5 questions with UC San Diego Health CEO Patty Maysent

Patty Maysent, the first female CEO at UC San Diego Health, has held her role since January. However, she is no stranger to the academic health system.

Ms. Maysent served as interim CEO for UCSD since August 2015 following the departure of her predecessor, Paul Viviano, who left to run Children's Hospital Los Angeles. She first joined the health system in June 2012 as chief of staff, then became chief strategy officer in 2013.

No doubt some of the tenacity that has contributed to Ms. Mayesent's ascent to her role as CEO comes from her experience as a competitive swimmer. As an undergraduate, Ms. Maysent was a four-year All American, Academic All American and team captain of Stanford's NCAA National Championship swim team in 1983. 

A dedicated team leader with a knack for the big picture, Ms. Maysent is the lead architect of UC San Diego's strategic plan, which centers on four main areas: clinical excellence, patient experience, performance management and growth.

Here, Ms. Maysent took the time to answer five of Becker's Hospital Review's questions.

Note: Responses have been lightly edited for length and clarity.

1. What are some of your top priorities for your first year at the helm after serving as interim CEO?

We have three main priorities for 2016. The first is opening our new acute care hospital in October. Jacobs Medical Center will be a 245-bed acute care facility on our La Jolla campus, and it has all the bells and whistles. Opening the new hospital will cause transitions all over the health system — faculty and staff movements and redevelopments in areas that will be vacated.

The second primary goal is to continue growing our geographic footprint and building out our affiliations with other hospitals and community physicians. Our geographic reach is expanding beyond San Diego. We have relationships with Tri-CityMedicalCenter, El CentroRegionalMedicalCenter, EisenhowerMedicalCenter, three Universal Health Services hospitals, Rady Children's Hospital, the Veterans Administration, Scripps Health and Sharp HealthCare. In addition, we have affiliations with over 200 physicians through our physician network.

The third goal is to vastly improve access and the patient experience so once we've created this huge geographic footprint and expanded our capacity, we're opening the doors to become navigators, not just gatekeepers on the front-end of the system. The goal is to enable patients to get world-class care much more easily. Historically, access is a challenge for academic medical centers.

All of these are major strategies, and within them are brand and operational pieces. To support them, we've spent the last decade — and continue to — find and recruit world-class physician scientists so no one ever has to leave the region to find the best care.

2. How do your prior experiences as chief of staff and chief strategy officer serve as an advantage in your current role?

Because I've worked so closely with the prior CEO for 28 years, my past experience wasn't so much about the titles as it was my ability to expand his bandwidth to do certain things. I helped design the strategy, for instance. I own that. It's something I don't have to change now. We were midstream in strategic planning implementation when Paul Viviano left, but I know the plan because I helped create it. The second big piece is that I was the face of many of the affiliations and relationships we've made, so there wasn't really a transition there.

3. What is the biggest challenge UC San Diego Health is facing? What is the organization doing to combat it?

We are in a very sophisticated healthcare marketplace with very good, well-branded, organized competitors: Sharp, Scripps, Kaiser. Because we're a young clinical enterprise, we are playing catch-up when it comes to developing an integrated delivery system, working with affiliates and competitors and building relationships with physicians. We've made lots of progress in these areas, and we're optimistic about the momentum and trajectory we have.

On top of that, we have this growing Medi-Cal population we need to care for. A third of San Diego is on MediCal, so we need to find a way to deliver that care in a cost-effective manner.

4. How does your experience training and competing in swimming prepared you to take on top executive responsibilities? What lessons did it teach you?

Being an athlete has been more about commitment to hard work and building a very focused team than it is about competition. Like in healthcare, thriving on competition isn't even appropriate any more. We're in a competitive market, but we can't lose our higher vision of what's in the best interest of the community relative to health.

A lot of people don't think of swimming as a team sport, but it is actually one of the most team-oriented sports around. You're training six hours a day with your team. They become your family. When I look at the executive team, they're my team. I'm all in and committed to them, and they are committed to UC San Diego and what we're building there.

5. How would you describe your leadership philosophy?

A deep commitment to my team and passion for the mission and vision. Additionally, not losing sight of what we're trying to achieve — being able to provide the kind of care needed for our community so no patient needs to leave our region to get great care along any service line. We don't need to own everything, we can partner with others.

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