When I visit our facilities across the UC Davis Health system, I see the power of our purpose, our culture, and our people in action. Our incredible teams have such a positive impact on our patients throughout our Northern California communities — all of which contributes to rising distinctions for UC Davis Health in many esteemed national rankings, as you’ll see in this issue.
This magazine spotlights several examples of that shared purpose and collective action in the last few months. Through our sense of humanity and empowering technology, UC Davis Health is thinking differently about how we can improve human life and deliver the compassionate care our people deserve.
One example is the new brain-computer interface developed by UC Davis Health scientists that amazingly translates brain signals into speech with up to 97% accuracy. The most accurate system of its kind, this technology recently gave a clinical trial participant with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) the ability to speak once again within minutes of being deployed. A truly heartwarming story, this technology enabled the participant to once again communicate with his family, friends and caregivers.
Elsewhere in this issue you will find news on research progress, facility growth, leadership appointments, clinical and programmatic updates, and partnerships. For example, UC Davis Health has launched a new at-home program that monitors patients with high blood pressure. So, we’re finding inventive ways to make care more convenient and accessible for our patients, while also reducing costs by preventing hospital readmissions and unnecessary visits.
In health equity, UC Davis Health is expanding access to postpartum care for Black patients through video-based telehealth, which will help to alleviate numerous historical barriers to access in this particular realm. Everyone who walks through our doors is an extremely valued patient, and that’s why we’re continually putting an emphasis on equitable care and overcoming the social determinant obstacles to good health.
Altogether, these are just a few examples — there’s much more to share with you. Everything we do should be about bringing greater health to the people that we serve throughout Northern California. Our strategic approach is based on the fact that the future of health care delivery will look quite different than the health care of today. Evolving technologies, patient expectations, and value-based care will shape the future of care at UC Davis Health and beyond — this is what our patients increasingly expect and what our providers support in this new era of health care.
In fact, about a quarter of adults younger than 30 now use chatbots to find medical advice and information at least once a month, according to a recent survey from KFF. And, an American Medical Association study recently found that 56% of physicians thought AI would be helpful in improving care coordination, patient convenience and patient safety.
In all that we do, transparency is key, and communicating the benefits of transformative care and listening to feedback will underpin the “human acceptance curve” when it comes to technology and health care. That’s what our UC Davis Health teams are doing right now, transforming the patient health care journey, each and every day — while creativity may be thinking up new things, innovation is actually doing the new things as the next step.
