James B. Reilly, MD, MSHP, FACP

Description of Clinical Expertise

Dr. Reilly's clinical interests lie in dialysis and hospital consultative nephrology, especially acute kidney injury and critical care nephrology. His training in quality improvement and patient safety also enables him to work to improve current systems of care for dialysis patients, especially hospitalized dialysis patients undergoing the transition from inpatient care to outpatient care.

Description of Research Expertise

Dr. Reilly's research interests lie mainly in patient safety, as it interfaces with his interests in both nephrology and also medical education. He is working to more formally integrate principles of quality improvement and patient safety into curriculum at all levels of medical education. He combined his interests in patient safety and medical education by helping to implement and evaluate a very successful curriculum on cognitive bias and diagnostic error within Penn’s internal medicine residency. He is gaining recognition for his expertise in this field, as evidenced by invitations to teach workshops and participate in expert panel discussions at several national conferences.

Dr. Reilly's training with the Department of Medicine's Center for Healthcare Improvement and Patient Safety (CHIPS) also prepared him to develop novel approaches to improve patient safety in the vulnerable Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) and End Stage Renal Disease (ESRD)populations. To date, his research in nephrology has focused on transitions of care for dialysis patients at hospital discharge, more specifically on the process of discharge communication between hospital and outpatient dialysis providers and the prevention of readmissions.