UC recently launched the Center for Health Quality and Innovation to support innovations at UC health campuses that can transform the way the health needs of Californians are addressed. In this way, the Center will advance the health of California and beyond.

Center projects will take place at UC campuses with a small coordinating staff based at the UCOP. The Center will be a best practices clearinghouse and provide financial support for projects at individual UC campuses that could be extended throughout the UC system to improve wellness and enhance the delivery of health care. The Center also will pursue grants and philanthropic funding.

The Center will share its knowledge throughout the UC system and beyond, including posting information on the UC Health website at http://universityofcalifornia.edu/sites/uchealth. UC Health includes UC’s five academic medical centers, 10 hospitals and 16 health professional schools.

The Center also can be a valuable resource for leaders in Sacramento and Washington, D.C., and other stakeholders interested in using its findings to help develop health policy. Its work is meant to complement and extend campus-based innovation efforts such as the UCLA Innovates HealthCare Initiative.

UC Campus Innovations

Following are examples of the types of UC campus innovations that the Center will be studying. The Center will identify best practices from these innovations and share them throughout UC Health and with other health care providers across the nation.

• UC Davis’ Interim Care Program, which works with other health systems and organizations to provide an 18-bed shelter that allows homeless men and women to recuperate from their medical conditions after being discharged from a hospital and referred by the hospital’s nursing staff, helping to reduce hospital readmissions.

• UC Irvine’s study of the effectiveness of new methods to prevent staph infections in people who harbor MRSA bacteria when they’re discharged from the hospital.

• A UCLA-led consortium involving five UC medical schools and Cedars-Sinai Medical Center that is researching the use of wireless and telephone care management to reduce hospital readmissions for heart failure patients.

• UC San Diego’s project that allows physicians to make follow-up appointments at participating community clinics for patients being treated in the hospital or emergency department who don’t have a physician, improving patient care and safety while reducing return ER visits.

• UC San Francisco’s program to reduce the amount of “door-to-balloon” time transporting heart attack patients from the emergency room to the catheterization lab for balloon angioplasty, a procedure to open narrowed or blocked blood vessels of the heart.

A board that includes the six UC medical school deans, five UC medical center CEOs and is chaired by Dr. John Stobo, UC senior vice president for health sciences and services, will govern the Center.

Read more about the Center for Health Quality and Innovation on the UC Newsroom.

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