Happy New Year! Welcome to January 2024. The start of a new year is always a good time to talk about new beginnings. I tend to stay away from the word “resolution” because it almost always leads to setting unrealistic goals that won’t be met. Instead, I want to focus on kindness – on being kinder to yourself and to others, and thus becoming the best version of yourself. Those are both realistic and attainable goals.

In Elizabeth Saunders' article, "To Reach Your Goals, Embrace Self-Compassion," she discusses how using a self-compassion approach to goal setting can help us achieve our goals. Instead of using words with negative connotations like "dieting" or "eliminating," focus on action-oriented words that inspire you. Celebrate your successes and develop tools to catch yourself if you slip back into old habits.

Another action word is “connect.” One way to improve your connection with others is to foster positive relationships by providing specific and genuine feedback to others every day. When things go well for you, study how and why it happened. Use what motivates you and pay it forward by providing praise to others. As we kick-start 2024, take a moment to reflect on how you show up for yourself and others, and remember to treat others how you want to be treated (the “golden rule”). Let's commit to being kinder to ourselves and fostering positive relationships with those around us. 

I believe those are worthy goals, especially at the start of a new year.

I also want to take this opportunity to welcome Dr. Naveen Raja, our new Chief Medical Officer. Dr. Raja comes to us with a wealth of experience, including over 15 years of successful medical management. He has been instrumental in both the development and management of enterprise programs for clinical care delivery, care transformation, value-based care, population health, and more. In fact, his experience in practice standardization and integrating academics into clinical settings will be hugely important to our School of Medicine as we continue to develop and build the physicians of the future. 

Dr. Raja was most recently the medical director of population health and accountable care with UCLA Health. Prior to that, he was the chief medical information officer for City of Hope, and a founder and medical director for Agilence Medical Center. 

I know you’ll join me in welcoming Dr. Raja into our family. 

As we’re already six months into the fiscal year, I also thought this would be a good time to highlight some of our significant accomplishments. Here are a just few of the improvements made:

• 35.3% reduction in patient appointments being “bumped” by provider
• 5.75-minute reduction in rooming time since the redesign in September 2023
• 20% reduction for credentialing timeline (from application submission to approval)
• 96.52% reduction in provider management of old in-basket tasks
• Exceeding target condition for referral authorization*, fiscal year-to-date, of 5.30
• 100% of care gaps addressed during patient visits since October 2023
• Exceeding target condition for referral authorization with fiscal year-to-date average of 5.30 days

*The target goal is processing within 7 days.

As always, I thank you all for your dedication, good humor, and ongoing commitment to providing better access to medicine and care for our surrounding community. When I say we couldn’t do it without you, I couldn’t be stating a more important fact. 

Happy New Year!