partners, a leading physician-led and physician-owned radiology practice in the U.S. Follow him on Twitter at @knallamMD. For the latest news from RP, follow along on our blog and on Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram.
