The Quality award recognizes a physician who gives of their time and expertise to develop and enhance quality initiatives within St. Luke’s Hospital. For more than 20 years, Dr. Levett has been actively working in the areas of process management excellence, outcomes research, and the implementation of quality management system principles in healthcare organizations.

We honor Dr. Levett for his contributions to Quality at St. Luke’s and for his 35 years of service as a practicing physician.

• In 2001, Dr. Levett championed the efforts for PCI to develop a quality program for the clinic and receive ISO 9001 certification, a process that took over 2.5 years to complete. As a set of quality management principles, ISO 9001 guides the processes surrounding service delivery. In healthcare, this means everything from administration to patient care. Still today, PCI is the largest multispecialty group in the US with this certification having received recertification in 2008.
• Dr. Levett was instrumental in founding the Cedar Rapids Healthcare Alliance in July 2005. He had a singular vision: to create a community model of care delivery and patient safety centered on transparency, accountability, and cooperation. He still serves as the President of the Board of Directors as well as the Principal Investigator.
• He was the driving force to apply for and receive grant money to further ISO 9001 principals in our community in 2005. He partnered with Kirkwood Community College to obtain a grant from the Agency for Healthcare and Quality that focused on patient’s safety.
• In February 2006, Dr. Levett helped establish the Community Anticoagulation Therapy (CAT) Clinic as a part of the Cedar Rapids Healthcare Alliance.
• He continues to seek out grant money to further the quality of care in Cedar Rapids, receiving grants from the Greater Cedar Rapids Foundation for strategic planning and the Community Initiative Grant from the Iowa Foundation for Medical Care.
• December 9, 2009, Dr. Levett traveled to Florida with Tim Charles and Ted Townsend as the collaboration between St. Luke’s Hospital and Mercy Medical Center in Cedar Rapids was recognized at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement’s (IHI) 21st annual national forum on quality improvement. Cedar Rapids was touted as the role model of high quality, low cost health care and the way we got there working with good people and a greater degree of mutual respect and collaboration than many other communities.
• Dr. Levett was the driving force in pulling together the major components for the Iowa Beacon Project. He had the vision and tenacity to organize this $20 million grant application. It was submitted by the Iowa Health System on behalf of the Cedar Rapids healthcare community.