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New UCSD Med Center CEO to Lead Ambitious Agenda

Amid the challenges facing the health care community, and with an eye on continued growth and institutional reputation building, a veteran UC San Diego administrator has stepped into the role of CEO of the UCSD Medical Center.

In the face of this ambitious agenda, Thomas Jackiewicz says he sees “tremendous opportunities” in the mix.

In his role as CEO, Jackiewicz will oversee the university’s 548-bed academic medical center, which includes a 440-bed hospital in Hillcrest and a 108-bed La Jolla hospital, Moores Cancer Center, Shiley Eye Center and the Sulpizio Family Cardiovascular Center, scheduled for completion in the spring of 2011.

Under his management are roughly 5,300 university employees, including about 700 doctors.

“I look at my role as continuing what we’ve already started,” said Jackiewicz, who started as CEO on Nov. 23. “We have a great plan going, a great direction.”

Jackiewicz, who has spent the last eight years at UCSD, replaces Richard Liekweg, who left the post after six years in August for a job as president of Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis.

Jackiewicz most recently served as vice chancellor and chief financial officer of UC San Diego Health Sciences, where he played a key role in developing a 2007 strategic plan that calls for expanding Thornton Hospital in La Jolla to include 200 additional beds. The proposal, he says, could go before the UC Regents in March.

No Learning Curve

“He knows the place very well, which, I think, is a big advantage because there won’t be a learning curve,” said Dr. David Brenner, vice chancellor of the university’s Health Sciences department.

Other expansion plans include the construction of a 99,000-square-foot telemedicine building near the university’s School of Medicine that will serve as the training grounds for students and accomplished surgeons interested in learning about robotic surgery and caring for rural patients remotely. Roughly half the building’s $65 million price tag will be paid for through Proposition 1D, a bond measure approved by voters in 2006 to enhance medical education efforts. The remainder, Jackiewicz says, will come from a combination of debt and philanthropy.

An earlier, ill-fated plan to shut down the patient tower at Hillcrest and relocate those beds to La Jolla isn’t on the agenda, according to Jackiewicz. Critics of the plan argued that the move would jeopardize safety net care in exchange for treating a more affluent patient population.

“We’ve been a strong provider of safety net care in the community for quite a while and we’ll continue to do that,” Jackiewicz said.

Restructuring, Rebuilding, Retrofitting

In fiscal 2009, UCSD Medical Center provided $30.94 million in unreimbursed care, according to the Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development.

The university has invested $80 million into seismic upgrades and will continue to invest roughly $10 million a year to keep its facility up-to-date, Jackiewicz says.

Plans do, however, call for fewer beds in Hillcrest, according to Brenner. Hillcrest, he says, will lose roughly 140 beds under a plan to transform the hospital into all-private rooms following the Thornton expansion.

“We’re committed to having a vibrant, exciting hospital in Hillcrest, and, at the same time, we have to identify areas of strength in both campuses and minimize the amount of overlap,” he said. “It’s just very difficult to maintain two general medicine, general surgery facilities.”

Most of the Hillcrest hospital’s cardiologists will move to the $227 million cardiovascular center when it opens in 2011, which Jackiewicz says will be funded through a combination of debt, revenues and philanthropy.

Hillcrest will maintain its level one trauma center and burn center, and will continue to offer general medicine and general surgery services, Brenner says. It will also take on more psychiatric services.

“Hillcrest will be nicer, more vibrant and patient friendly,” Brenner said.

Leveraging Strengths

On a national level, Jackiewicz sees even more room for improvement.

The university’s academic medical center is ranked 12th in the nation in terms of National Institutes of Health funding, and Jackiewicz says its reputation can only get stronger.

“We’ve been a research powerhouse for years,” he said. “We’re going to leverage our strength in research and really bring innovative therapies to the clinical side faster than other places.”

DeAnn Marshall, who leads the center’s marketing efforts, says the university aims to compete against highly established names such as the Mayo Clinic and Johns Hopkins University through advanced health care service offerings combined with a communications plan that will include an enhanced online presence and traditional media advertising.

“Those are very well established brands,” she said. “What we’d want is that when we say UCSD is that there’s a similar brand and name recognition.”

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