Over the past 18 months, Gainesville-based University of Florida has undergone a realignment into a unified operating structure under the theme of “Together We Transform.” This multifaceted process has allowed it to thrive in today’s healthcare environment, improve care access and boost career advancement opportunities, President and System CEO Stephen Motew, MD, told Becker’s.
About two years ago, UF Health operated as a collection of separate hospitals under the direct governance of the University of Florida, the state’s flagship public university.
“That really was the basis for my interest in the role of being the inaugural clinical enterprise leader,” Dr. Motew said. “The opportunity was to take individual, regional and market-based pockets of excellence and leverage the benefits of being a system, and that is the core component now embedded into this.”
The shift was made possible through support from university leadership, the promotion and recruitment of system-level talent to create a health system executive team, and the early declaration of three core strategic priorities. Those priorities are reconstructing its operating model to leverage the benefits of clinical care and operational excellence, establishing its focus on academic excellence as a foundation to become Florida’s premier health system, and developing a culture focused on those areas, Dr. Motew said.
“Putting those in place is key to allowing us to not only survive, but to thrive with the challenges that we have,” he said. “We know that when we work together, we’re much more able to take advantage of the great opportunities that exist in Florida, and to position ourselves in accommodating these incredibly deep changes that we’re having to the healthcare delivery system nationally.”
Transforming leadership, integration
The most significant leadership change has been the creation of the system office, Dr. Motew said. This includes the addition of a chief transformation officer role and the formation of three regional markets, each with its own leader.
The markets — Northeast Florida, Central Florida and Greater Gainesville — were established about a year ago. Each market leader is responsible for achieving academic, quality, growth and financial goals.
In the past year, the system has aligned key leadership roles within its new clinical enterprise system office, with both new and existing leaders serving as CFO, chief clinical officer, chief human resources officer, chief marketing and communications officer, CIO, chief advancement officer and chief legal officer.
UF Health works closely with its six health colleges, and this is reflected in its executive structure. The 12-hospital system’s leadership team includes the deans of the College of Medicine and the College of Nursing, who serve as enterprise-wide liaisons. For example, Shakira Henderson, PhD, DNP, serves as both dean of the College of Nursing and the system’s chief nurse executive. Likewise, Jennifer Hunt, MD, interim dean of the College of Medicine, has been involved in the redesign of the clinical enterprise.
“When we’re in a community hospital, knowing that our academic system-ness is what gives us an advantage over our competitors and answers our patients better, we want to also manifest that by saying: What teaching activities, clinical trials, or innovations are available to serve the community?” Dr. Motew said. “It’s leveraging our College of Medicine and College of Nursing heavily in that process.”
Improving access to care
Florida — especially the markets UF Health serves — is an extensively rural state, Dr. Motew said. UF Health has made several investments to bring high-quality care closer to patients, most notably through its mobile stroke treatment units.
The system operates one unit per market, designed to provide quicker access when time is critical. A secondary benefit has been the creation of a rural pickup model, Dr. Motew said.
“Imagine somebody is 70 miles away,” he said. “They can integrate into early stroke diagnosis in their own EMS and local delivery in the counties and get transported to the county line, where our mobile stroke unit will meet them, do the analysis, and then take them, if needed, back to our core facility, while starting the treatment in the mobile stroke treatment unit, allowing the EMS to get back into their communities. It really broadens the reach, and it would likely not allow us to be as successful if we had to drive 70 extra miles each way.”
It is one of 16 such programs active in the U.S., and data has shown patients experience reduced wait times for CT scans and lab results.
The system also runs a community health outreach mobile unit in the Gainesville market focused on women’s health and preventive care for more underserved populations. It also operates a women’s health community cruiser that extends into rural counties for prenatal and postpartum care, along with a cancer screening unit.
“We see the investment that’s necessary to sustain these as being very, very key, and would expect to be seeing more of that,” Dr. Motew said. “There’s a tremendous amount of support from the state of Florida to support that — particularly if we look at the new rural health bill, the $50 billion that has been appropriated from CMS. One of the core areas of focus is expanding outreach through things like mobile health and digital.”
Sustaining a workforce pipeline
One of the most impactful workforce strategies has been deepening integration with UF Health’s health sciences colleges.
“Not just assuming that they would receive their training in the college and then we would hire them, but embedding newer training pathways, particularly in nursing, where their training actually gives a multiplicity of opportunities to both learn and train within our broad facilities,” Dr. Motew said. “It’s been more traditionally focused on our main academic campuses, but now we want to expand that into our community hospitals.”
Retention is also a key focus, with intentional efforts to reduce workload burdens and improve the care environment, he said. UF Health is also expanding career development initiatives and thinking more broadly about systemwide mobility.
During a recent town hall at a community hospital, staff said what most excited them about becoming more embedded with the university was the opportunity to advance their skills.
“It’s a pipeline for advancement of individuals who are already here,” he said. “If we provide them with that pathway forward, they’re more likely to want, not only want to come here, but to stay.”
