Dr. Catherine Everett serves as Associate Chief Medical Officer (ACMO) for Practice Analytics.
She has practiced for almost 40 years as a general, musculoskeletal and breast radiologist, and she is the Practice President and a managing partner for Coastal Radiology in New Bern, North Carolina. Dr. Everett has served on the executive committee of the medical staff at Carolina East Medical Center for 16 consecutive years, as both chair of the department of imaging and an at-large member, and she was Carolina East’s first female chief of staff. She was recently elected to the American College of Radiology (ACR) Board of Chancellors. Previously for the ACR, she has served as president of the North Carolina chapter, member of the Council Steering Committee, chair of the economics committee of the General Small Emergency and Rural Commission and chair of the steering committee of the Senior Retired Section. Additionally, she currently serves on the board of the American Association of Women Radiologists. She earned her bachelor’s degree at Duke University and her medical degree at the University of North Carolina (UNC) School of Medicine, and she completed her residency and fellowship at UNC as well. She earned her MBA degree from the Yale School of Management. She joined RP in 2016.
As ACMO for Practice Analytics, Dr. Everett will develop and drive RP’s analytic reporting capabilities and bolster resources across our local practices. She will partner with BIPA leadership to develop overall analytic and reporting approach for local practices and co-lead their physician support board; co-lead development of trusted, timely, accessible reports to guide local practice operations; provide physician perspective on the value and insight of specific reports; act as liaison with radiologists seeking further insight and questions.
We sat down with Dr. Everett to discuss her role and her work with the ACR. For more from Dr. Everett, read about her experience practicing in rural medicine in MedPage Today.
Tell us about your tenure/history with RP.
Coastal Radiology joined RP in 2016, and I became a leader by default as part of the local practice board. We are a pretty small practice, and we joined RP before some of the bigger practices did, so it took some time for us to get our footing. Since then, the infrastructure at RP has improved significantly, and we have all benefited from that.
What attracted you to RP?
We were practicing like a large practice, serving three major hospitals with really busy emergency departments. There were lots of IT and ancillary expense without a lot of outpatient care. We were investing so much in technology, and we knew we needed to partner with a larger practice to share in that investment. We met with several practices, and RP was different. We aligned with their leadership and their mission so we joined. The support we get from RP is excellent, and we have a wonderful practice director.
What has your experience been like practicing radiology in a more rural area?
The flagship hospital is not located in a typical rural area. We are in a vacation destination being close to the beach, we have a military base close by, and we have some high-end industry in the region, too. However, we service a huge rural area in the central part of the state, and those patients really need us and the service we provide.
How has your experience prepared you for your role as ACMO of Practice Analytics?
At first, I wasn’t sure it was something I was interested in, but our practice director encouraged me to apply because it’s what I already do. I spend a lot of time looking at the numbers so we can staff appropriately and figure out our shifts, those sorts of things. I want the data correct, because I want our radiologists to trust us and our numbers, whether its comp pools, RVUs, etc.
What do you want to accomplish in your role as ACMO?
I’d like to find a way to periodically share some of the information that comes out of the data analytics with the individual radiologists. There is a lot of information that might be interesting to them and their practices and could help engage them more in their daily work.
Tell us about your role on the Board of Chancellors for the ACR.
I just started this role, and I was elected by the council. I’m really there to support private practice, and I will stress the importance of communicating the strong work done by the ACR commissions, committees and task forces to all members.
Tell us about your experience working with the ACR. What made you want to be involved?
At the beginning of my career, I made the conscious decision to choose my family and my practice first, so I wasn’t always involved in the ACR. However, I knew they’ve always been good to radiologists, so after my children went to college and I continued some education, I decided to get involved. I’ve been active for the last 11 years.
Dr. Catherine Everett is the Associate Chief Medical Officer for Practice Analytics at Radiology Partners, a leading physician-led and physician-owned radiology practice in the U.S. For more from RP, follow along our blog and on Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and YouTube.
