UCSF Medical Center on Eve of New Era, CEO Says
Mark Laret
Both the public at large and patients expect "accountability, transparency and integrity," Laret said during his first-ever state of the medical center address on Oct. 31. "They want to know what our financial interests are in the products we use or recommend, and why they should just trust us when we tell them what we believe is in their best interest. The consuming public is also becoming more demanding of all service providers: They expect consistent, high-quality service 100 percent of the time."
As a result of this demand, hospitals and health care providers will be under increasing scrutiny by accreditation and governmental agencies, Laret said. "They are being held accountable for holding us accountable. Report cards on our performance are proliferating rapidly. Expectations of us are higher than ever.
"This is why I believe we are at the dawn of a new era, and we are going to need to look deep inside ourselves and our organization to understand what it is going to take to succeed in this new era, because it is different than what it took for us to succeed in the previous era."
Laret urged all involved in the medical center to heed the difficult challenges of increased requirements and regulations in order to succeed in this new era. "Know the requirements. Hold yourself and your colleagues accountable. Do not hide behind academic or other responsibilities. Set higher standards. Own it. Be disciplined. Make your unit a beacon of excellence."
Laret will deliver the address again on Tuesday, Nov. 7, at 7:45 a.m. in Cole Hall on the Parnassus campus and on Thursday, Nov. 9, at noon in Herbst Hall at the Mount Zion campus.
Citing several accomplishments in recent years, Laret was positive and proud of the overall performance of the top-rated medical center. In short, he said, "UCSF Medical Center today is better than ever before, and doing a better job than ever in serving our patients and supporting the academic missions of the University of California."
Legacy of Improving Lives
Laret put the recent progress at UCSF Medical Center into historical perspective - a 100-year legacy that began in the aftermath of San Francisco's 1906 earthquake.
"The medical care that has been given here and at Mount Zion hospital over the decades has changed, and improved the lives of hundreds of thousands of people," Laret said.
"Yet compared to today, at no time in the past 100 years has UCSF Medical Center cared for more patients, cared for sicker patients, cared for patients more safely, used more advanced diagnostic and therapeutic tools in more modern facilities with more skilled staff while training more physicians, nurses, pharmacists and others; nor done any of this more efficiently or effectively or better met our responsibilities to our patients, to the University of California, to the people of San Francisco, California and the nation."
By almost every measure - from financial performance to employee retention - the medical center has improved over the past six years, when Laret took the helm after the failed merger with Stanford.
Indeed, the "complete renaissance of UCSF Medical Center from the financial, psychological and operational trauma it suffered after the bold, but failed experiment to merge with Stanford" leads Laret to believe they can triumph over future challenges.
"I have been at UCSF Medical Center now a bit over six years, and I have learned an important fact about UCSF and UCSF Medical Center that gives me great confidence going forward," he said. "The fact is this: When we set our minds to it, we can do anything."
For the coming years, scores of UCSF and medical center leaders will put their collective minds around the long-term plan to build a new children's, women's and cancer hospital complex on 15 acres of land UCSF acquired just south of the Mission Bay campus. The project will require winning support from the donor community to raise the money to build the hospitals by 2015.
Turning that ambitious project from a grand idea into reality is one major reason why simply meeting the hospital accreditation standards or other regulatory requirements will not suffice.
"At UCSF, anything is possible when we put our minds to it," Laret said. "I am asking you today, as a community, to make up our minds that we will attend to these vitally important regulatory issues first, and second, to doing what it takes to assure our leadership and success as a patient care provider. We can and should accept nothing less that complete success in accomplishing both."
State of the Medical Center Address
11/01/2006