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In late September 2022, UVA Health rolled out its first ever system-wide strategic plan. Entitled "One Future Together | Health and Hope for All," the ambitious 10-year plan encompasses our vision and priorities across all four of our mission areas (clinical care, education, research, and community/equity) and across all seven health system entities.

You can learn even more about the progress of the UVA Health strategic plan at the Oct. 10 Town Hall from noon-1 p.m. in Sandridge Auditorium or join by livestream.

Below, UVA Health Chief Strategy Officer Jason Lineen, MBA, talks to Connect about the plan’s first year and what it looks like to turn strategy into action:

What are the three most significant accomplishments since the plan was launched a year ago? 

Lineen: The organization has accomplished so much in the first year of our strategic plan that it’s incredibly difficult to pick just three achievements to highlight. Through tremendous effort from so many across the health system, we have made extraordinary progress in all three of the key goals outlined in the plan.

Goal 1: Cultivating Healthy Communities and Belonging for All Most gratifying to me is that when I meet with groups across the health system and ask them about the strategic plan, the most common response is, “UVA Health is investing in its people to make this a great place to work.” Cultivating a strong and supportive community within UVA Health is absolutely essential to our ability to achieve our vision to be the best public academic health system in the country to work and build a lifelong career.

A few Year 1 successes to achieve this goal include, but are not limited to: launching our new UVA Health Leadership Institute to develop more “homegrown” leaders, conducting an annual “Spark Innovation Competition” to tap great ideas from within the organization, expanding childcare offerings and planning continues to add more capacity, achieving a record level of participation in our team member engagement survey (the first time the survey was administered concurrently across all UVA Health entities), and many more.

Goal 2: Strengthening Our Foundation While UVA Health has a 200+ year history serving the Commonwealth, we have only a mere 24 months of experience as a multi-acute care hospital, multi-medical group health system. This is a result of our summer 2021 acquisition of Culpeper, Haymarket and Prince William Medical Centers and their associated medical group (now called “UVA Community Health Medical Group”). Tremendous progress has been made to advance our “One UVA Health Team” initiative that included integrating more than 200 differed IT systems and concluded this summer with a successful Epic go-live at Culpeper Medical Center June 1.

Being on a single instance of Epic across UVA Health means patients can receive — and providers can deliver, a seamless care experience among our three community hospitals — and University Medical Center in Charlottesville. Through tremendous collective effort, we have built an incredibly strong foundation to deliver integrated patient care for a growing number of Virginians. Also, I would be remiss if I didn’t highlight the incredible work our inpatient and ambulatory teams are doing to modernize our operations to support our “Easy Access” initiative. We are experiencing record levels of patient volumes and our patient progression team is doing incredible work to ensure bed availability for tertiary/quaternary transfers from across the state. 

Similarly, our Ambulatory team has already completed two of six waves as a part of the One Team | United on Access project. This complex body of work will touch every clinical department/division and is foundational to help make it easier for patients to get an appointment with our exceptional providers.

Goal 3: Expanding Our Excellence and Enabling Discoveries for Better Health From a research enterprise perspective, we could not be more excited about the newly announced Paul and Diane Manning Institute of Biotechnology. Catalyzed by a historic $100 million gift by the couple after whom it will be named, the new facility is anticipated to open in the 2026-27 timeframe and will position UVA at the forefront of cutting-edge medical research in areas like gene and cellular therapy.

In addition to expanding our research enterprise, statewide expansion of our clinical enterprise is also a key initiative under Goal #3.  As the leading public academic health system in the Commonwealth, we want to ensure no Virginian has to leave the state for complex tertiary/quaternary care. One way to accomplish this is through strategic partnerships with high quality health systems across the state. To that end, we recently announced an extremely exciting strategic partnership with Newport News-based Riverside Health in Eastern Virginia to enhance UVA Health’s ability to care for more patients closer to where they live.

There are many exciting components to the partnership and two of the first clinical initiatives that our teams are already working on include: jointly developing an exceptional cardiothoracic surgery program at Riverside Regional in Newport News and creating a seamless care experience for transplant patients collaboratively being cared for by Riverside and UVA Health.

How have team members responded to the plan?

Lineen: A strategic plan this ambitious requires contributions from everyone across the organization.  What has been so impressive and gratifying to see is how many individuals from across UVA Health have proactively raised their hand and asked to contribute. For example, so many team members are embracing the goal of making UVA Health the best place to work. When I talk to groups across the system, the best place to work initiative has generated great enthusiasm and it’s something everyone can impact. All 16,000 team members have a role to play.

From fostering an inclusive community of belonging on a daily basis to bringing our ASPIRE values to life in how we interact with each other and/or going “above and beyond” for our patients — there are so many ways to have an impact.

How has the plan been received by the communities we serve?

Lineen: We deliberately sought out a significant amount of community input throughout the strategic planning process. As a result, we were able to identify several initiatives that were prioritized in the plan based on community input and engagement.  There are many, but I’ll highlight just two examples of UVA Health acting in a meaningful way in response to community input:

First, the community in Nelson County advocated strongly they needed for a retail pharmacy in their town. The community expressed their appreciation for the great care they receive at our UVA Family Medicine Stoney Creek in Nellysford; however, the town is lacking a retail pharmacy and as a result patients must drive 30 minutes to fill a prescription. In response to this community input, our pharmacy team validated the community need, assessed the feasibility and mobilized a team to respond. The UVA Health pharmacy team is now weeks away from cutting the ribbon on a new retail pharmacy in Nelson County.

Second, our Neighborhood Health initiative provides a wide range of services/programs that are all shaped by community input and are having an incredible impact. Through community engagement our goal is to “meet patients where they are” with services that range from: health educators going out to the community, pop-up community clinics, mobile van clinics/services, and new fixed clinics that are integrated with other community resources. Many of these services initially have been focused on two communities: Fifeville (near University Medical Center) and Southwood (south of 5th Street Station, Charlottesville).

How are you tracking and reporting progress?

Transparent reporting and accountability are essential to achieving our goals. On a quarterly basis, I report our progress on the implementation of our strategic initiatives to the Board of Visitors and then we make that Board report available to all 16,000+ UVA Health team members on our strategic plan dashboard page. Everyone within the organization can track our progress.

Additionally, I would encourage anyone to reach out to me and the UVA Health System Strategy Office team if there is an initiative on the dashboard that you would like to learn more about and/or get involved with.

What should we look forward to in the second year (and beyond) of the strategic plan implementation?

Lineen: It truly is remarkable to see how much the organization has accomplished in just the first year of implementing our strategic plan. The possibilities ahead are endless given the incredible talent and passion throughout the organization. Together, as One UVA Health Team, we can truly accomplish anything.

The years ahead will see continued growth and expansion to enhance our impact across all of our mission areas: patient care, education, research, and community/equity. We are on a journey to achieve our ambitious vision of “becoming the nation’s leading public academic health system and best place to work.”