Over the next few months, we will be highlighting a member of the Department of Medicine vice chair team each week to learn more about them and their roles in the department. Want more info? Find vice chair bios, FAQs, resources and more on our DOM Vice Chair Sharepoint.
Vice Chair for Clinical Affairs and Ambulatory
Kimberly S. Peairs, MD, FACP, is the Vice Chair for Clinical Affairs and Ambulatory. In this role, she works across all the clinical domains in the Department of Medicine to improve clinical operations, support clinicians and to deliver high quality care to our patients. Dr. Peairs has had extensive experience as a practicing clinician in both the inpatient and ambulatory settings, including a continuity clinic for more than 25 years. In addition to doing her internal medicine training on the Osler Medical Service, she was an assistant chief of service (ACS) and was the Longcope Firm Faculty leader for 10 years. Dr. Peairs has had many clinical leadership roles, including clinical director of the GIM Greenspring Station clinic for 10 years, associate and then vice chair for ambulatory (an inaugural role) for five years prior to taking on the vice chair for clinical affairs position in early 2022. She was an active leader during the COVID response, serving on the JHM Ambulatory Command Center team that established the COVID call center, drive-through COVID testing, COVID safety protocols for ambulatory, and the JHM COVID mass vaccination initiatives. She helped lead the DOM team for the urgent transition to telemedicine. Dr. Peairs also helps lead many primary care transformation initiatives that impact the Department of Medicine, such as MD PCP, through the Office of Johns Hopkins Physicians.
Dr. Peairs has received the Johns Hopkins Medicine Clinical Award for Clinical Excellence in Service and Professionalism for The Johns Hopkins Hospital (2016) and is a member of the Miller Coulson Academy for Clinical Excellence.
As vice chair, her work includes:
- Partnering with the DOM vice chairs for JHH and Bayview inpatient to coordinate care efforts and best practices.
- Working closely with the Department’s Quality/Safety team to operationalize improvement programs. In the ambulatory setting, focusing on process improvements to meet quality metrics.
- Working with the DOM Advanced Practice Provider leadership to standardize, support and celebrate the work of our APPs.
- Advancing improvements with Access Services. Recent successful initiatives include the division-wide adoption of online scheduling services for patients.
- Supporting telemedicine initiatives in the Department of Medicine
- Working with JHM to improve the clinical experience for our providers and patients, including addressing staffing challenges and MyChart volumes.
In this role, the questions that arise are wide ranging across the spectrum of clinical affairs and operations. Dr. Peairs is enthusiastic to help problem solve and will engage many stakeholders to understand the scope of the challenge. She is motivated by the incredibly talented and hardworking individuals giving wonderful care to all of our patients.
