Today, Monday, Oct. 26, people watching local TV will experience the launch of an advertising campaign showing that UCSF’s clinical enterprise provides transformative care for patients. But the campaign carries a bigger message about the profound shift in national health care delivery.

The featured patients, who experienced catastrophic injuries or illnesses, have gone on to live empowered lives. There’s Miguel, who lost both legs above the knee when he was struck by a car; Max, whose bone cancer was undiagnosed for seven years; Annie, a speech language pathologist and rock climber whose hip was preserved without hip replacement, and Laura, whose stage IV breast cancer was treated by a clinical trial using precision medicine, based on groundbreaking research by the head of the UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center.

Individually, the vignettes are compelling; together, they show a mosaic of the impact that UCSF has had on people with serious, and less serious, illnesses or afflictions.

But more broadly, the ad campaign — which will extend to BART stations on Nov. 1, San Francisco Muni on Nov. 2 and Bay Area billboards on Nov. 16 – formally announces the evolution of UCSF’s clinical enterprise into an integrated health system, UCSF Health.  It also marks the evolution of UCSF’s patient care services, from a program that 10 years ago consisted of two hospitals to a system that today spans both sides of the bay and includes adult and pediatric primary and specialty services.

The evolution was driven by the need and opportunity for UCSF to become more agile in the face of dramatic changes in health care. The result is that one of the nation’s premier academic medical centers, known for providing the most innovative, high quality care, has taken steps that will allow it to function in a cost-competitive manner, and to provide expert care — with an increased emphasis on wellness and the continuum of care, as well -- to more communities in the Bay Area and beyond.

The newly branded enterprise includes UCSF Medical Center, UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospitals in San Francisco and Oakland, the UCSF Faculty practice group, Langley Porter Psychiatric Hospital and Clinics, Benioff Children’s Physicians foundation and joint ventures with John Muir Health, including an accountable care network set to begin enrolling patients in 2017, affiliation with Hospital by the Bay, as well as other partner and affiliated hospitals and healthcare providers throughout the Bay Area.

“The need to become more agile, and the demands of our patients, purchasers and evolving health care system, have driven us — but also allowed us — to develop a health care system that is highly attuned to meeting the needs of all of our stakeholders in the Bay Area and beyond,” said Mark Laret, president and chief executive officer of UCSF Health. 

The tangible changes represented in UCSF Health are significant:

• UCSF unified decision-making and operations of the clinical practices between the UCSF School of Medicine and UCSF Medical Center, creating a triumvirate of leadership seen in UCSF Chancellor Sam Hawgood, MBBS, Laret and Talmadge King, dean of UCSF School of Medicine and vice chancellor for medical affairs.
• The growing network of affiliations and partnerships with community hospitals and physician practices is allowing the entities to take advantage of one another’s strengths, enabling UCSF to bring expertise in treating the most complex cases to distant communities, while providing specialized care at UCSF when the need arises.
• In partnership with its new partners and affiliates, UCSF is increasingly focused on promoting wellness and preventive care. Integrating both ends of the spectrum helps care providers manage patients’ health from specialized procedures to maintaining health and wellness.

Notably, while over the last several decades UCSF’s research enterprise has grown into one of the nation’s strongest, in the last decade the clinical enterprise has grown from a budget of $1 billion per year with standalone hospitals on its Parnassus and Mount Zion campuses to a $3 billion per year budget. This reflects, in part, an increase in admissions of 51 percent, and an increase in outpatient visits of 85 percent, from 2005-2014.

UCSF Health is not the first health system to emerge in the Bay Area. But its tactics and mission are distinct from others in the Bay Area:

• UCSF is a public institution with a strong ethic and track record of caring for the underserved.
• UCSF is affiliated with the five other UC medical centers across the state, allowing for collaborations on clinical care and research with a focus on precision medicine.
• UCSF is creating an accountable care network for the Bay Area with many community partners – a significant distinguishing feature.
• UCSF includes a world-renown research enterprise whose faculty have pioneered advances in the understanding and treatment of a myriad of diseases, including cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes and neurodegenerative diseases.

Other factors that distinguish UCSF Health:

• UCSF Medical Center was the only medical center in Northern California listed in the top 10 on the Honor Roll in U.S. News and World Report’s 2015 rankings, which highlights hospitals that are exceptional in numerous medical specialties. 
• UCSF has the only National Cancer Institute-designated “comprehensive cancer center” in the Bay Area.
• UCSF receives more of the highly competitive research funding from the National Institutes of Health than any other public university in the United States, and is second only to Johns Hopkins overall. In addition, it’s four graduate schools – Dentistry, Medicine, Nursing and Pharmacy – are all ranked number one in funding from the NIH.

UCSF is a leading university dedicated to transforming health worldwide through advanced biomedical research, graduate-level education in the life sciences and health professions, and excellence in patient care. Founded in 1864 as a medical college, UCSF now includes top-ranked graduate schools of dentistry, medicine, nursing and pharmacy; a graduate division with world-renowned programs in the biological sciences, a preeminent biomedical research enterprise and UCSF Health.

UCSF Health includes two top-tier hospitals, UCSF Medical Center and UCSF Benioff Children's Hospitals, the UCSF Faculty practice group, Langley Porter Psychiatric Hospital and Clinics, Benioff Children’s Physicians foundation and joint ventures with John Muir Health, including an accountable care network set to begin enrolling patients in 2017, affiliation with Hospital by the Bay, as well as other partner and affiliated hospitals and healthcare providers throughout the Bay Area.