Behind the Scenes at the UVA Health Leadership Institute, Part 2: Leveraging Tech Advances to Achieve Strategic Priorities

This post is part 2 of a series on the UVA Health Leadership Institute (HLI). ?

Virtual care, AI and machine learning, apps, wearables, and other technology are quickly advancing the healthcare industry. But they’re also disrupting it.

Sara Fowler , chief of staff at University Medical Center, and her team started their UVA Health Leadership Institute (HLI) capstone project presentation with this simple fact. How, they asked, can our organization leverage innovation to achieve strategic priorities? Where and how are we most vulnerable to traditional and non-traditional disruptors?

The Project: Leveraging Digital Innovations

Fowler and her team took on the name “Digital Dreamweavers.” With support from sponsors representing different areas of UVA Health, “we surveyed numerous external and internal stakeholders and vendors to explore how UVA Health can become a leader in innovation and digital enablement,” Fowler says.

As part of their research, the team:

• Interviewed vendors, UVA Health stakeholders, and 6 other medical centers
• Reviewed current project intake processes at UVA Health
• Conducted a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis

They defined three approaches to technology implementation:

• Takers quickly implement off-the-shelf products with minimal customizing.
• Shapers work more with vendors to integrate their organization’s capabilities. This allows for more customizing.
• Makers rely on in-house innovation to create fully customizable and flexible products that may generate revenue.

“With these research learnings as our foundation, we produced a final presentation and proposal that we are truly inspired by,” Fowler says. “Our multidisciplinary team's unique insights and perspectives have not only enriched our collaboration but also contributed to the success of our project.”?

The team feels UVA Health could rely on its great internal talent and strong vendor relationships to become a maker-shaper. They identified multiple ways to further leverage technology in patient care and across UVA Health, including virtual reality for education, patient engagement, telemedicine, and emergency management predictions.

“A recurring theme was organizations' establishment of innovation centers to iteratively develop new strategies through various partnerships,” Fowler says.

HLI Reflections

The project was just one part of the Digital Dreamweaver team’s HLI experience. They were part of a group of 32 UVA Health team members who met eight times over eight months. Experts across UVA led sessions on various leadership topics, including change leadership, the business of academic healthcare, and strategic planning.?

“One particularly impactful lesson was about how organizational structure influences employee retention, satisfaction, and business outcomes,” Fowler says. “I am constantly applying this knowledge, considering how the organizational structure we create can impact our projects and opportunities, and ultimately, our success.”