July 9, 2024

Leadership Message: Summertime and turning the corner

(SACRAMENTO)

Dear Colleagues,

Like many of you, I find summer to be an amazing time filled with new adventures and experiences, sunny skies, and days spent with friends, family – and our dogs, of course! Actually, this summer my family is working hard to complete the move from our home of 20-plus years in St. Louis to our new community here in Sacramento and at UC Davis Health. I hope all of you this summer can enjoy your own rewarding balance of work and relaxation that rejuvenates and replenishes you.

To start, I want to thank each of you for your commitment to the patients and families we serve, and for your hard work over the past several months as we turn the corner on an incredibly challenging fiscal year in a changing health care landscape. With a forward-looking mindset, we’re taking action to ensure our institution is financially healthy, productive, and engaged with our patients, families, communities, and employees.

As we move forward in this new fiscal year that began July 1, I’d like to highlight some deliberate changes aimed at increasing our efficiency and effectiveness on several fronts. The Chief Clinical Officer (my office) will now lead System Clinical Care Services (SCCS). Under SCCS, we will reorganize and solidify care delivery and accountability for the following work channels:

Hospital Clinical Care Services (HCCS) will report to Dr. Joseph Galante, who on July 1 became our permanent Hospital Chief Medical Officer. Responsibilities here include medical oversight of all the processes of the hospital and campus, in collaboration with School of Medicine leadership and clinicians. Associate CMOs, including Dr. Catie Chia and Dr. Christian Sandrock, will work on various care issues such as the appropriateness of interventions, documentation, and capacity management. Our wellness efforts, led by Dr. Sara Aghamohammadi, will also align in this space. HCCS will oversee licensure and accreditation processes, issues pertaining to clinicians (medical affairs), support of GME functions, operating rooms, recovery spaces, ICUs, and the emergency department. Critical work is being done as well on the forthcoming 48X facility, slated to open in the summer of 2025.
Ambulatory Clinical Care Services (ACCS) will be the responsibility of Dr. Debbie Aizenberg, who on July 1 became our permanent Ambulatory Chief Medical Officer and Executive Director of the UC Davis Medical Group. Dr. Allen Hall, Medical Director of our Community Physicians’ Group (CPG), will partner with and report to Dr. Aizenberg in this channel. ACCS involves the management of our ambulatory and community clinics as well as our medical group and CPG. The efforts in these spaces are critically important to our delivery of a full spectrum of care. This division also highlights the principle of dual-accountability to the School of Medicine and Dean Susan Murin, MD, MSc, MBA.
The UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center’s physicians will continue to be led by Physician-in-Chief Dr. David Cooke (interim), who will dually report to me and to Cancer Center Director Dr. Lucky Lara. Dr. Cooke will provide clinical and operational oversight of cancer-related care, including screening, prevention, care for cancer conditions, recovery, and survivorship. This will require close collaboration across inpatient, ambulatory, and home settings.
The UC Davis Children’s Hospital and “care of children” space will continue to be led by Pediatrician-in-Chief Dr. Satyan Lakshminrusimha. As always, our partners in this space include our Associate CMO for pediatrics, Dr. Joanne Natale, and our Pediatric Surgeon-in-Chief, Dr. Shin Hirose. This channel will involve the clinical and operational oversight of care for children, including in our Children’s Hospital, as well as development of a strategy for the future care of more children in our region.
The Care at Home space is an exciting one given the many recent transformations of care and opportunities arising in this channel. This area involves the coordination and oversight of the many kinds of emerging care available for patients and families in their home settings. We’ll continue to work in our typical multi-disciplinary fashion to improve the structures and processes in this space.
Our Quality, Safety, and Experience work will be led by Chief Quality Officer Dr. Gregory Maynard, who will partner with Cindy Ricciuti-Brown, Director of Experience Design, Insights, and Capabilities. This space focuses on efforts to measure, monitor, and improve the quality and safety of our medical care, including the quality of patient and employee experiences.
Population Health and Accountable Care will be led by Dr. Reshma Gupta, Chief of Population Health and Accountable Care. This truly multidisciplinary work will involve efforts to improve care delivery across the continuum at the right time, with the right care teams, and in the right settings, to meet patients’ complex health needs and keep them healthier at home. Key partnerships remain with Vanessa McElroy and our transitions and care management experts now aligned under Christine Williams in Patient Care Services, and with expert colleagues in our Finance and Strategy groups. This broad team will focus on efficient care delivery, including care management and care pathways to improve “value-based” contracts aimed to deliver improved health outcomes while lowering cost.
Clinical Informatics will continue to be led by Dr. Jeffery Wajda, Chief Health Information Officer. This section offers expertise to all clinicians and members of our care teams to increase the efficiency of our interactions with the medical records system, thereby improving connectedness by making health information more useful for patients, caregivers, operations colleagues, and researchers alike!
Stewardship and Integration is a new area that is a passion of mine and that we will work to structure and enhance together. In addition to functioning as our Senior Associate CMO in the HCCS space with Dr. Galante, I’ve asked Dr. Mohamed Ali to help define and advance our stewardship work. Goals for this area include better integrating different types of care that patients and families need over time and in different places, in patient-centered ways. Some of that work will be accomplished by strengthening service lines. We will also work to position UC Davis Health as a strong steward of resources on behalf of our communities, in partnership with our Supply Chain and Operations experts. Standardization of process and materials will be key!

In addition, Kimberlie Brooks will continue as our SCCS Director of Business Operations, assisting me in overseeing each of our divisions. Christine Woodward will remain my Executive Assistant.

All of the areas above represent multidisciplinary teamwork. I’ve only called out a few names involved. All the efforts will be partnerships across SCCS, Patient Care Services, Operations and Ambulatory, Finance, Strategy, all of our clinician partners, and the School of Medicine. I will work hand-in-hand with our Dean, Dr. Susan Murin, with every School chair and department, and of course with my leader colleagues in Dr. Lubarsky’s cabinet.

From clinical care to patient experience and community engagement, and from basic research to implementation of innovation, we are redefining what a next-generation academic medical center looks like, stands for – and delivers – today and tomorrow. I’m looking forward to our exciting era ahead and am so grateful to share this adventure with you.