UCI Health CEO discusses past, present and future
Academic health system celebrates 50 years of care, education, research
IN THE NEWS: As UCI Health celebrates 50 years, President and CEO Chad T. Lefteris recently sat down with Becker’s Hospital Review to talk about the academic health system’s origins, impact and its future.
Lefteris reflected on the mission of UCI Health — Discover. Teach. Heal. — and how it enables the system to determine its priorities and perform its critical role in the region.
“Life would maybe be a little easier if we had only one or two of those missions, but this region requires that of us. There’s no county hospital in Orange County; that went away in 1976, and so we sit on this very interesting intersection of being the safety-net provider, providing the most complex care to all, training the next generation and providing the most cutting-edge research.”
Lefteris also spoke about the academic health system being a “forever organization” that takes the long view on workforce and strategy to care for a changing patient demographic. Training the next generation of clinicians is key.
“We love to keep our amazing trainees within our UCI Health family, but we can’t keep everyone. When they go and populate the communities in which we serve together, that’s also a win for those communities.”
About UCI Health
UCI Health is one of California’s largest academic health systems and the clinical enterprise of the University of California, Irvine. Established on July 1, 1976, UCI Health has grown into a 1,461-bed health system that includes UCI Health — Orange, UCI Health — Irvine, four Community Network hospitals and a growing network of ambulatory care centers across Orange and Los Angeles counties. As Orange County’s only academic health systems, UCI Health is home to the only National Cancer Institute-designated comprehensive cancer center based in the county, the region’s only American College of Surgeons-verified Level I adult and Level II pediatric trauma center, American College of Emergency Physicians Gold Level 1 Geriatric Emergency Department and a nationally recognized regional burn center verified by the American Burn Association. Powered by UC Irvine, UCI Health serves 5.6 million people across Orange County, western Riverside County and southeast Los Angeles County through excellence in patient care, research and medical education. Follow UCI Health on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and X.