Achieving our Mission: One Step at a Time
Reflecting on our strategic growth and celebrating 150 years at UF Health Jacksonville.
As we enter 2020, it is an exciting time at UF Health. Not only are we receiving additional funding from the city of Jacksonville, expanding service offerings locally and collaborating with The Villages® regionally, and bringing on new department chairs for neurology and surgery, but we are also celebrating our 150th anniversary and much more. Our enterprise is expanding in a strategic, swift way and in an effort to truly see our mission become a reality: to heal, to comfort, to educate, to discover. Everything we do is focused on providing high-quality care to patients through innovation, education and research.
On a local level, we will have the opportunity to upgrade some of our infrastructure and continue to provide outstanding care thanks to additional funding from the mayor and City Council. The council approved an additional $8 million in funding that we should receive before the end of fiscal year 2020, which is June 30. As many of you recall, in 2018, the city council approved $120 million in capital funding over a six-year period. Part of that has already been allocated to help replace our electrical system and roof, among other things. $20 million was allocated to us in September, so we can begin the second phase of the project early this year.
From a faculty standpoint, longtime chair of neurology at the UF College of Medicine – Jacksonville, Dr. Alan Berger, recently stepped down and after a national search, our own professor of neurology, Dr. Ramon Bautista, was selected and began his new role on Jan. 1. In addition, after another national search, Dr. Leigh Neumayer, a professor of surgery at the University of Arizona, will be joining us as department chair of surgery on March 9.
You will learn more about other local expansion in this issue of Open Lines, including next steps for UF Health Wildlight, the opening of UF Health Family Medicine – Crystal Springs, expansion of urology services, a new UF Health Imaging Center – Baymeadows, changes for UF Health Psychiatry – Dupont Station and more.
UF Health Wildlight opened in December 2019, offering Wildlight residents and the surrounding community access to high-quality health care.
On a broader regional level, The Villages® and UF Health signed a letter of intent to develop a comprehensive health care campus that will offer a full portfolio of education, research and advanced health care and wellness services for The Villages® community, including construction of a new general acute care hospital. Additionally, UF Health and Central Florida Health have collaborated to expand access to medical services and to clinical studies for patients in Lake, Sumter and Marion counties. We evolved our relationship to include an acquisition by UF Health of Leesburg Regional Medical Center and The Villages® Regional Hospital. The facilities will become UF Health Leesburg Hospital and UF Health The Villages® Hospital.
Not only are we working toward achieving our mission, but we’re also striving to be “One UF,” where we are stronger together. I am incredibly proud of this enterprise for growing with confidence and doing it with the patient at the forefront of every step we take. Thank you to each of you for making it possible to push boundaries and provide outstanding care. Stay tuned throughout the year for more information about future growth opportunities and our 150th anniversary.
