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In a recent interview, UVA Health Chief Strategy Officer Jason Lineen provided an overview of UVA Health’s new strategic plan and the significant momentum already underway across UVA Community Health (UVACH) since it became wholly owned by UVA Health 17 months ago.

What is the purpose of strategic planning and how was UVACH involved in helping shape the plan?

Lineen: Our new One Future Together | Health and Hope for All strategic plan charts a bold vision for the decade ahead. In the fall of 2021, UVA Health launched a highly inclusive strategic planning process to develop a clear and compelling vision for the organization. To kick off the initiative, we created four strategic planning committees, one for each mission (clinical care, education, research, and community), that comprised diverse representatives from across the organization — including UVACH. Additionally, a strategic planning survey was distributed to all 16,000 UVA Health team members to solicit input, help assess our current positioning, and identify future opportunities. We also refreshed our mission, vision, and values, and developed a set of principles to guide us forward (the new statements can be found here. I think this work is wonderfully summarized by our new mission statement: Transforming Health and Inspiring Hope for all Virginians and Beyond. 

It’s important to know that our strategic planning process was designed to be extremely inclusive and involved team members from all UVA Health entities, patients, patient families, and community members. More than 120 individuals served across the four strategic planning committees that met frequently over the past year, creating, critiquing, reorganizing, and finalizing our plan. The strategic planning process was definitely enriched by strong representation by the UVA Community Health team members who served on each committee. As we begin implementation of the plan, we welcome everyone’s ongoing involvement and input and are excited about our journey ahead. The strategic goals articulated in the plan are purposefully ambitious and can only be achieved by close interdisciplinary collaboration throughout the entire organization.

How will the new strategic plan impact UVA Community Health?

Lineen: Our commitment in the Health and Hope for All strategic plan is to make significant investments — such as implementing a common system-wide instance of Epic — that make it easier for patients to conveniently access our services and for our teams to provide care. We are also committed to creating an environment where all UVA Health team members are engaged, fulfilled, and empowered to reach their full potential. 

Along these lines, UVACH has a significant amount of momentum behind it. Since July 2021, it has made tremendous progress on many fronts, thanks to the hard work and dedication of many individuals:

• Clinical Expansion | UVACH is rapidly expanding existing programs, such as primary care and surgical services, and also launching new ones, like gynecologic oncology in the communities we serve from Culpeper to Prince William County and beyond. 
• Provider Recruitment | The UVACH strategy and operations teams have been developing and executing growth plans in key areas of community need. For example, significant progress has been made in launching a new provider recruiting team and in redesigning our recruiting and onboarding processes. This effort is yielding exceptional results. We have already recruited over 50 providers to UVACH in the past 16 months and we are just getting started! The new recruitments span primary care/community medicine, specialty care and hospital-based providers.  

What are the key priorities of the One Future Together | Health and Hope for All strategic plan?

Lineen: During the ten-year period addressed in the plan, all UVA Health entities will be focused on the same strategic priorities which are expressed in three overarching goals:

• Cultivating Healthy Communities & Belonging For All | UVA Health has 16,000 team members, and everyone is essential to achieving our mission of transforming health and inspiring hope for all Virginians and beyond. In pursuing this goal, we will focus on building UVA Health’s reputation as a best place to work; promoting community engagement and health equity; and offering value-based care.
• Strengthening Our Foundation | We will be making critical and appreciable investments to modernize our operations and supporting infrastructure. The goal of this work will be to make it easier for our patients to access our services and for our teams to provide care, to teach, and to perform research.

• Expanding Our Excellence and Enabling Discoveries for Better Health | We are committed to leading in the delivery of the best and most advanced patient care that is reflective of our ability to translate discoveries into revolutionary therapies. The tactics that we will deploy to achieve this goal include: gaining distinction in education, leading research and translational impact, expanding statewide, and establishing destination clinical programs.

We will be providing details about these goals and the initiatives that will support them. I think it’s important to emphasize that healthcare is a dynamic, constantly changing field, and our strategic plan has been created to be a flexible, living document that will be refreshed as necessary to evolve with our rapidly changing environment.

How can UVA Community Health team members get involved?

Lineen: As noted earlier, one of the three overarching goals of the strategic plan is to cultivate healthy communities and belonging for all. Achieving this goal starts with the UVA Health workforce. The most important way team members can get involved in helping to make UVA Health a great place to work and grow professionally is to participate in the upcoming UVACH Employee Engagement Survey that will begin on Nov. 28.

Everyone’s survey responses will help guide the transformational work that lies ahead. UVAH leadership will be paying close attention to survey feedback and using it to inform future decisions and actions. For this reason, I encourage all UVA Community Health team members to provide feedback so their voices can be heard.

What excites you the most when you think about implementing the strategic plan?

Lineen: I am so excited and optimistic about the future of UVA Health. Because of the many talented, committed people across our organization who are helping to shape and develop our strategic plan, we are already moving toward the future we have envisioned. I am extraordinarily grateful to the countless number of individuals who contributed to the development of the plan and am extremely confident in our collective ability to achieve our One Future Together. As I like to say, we are just getting started!

Where can team members learn more about UVA Health’s new strategic plan? 

Lineen: Everyone can learn more about the One Future Together | Health and Hope for All strategic plan and keep up with our progress by visiting the website and downloading the full version of the plan.