This is Scott Becker with the Beckers Healthcare
Podcast.
I I've got the complete pleasure today to
speak to a remarkable leader.
We're talking today to Ellington Jones.
Ellington is the chief administrative
officer at UC San Diego Health. UC San
Diego Health, part of the UC system, a
magnificent system.
Ellington, can you take a moment and tell
us a little bit about yourself and and
about UC San Diego?
Absolutely.
First, you know, I have to start by
saying, you know, thank you, Scott. You know,
I've been listening since the early days when
you were just getting this thing off the
ground. And, man, what a,
what a remarkable,
podcast that you've built. And it gives folks
like me a platform to share their experiences
in this industry. Many of us, you know,
we don't really have the opportunity to network
as much as we'd like. So it gives
us a chance to hear about, you know,
what's transpiring out there. So thank you for
this, and congratulations.
Well, thank you. Thank you very, very much.
It's it's our goal is to amplify great
health system leaders and great health systems. So
thank you so much for joining us. Now,
like, to tell us about yourself and about
UC San Diego. Yeah. For sure. So, I'm
Ellington Jones. I currently serve as the chief
administrative officer for Surgical Specialties here at UC
San Diego Health.
We have three other,
exceptional CAOs in our system, and each of
us partner with our institutional leaders,
our department chairs over in the school of
medicine, and we oversee our ambulatory and service
line operations and strategy,
for all of our clinical enterprise.
So my portfolio is, soup with four o's.
We come up with these crazy acronyms so
they can remember everything.
Surgery, OBGYN,
ophthalmology, orthopedics, otolaryngology,
urology,
and I also work with our pediatric,
faculty.
We'll do about 12,000 annual admissions in our
services,
close to 400,000
outpatient visits,
19,000 surgeries annually, and we get to work
with, a 155
brilliant academic faculty,
here at UC San Diego Health.
Before,
joining UCSD, I had some great, great experiences,
in academic medicine at UChicago Medicine where I
was the executive director of Digestive Diseases there.
It's an exceptional
institution, which I'm sure you're,
aware of, in this, Greater Chicagoland area.
And then prior to that, I was at
Tenet Healthcare where I got to serve in
various roles
from fellow to an, a national role in
service line strategy. And it's also,
I learned a lot about health care, working
for Tenet. It's also a great organization as
well.
Just fantastic. And and take a moment, Ellington,
because you've had this great career, great institutions,
and and just continue to thrive and grow.
Before we talk about trends and where you're
most focused,
take a moment and give us what's your
best advice you give to emerging leaders? What
do you tell emerging leaders
trying to impactful careers?
Oh, man.
You know, it doesn't seem that long ago
I was this big eyed MHA student just
graduating, wondering, you know, what the moral of
health care was all about. And I could
tell you,
you don't really appreciate everything until you, you
know, you're several years in.
I guess I have four,
I four big ones that I always keep
in the back of mind. The first one
is just be positive. You know, have some
levity in your collaboration with others.
Positivity is the most strategic attribute, I think,
that you can possess in leadership.
No one wants to be around someone who,
you know, always has something negative or is
always pointing out problems with no solutions. Right?
People in this industry
are drawn
to help and support.
Right? And definitely more so if they feel
appreciated.
So positivity leads to growth. Collaboration leads to
stronger relationships.
I'd also say learn how to manage,
your stakeholders,
in health care. Right?
Particularly in academic medicine. You know, we've got
our physicians, nurses, other administrators,
researchers, community partners, they all have different goals.
They all speak different languages. And as you
move up in the organization,
the list of stakeholders
that you're tasked with, partnering with that becomes
longer. Right? And so you have to be
able to manage your time.
And trust me, you know, they'll they'll they'll
remind you,
when, they're not getting, what they need.
The other one I would probably say is
hone your emotional intelligence and executive presence. I
know those those are kinda buzzwordy,
but, you know, in health care, you're leading
brilliant,
passionate people
through
life and death decisions. You know, every single
day, you don't really realize it at first.
And your emotional intelligence isn't just, you know,
a soft skill. It's it's really your superpower
as as an administrator. And,
you know,
just the other day, you know, we had
a physician who pretty much worked a thirty
hour day, and it's kinda like just reading
that exhaustion, you know, maybe a surgery went
wrong, and now a research grant got cut.
And, you know, in in our ED, we've
seen a 32%
increase in ED volume,
over the last couple of years.
And when we round in the ED, we'll
see, you know, nurses dealing with the PAC
ED, then they've gotta turn around and deliver
a crucial update to an anxious family. So
giving them the space to express their feelings,
but managing your response to that in a
way that's productive.
