by
Sean Ruck, Contributing Editor | June 28, 2019
From the June 2019 issue of HealthCare Business News magazine
HCB News: What do you feel you’re best known for now, and is that what you hope to be best known for in the future?
JW: We’re on a very good path for what we want to be known for. That’s the quality of care we provide and the service you receive while getting that high quality of care. Particularly, since we opened our new hospital in 2014, we’ve been on a good journey where we’re certainly top quartile and more recently top decile in most rankings and benchmarking databases around mortality, overall quality of care and safety. In patient experience, we’ve been firmly in the top 5 percent in the country. We’re very proud of those recognitions.
HCB News: Can you talk about your patient makeup?
JW: UT Southwestern provides care in a couple of scenarios. We have our own hospitals and clinics. Our large medical group also staffs the safety net hospital, Parkland Hospital in Dallas, as well as Children’s Health right across the street. So our physicians provide the overwhelming majority — more than 95 percent — of care in those facilities as well as our own facilities. We have a footprint across the whole broad spectrum of the population of Northern Texas, meaning we care for a significant portion of managed care, but also through our work at those institutions, we care for a significant number of Medicare and Medicaid patients as well.
Clements University Hospital includes a Level III
Neonatal Intensive Care Unit
HCB News: An ongoing news focus is on extreme weather events. Are there any concerns, planning or training around that topic at UT Southwestern?
JW: Absolutely. Fortunately, we have not been impacted by extreme weather, but we’re sensitive to it because Texas often has its share of tornadoes and severe storms. So we do regularly train for that. We have regular drills, we prepare for lots of natural disasters knowing we’re a quaternary medical center. So not only do we have to be prepared to care for ourselves and our staff in the event of severe weather, but we’d also play a significant role in the care of the city and the surrounding area. We spend a lot of time training on that, it’s an active part of our work. We’re also a city with a large airport, so there are illnesses that come to us that we prepare for.
HCB News: Nursing and some specialties have proven hard positions to fill for some hospitals. Are you encountering any shortages when it comes to hiring?
