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This monthly community newsletter from Dr. Mitchell Rosner, interim Executive Vice President for Health Affairs, highlights how UVA Health serves our patients and the community. To stay up to date on operations, clinical services, and research efforts featured in UVA Health Community Update, subscribe.

Dear Friends of UVA Health,

In this month’s update, I’m sharing a few examples of how UVA Health is working to improve patient access, strengthen care across regions, and advance research and innovation.

These efforts reflect the ongoing work of our teams to deliver high-quality care and support healthier communities across Virginia.

Thank you for allowing us to be part of your care and your community. Please reach out anytime. 

Mitchell H. Rosner, MD, MACP, FRCP
Chief Executive Officer, UVA Health
Executive Vice President for Health Affairs, UVA
Henry B. Mulholland Professor of Medicine

UVA Health Children’s Expands Access with Two New Clinics, Including Same-Day Pediatric Visits

UVA Health Children’s has opened two new outpatient clinics at UVA Health Medical Park Riverside, making it easier for families across Central Virginia to access coordinated, high-quality pediatric care in Albemarle County. The new locations — Pediatric and Specialty Care Riverside and Teen and Young Adult Care Riverside — build on the site’s growing footprint, joining the Children’s Neurodevelopmental and Behavioral Health clinic that opened in 2024.  

These care locations are designed around how families seek care, offering same-day visits for minor illnesses and injuries (with on-site testing), expanded pediatric specialties, and dedicated services for teens and young adults (ages 13–26). This includes routine checkups, mental health assessments, gynecological care, and nutrition support. This site also expands access to pediatric specialty services such as endocrinology, genetics, gastroenterology, pulmonology, and breastfeeding medicine, while strengthening primary care services like well-child visits, immunizations, and developmental screenings. 

We know that, for many families, finding timely primary and pediatric care has not always been easy — and that can add stress during moments when care is needed most. Expanding access remains a priority across UVA Health, and efforts like these are one step toward making care more available and easier to navigate. We hope these new clinics help ease some of that burden for families in our community.

Learn more.

UVA Health, Riverside Expand Access to Heart Clinical Trial in Eastern Virginia

UVA Health and Riverside Health are partnering to bring a leading-edge heart valve clinical trial to patients in Eastern Virginia. The ENVISION Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement (TAVR) trial will evaluate a new treatment for aortic stenosis, a serious condition that restricts blood flow from the heart. Riverside Regional Medical Center will serve as a subsite of UVA Health in this national, multicenter study, expanding access to advanced therapies and research participation beyond Charlottesville. 

As we continue to expand our clinical trials network to more sites in Virginia, this partnership with Riverside underscores a shared commitment to bringing cutting-edge research opportunities to more people. It also demonstrates how partnerships can extend the reach of academic medicine, connecting patients to cutting-edge research while strengthening care across regions.

UVA Health Strengthens Commitment to Environmental Stewardship

As we close out Earth Month, it’s a good reminder that the health of our patients and the health of our environment are closely connected. Across UVA Health, teams are making steady progress on sustainability in ways that support patient care and responsible use of resources. I’m especially grateful to our teams in Radiology, Pharmacy, Anesthesiology, Fleet, Nursing, and the Outpatient Surgery Center — and many others — who are leading practical efforts to reduce waste and improve how we operate day to day. This includes expanding recycling and composting infrastructure and improving the energy efficiency of our medical buildings, steps that help lower costs while creating a better environment for patients and healthcare professionals. 

In 2025, UVA Health University Medical Center became the third major academic medical center to earn the Joint Commission Sustainable Healthcare Certificationand also received a Practice Greenhealth Environmental Excellence Award. Across UVA Community Health, teams have expanded initiatives like operating room blue wrap recycling across all three medical centers, reducing landfill waste and supporting safer care environments. 

This work is part of UVA Health’s broader commitment to stewardship — finding practical, measurable ways to care for our communities today while being mindful of the impact on future generations. This is thoughtful, incremental work, and it’s one more way we are taking care of our communities, now, and for the future.

Culpeper Medical Center Earns “Best of the Best” Honors

UVA Health Culpeper Medical Center and several of its physicians and services were recognized in the Culpeper Times 2026 “Best of the Best” awards — an honor driven by community nominations and votes. Top recognitions included Best Hospital, along with individual honors in OB/GYN, orthopedics, pediatrics, and rehabilitation services.

While these awards reflect strong support in Culpeper, they also speak to the strength of UVA Health as a connected system. High-quality care delivered across all our sites help patients access trusted providers closer to home — while still benefiting from the expertise that defines UVA Health overall. These recognitions highlight the impact of our team members across the system and reinforce the role our community medical centers play in supporting patients throughout Virginia.

Research Highlight: Use of Curative Hepatitis C Drugs Drops Sharply, Leaving Millions at Risk

Who: UVA Health’s Sanjay Kishore, an internal medicine doctor, and colleagues at UVA Health and Mass General Brigham.

Focus: National trends in prescribing direct-acting antivirals for treating hepatitis C, a bloodborne virus that damages the liver. It’s estimated up to 4 million Americans have chronic hepatitis C infections. 

Discovery: Despite highly effective treatments that can cure more than 95% of patients, use of antiviral medications has declined sharply since peaking in 2015, with fewer than 70,000 treatment courses administered in 2025 compared to more than 185,000 at its height.

Why It Matters: Millions of Americans — many unaware they are infected — remain at risk for serious liver disease, and declining treatment rates threaten national efforts to eliminate hepatitis C, underscoring the need for improved access, screening, and system-level solutions.

The researchers have detailed their analysis in the prestigious Journal of the American Medical Association.

Learn more.