March 6, 2025

8 top projects from the Office of Strategy and Growth

For the third year, UC Davis Health’s Office of Strategy and Growth has published its year in review. The report highlights the office’s primary focuses and accomplishments.

In 2024, the eight top projects fell within three areas:

Regional expansion
Revenue diversification
Capacity and service line enhancement

“Our team of specialists, in collaboration with our schools, clinical experts and administration, have much to be proud of—new partnerships, joint ventures, affiliations, analytical tools and strategic plans,” Chief Strategy Officer Ron Amodeo wrote in the report. "We look forward to continuing these successes with you in 2025."

We look forward to continuing these successes with you in 2025."—Ron Amodeo, Chief Strategy Officer

The Office of Strategy and Growth was launched in 2020 to help accelerate growth and maximize collective strategic opportunities. Besides establishing the system’s first clinical strategic plan, which helps guide UC Davis Health’s path forward, the office identifies growth opportunities and improves the quality and efficiency of existing operations.

For example, the team is helping to lead the launch of 48X, expand the Children’s Hospital and implement process improvements for a variety of clinical operations.

Review all eight project highlights:

Established and Equity-based Investment Fund: At UC Davis Health, we’ve never had the opportunity to invest in companies in exchange for equity. Other health systems use this strategy to offset financial fluctuations. Now we can do that. This collaborative initiative, developed with UC Irvine and UC San Diego, diversifies our portfolio while positioning us to advance medicine through strategic investments.
Welcomed Enloe Medical Center into our Cancer Care Network: Capitalizing on Enloe Medical Center’s investment to build a new cancer center, we reached agreement with their leadership and clinical teams to access a novel set of clinical trials under the support and management of UC Davis’s Comprehensive Cancer Center.
Launched a Joint Venture with Folsom Sierra Endoscopy Center: Access to GI services in the Folsom region were always constrained by our facilities. With this partnership, not only has access in GI increased, but we avoided the costs associated with building or buying a new facility.
Determined Future Inpatient Bed Needs: How many inpatient beds are needed on our Sacramento campus in 2030? In 2040? We led a study to address these questions. The result was a robust working model that showed a range of shortfalls. In the end, we laid the foundation for discussing a “future” bed tower.
Developed new Analytic Capabilities for Payor Assessment: We have three main “payers”, Medicare, Medicaid (Medi-Cal), and Commercial insurance. Yet we had few tools that could show enough detail to help us optimize our care for each group. Until now. Today we can capture and visualize distinct payor market data and support those who negotiate on our behalf for contracts.
Organized Launch of 48X: Designed as one of the largest outpatient surgical centers in the nation, 48X is the most complicated “project” UCDH has launched in decades. From workforce planning to building new surgical workflows to discussing emergent facility issues, the number of “key stakeholders” that had to share decision making was extraordinary. Our Enterprise Project Management team organized this effort to ensure that we stayed on time and on budget.
Developed Two Major Strategic Plans: Primary Care now has a new strategy and roadmap for innovating and optimizing the way we deliver it, assuring the patient is at the center of all we do. Another strategy was developed for the Family Caregiving Institute (FCI) at the Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing to help elevate the reputation of UC Davis as a national leader in caregiving.
Expanded Stroke Care Network: Stroke Program had a record-breaking year with 193 thrombectomies in CY24, a 264% increase over 2020. Part of this success was driven by partnerships (and the use of Viz.ai) at nine new stroke network sites.