Thank you very, very much. No. I I
love that advice quite frankly. And taking people
where they're at, reading the room,
trying to be supportive,
because things aren't always easy. And sometimes you
don't know what's going on in somebody's life
that they're working with and and trying to
just read that well and handle it well.
I love that. Talk a little bit about
there's so much,
information coming out and not coming out,
about what might happen to reimbursement,
about different challenges, access, and so forth. What
are you most focused on and excited about
currently Ellington? Where are you most focused and
excited?
Yeah, Scott. So there's a lot to be
excited about,
in health care,
nowadays. I I think we're probably in the
most,
game changing era in the industry and particularly
here at UC San Diego Health.
And, you know, it's all led by our
our really,
exceptional CEO, Patty Mason, and I'm just thrilled
to be a part of it.
I'd take a few things,
in in my sphere,
and it's
AI. You know, have a game plan
for AI. You know,
we're
looking at it strategically.
So for example,
note taking.
We implemented
a
pilot note taking program to boost physician wellness,
cut down on charting,
And it has proven to us already that,
you know, these technologies
should enhance
the human interaction and not replace it. Right?
There's been note taking
and dictation for years, but with AI, it's
really gonna help physicians spend more human minutes
with patients than computer minutes.
And from a systems viewpoint, you know, you
gotta really have leadership around that. So doctor,
Chris Longhurst, our chief clinical officer,
was the first to really embrace it, and
he brought on doctor Karandeep Singh,
who's our chief AI health AI officer who's
helping us lead it.
The next one is,
really our expansion,
because we're really
facing a a crunch.
And,
we're bringing on East Campus, which is a
newly acquired hospital on the East Part Of
San Diego.
It was a massive success folding that into
our operation. It's boosted our capacity, our community
outreach,
all while upholding our academic mission.
And then one of the thing that we're
probably really excited about is our Hillcrest redevelopment,
which is,
we've got a downtown campus,
on, in Hillcrest,
which is sort of our OG Medical Center,
but it's undergoing a $3,000,000,000,
redevelopment right now. And in July,
we're gonna be opening the McGrath Outpatient Pavilion,
on July 14, to be exact. And it's
a six floor, 250,000
square foot facility that's gonna really bring top
tier,
services all in one,
location
on the outpatient,
in the outpatient arena. Oncology, neurosurgery,
urology, digestive diseases,
and all of our surgical specialties like plastics,
vascular, ENT, and orthopedics
all in one spot.
It's really, gonna give us a little breathing
room and a chance to elevate the patient
experience.
Fantastic. How exciting is that?
And take one more moment, Ellington. If you
had to give a shout out to your
to your team, to the people you work
with, or about UC San Diego,
what would you tell us to inspire us
and give us positive thoughts about UC San
Diego and your team?
Yes, Scott. I mean,
one thing that I love about,
UC San Diego is that we have a
very collaborative culture here.
And I'm so proud of all of the
exceptional work that everyone's done,
to create that culture,
and drive,
value to the communities that we serve. One
of the things that I think,
we've been able to do
to help us
drive that is communicate with data, you know,
especially with,
you know, administrators, but also, you know, clinicians.
I I I would, you know, really shout
out to all of our clinicians and give
that advice to really everyone else. You know?
It's sort of like that,
I think it was, Edwards Deming who who
had a quote, you know, without data, you're
just another person with an opinion.
Or how about this one? You know, in
God we trust, but everyone else, you got
to bring data, right?
So,
you know, if you're
communicating,
you know, we desperately need more nurses in
the clinic. We can't handle
the patient load.
Let's figure out how we can incorporate data
into
claims and statements
in order to drive value. So for example,
last year, our nurses triaged 18 patients a
session. Our triage time was nine minutes. We
had a net promoter score of 90%. This
year, we're seeing 28 patients a session. Fifteen
minutes is our triage time. So we're less
efficient with a higher workload,
and our net promoter score is down to
82%. We need help.
These are the conversations
and the and the tactics that we use
to sort of prioritize
where we're gonna invest and how we're gonna
grow. And it's been really successful to see
that transformation,
at UCSD, and I'm very proud of the
teams.
And, I'm really excited about the future.
Thank you very, very much. I love that
and just need to keep on focusing on
not just your subjective thoughts, which are very,
very important, but also the data. So you're
really squaring them and centralizing them and making
sure they're correct.
Ellington, what a great leadership career. Thank you
for joining us today on the Packers Healthcare
podcast. Thank you so much. Thank you, Scott.
It was a pleasure to be on.