By now you’ve heard a lot about UCare, the UHealth initiative designed to create and sustain a patient-centric culture of teamwork and excellence. This is our journey to develop a unified health system focused on delivering high-quality patient care with an emphasis on customer service, communication, and accountability.

UCare will call for a strong commitment from all UHealth faculty, staff, and leadership to ensure that we are collectively committed to achieving this goal. Every member of our team plays a key role in ensuring that everything we do is the right thing for our patients. For the past year, members of UHealth leadership have been laying the foundation for this journey by participating in Leadership Development Institutes and focusing on the implementation of tactics that facilitate recognition and engagement.

We encourage your involvement in this process, and hope that you will talk with your supervisor and continue to read this newsletter for more information on how the UCare initiative is being embraced within your department and across the health system. In the meantime, we’ve provided answers to some Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) below.

Thank you for your support as we continue to fulfill our mission of being a world-class leader in education, research, and patient care.

Pascal J. Goldschmidt, M.D.
Senior Vice President for Medical Affairs and Dean,
UM Miller School of Medicine
CEO, UHealth

What is UHealth?
UHealth is the University of Miami Health System. UHealth delivers cutting-edge, patient-centric care from some of the world’s best physicians, who are backed by precedent-setting research and medical education taking place at the Miller School of Medicine. UHealth’s comprehensive network includes:
• University of Miami Hospital
• Bascom Palmer Eye Institute
• Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center
• Three major affiliated institutions, Jackson Memorial Hospital, Holtz Children’s Hospital, and Miami VA Medical Center
• More than two dozen outpatient health care facilities
• 1,200 doctors
• 10,000 employees

What is UCare?
UCare–U Can Achieve Real Excellence
• UCare is our journey for creating a unified health system, focused on delivering high-quality patient care with an emphasis on customer service.
• UHealth has partnered with the Studer Group, an outcomes-based health care consulting firm devoted to teaching evidence-based tools and processes that help health care organizations create and sustain service and operational excellence.
• UCare focuses on accountability, measurement, and alignment, along with making ongoing investments in leadership and staff.
• A central tenet of UCare is to align organizational goals with those of leadership, ensuring that everyone is working together.

Why is UCare important?
UCare will provide us with tools and tactics to work toward our goal of world-class excellence. UCare highlights the critical role we each play in delivering high-quality patient care, with a focus on customer service.
What are the nine principles of UCare?
1. Commit to excellence.
2. Measure important marks of quality care.
3. Build a culture around service.
4. Create and develop great leaders.
5. Focus on employee satisfaction.
6. Build individual accountability.
7. Align behaviors with goals and values.
8. Communicate at all levels.
9. Recognize and reward success.

What are UCare’s five Pillars of Excellence?
Service: We will diligently care for the welfare of others, providing timely, compassionate care while remaining respectful of the privacy and emotional and physical needs of our patients and their families.

People: We will establish an environment that fosters the recruitment, development, and retention of the most highly qualified and culturally diverse team of professionals.

Quality: We will meet our patients’ needs through exceptional patient-centered clinical and service outcomes. Our focus will be on groundbreaking innovation, quality and quality improvement, safety, and effective health care.

Growth: We will nurture a spirit of collaboration and teamwork from which our patients will benefit, generously sharing our resources, medical expertise, and wisdom.

Finance: UHealth generates the resources required for our mission of patient care and academic medicine.

How can you learn more about UCare?
This can be accomplished through a variety of sources, including your supervisor and this newsletter. In the coming months, you’ll see articles and information materials tagged by the above symbols to help identify how they reflect UCare’s Pillars of Excellence.