About     Board/Staff    Contact

The University of California’s Center for Health Quality and Innovation launched in October 2010. The center is designed to promote, support and nurture innovations at UC medical center campuses and hospitals to improve quality, access and value in the delivery of health care. UC Health, which supported federal health reform, recognizes that the status quo is no longer sustainable. We must build upon our excellence in service and embrace new practices in order to prosper so that we can continue to serve the medical needs of California and beyond.

The center’s goal is to support innovations at the UC health campuses that can transform the way the health needs of Californians are addressed and therefore advance the health of California and beyond.

The center is staffed by an executive director and governed by a board composed of the six UC medical school deans, five UC medical center CEOs and is chaired by the UC senior vice president for health sciences and services. Center projects take place at UC campuses with a small coordinating staff based at the UC Office of the President in Oakland.

Objectives:

• The center will be a best practices clearinghouse, helping to identify innovations already under way across UC that contribute to advances in health care delivery and sharing that knowledge, including posting information on the UC Health website at http://health.universityofcalifornia.edu/innovation-center.
• The center’s board will evaluate specific projects for funding. Selected projects will be funded to determine appropriateness for replicating best practices throughout the system, and the center will provide program management for studies under way.
• The center will seek to diversify funding sources to augment initial funding from the medical centers, in order to continue to fund innovative research designed to advance and improve health care delivery.
• The center will create an advisory body that will review best practices and programs undertaken by other health systems and make recommendations for implementation at UC facilities.
• The center will foster collaborative relationships with all constituencies UC serves, including policymakers, employers, health plans, regulators, other health care institutions and patient advocacy organizations in order to achieve buy in from all groups on best practices and innovative health services.
• The center will work to be a resource for leaders in Sacramento and Washington, D.C., and other interested stakeholders in helping to develop health policy.

The center received initial funding of $5 million – $1 million each from medical centers at UC Davis, UC Irvine, UCLA, UC San Diego and UC San Francisco. The center also will pursue grants and philanthropic funding.

Read more:

• Innovation center hosts colloquium
• Innovation center awards health fellowships
• Innovation center partners with AHRQ
• Innovation center seeks health fellows
  
• Download RFP for health fellows
  
• Innovation center issues white paper 
• Innovation center awards $3.4M in grants 
• Innovation center names executive director
• RFP issued for innovation center grants
• Download RFP for innovation center grants
• Innovation center launch press release
• Fact sheet
• Board and staff biographies

For more information, contact the center’s executive director, Terry Leach, at terry.leach@ucop.edu.