Message from leadership: Sam Dean

Sam Dean is administrator of USA Health University Hospital and assistant vice president for medical affairs.

For the past three years, there has been a significant effort within USA Health to improve access to care at University Hospital. All of the leadership team recognizes how important it is that our specialized, and general, care be available to our community.

This accessibility has not always been the case because of limited space in a hospital built in the 1960s. We have made considerable strides in the past couple years, and we continue to explore how we can make improvements.

The changes that we have seen since Fiscal Year 2016 are quite remarkable. Any of you who work at University Hospital have seen the increase in the number of people receiving care and the impact it has had on patients and their families. For those of you who do not spend much time at University Hospital, I want to share some information with you.

We have increased the number of beds in service by 29 percent with 189 beds now available. And those beds are being routinely filled. Our inpatient admissions are expected to top 10,500 in FY 2019, a 52 percent increase from where we were in 2016.

But just adding beds is not the entire story. This year we developed a surge plan within the Emergency Department so that we have been able to decrease the number of hours we are on diversion. Since nearly three quarters of our patients currently come through the Emergency Department, this was a critical step in ensuring that patients are able to receive the care they need, when they need it. This continues to positively impact our efforts, and we have seen a 17 percent growth in visits to the Emergency Department since 2016.

Further, we have worked to increase the amount of time that our operating rooms are available. We anticipate that for the first time we will have more than 7,000 surgeries performed in a fiscal year, topping the 2016 numbers by 25 percent. One of the most significant increases we have seen recently is the number of gastrointestinal procedures performed. This year we will exceed 6,000 procedures, marking a 65 percent increase.

Thank you to everyone who helped make these impactful changes possible, and we will continue our efforts to fulfill our mission with projects like the Fanny Meisler Trauma Center, a new GI Lab and more in 2020.

Sam Dean is the administrator of USA Health University Hospital and assistant vice president for medical affairs.