UTSW Medical Group, Pediatric Group, bolster identity of group practice
In response to growth in both number of patients and geographic reach, UT Southwestern is dividing its Medical Service, Research and Development Plan (MSRDP) into two new entities: the UT Southwestern Medical Group and the UT Southwestern Pediatric Group. Together, these two groups are composed of approximately 2,300 employees, including 1,870 clinical faculty, more than 400 Advanced Practice Providers.
The new name will be showing up on the lab coats, business cards, and stationery of physicians and other health professionals who are part of UT Southwestern’s clinical faculty group.
The change will help forge the identity of UT Southwestern’s group practice, said Dr. Mack Mitchell, Interim Executive Vice President for Health System Affairs, Vice President for Medical Affairs, and Professor of Internal Medicine.
“Our physicians and other health care professionals within the Medical and Pediatric Group are practicing not only at William P. Clements Jr. and Zale Lipshy University Hospitals but also at Parkland Hospital, at Children’s Health, and increasingly in other sites across North Texas – Park Cities, Richardson, Fort Worth, Las Colinas, and at Texas Health Presbyterian,” Dr. Mitchell said.
“We’re the largest comprehensive, multispecialty, integrated group practice in North Texas,” he added. “There aren’t other groups that are financially and clinically integrated, representing physicians with all the specialties we have. We are unique.”
The new group identities address common questions about referrals, such as: Will the new physician be able to get your records? Does the doctor know what treatment steps have already been taken? Will that provider be able to fill in the gaps as they occur?
“All can flow more seamlessly when clinicians are part of a group that has one integrated record system, one shared set of values, one shared set of objectives, and the patient is placed in the center of this medical group,” Dr. Mitchell said.
“Whenever I leave my office to practice at Parkland – I’m practicing medicine as a member of the UT Southwestern Medical Group,” Dr. Mitchell said. “If one of our pediatricians goes to Children’s Medical Center Dallas, he or she is not a ‘Children’s physician,’ but is a member of the UT Southwestern Pediatric Group as well as a member of the Children’s medical staff with clinical privileges to practice at that facility.”
The new Medical Group identities – and accompanying logos – are meant to make that all more evident to patients.
“By establishing these branded identities, we are able to contribute more to the overall UT Southwestern practice, of which we are a part,” said Dr. Julio Pérez-Fontán, Chair of Pediatrics. “And at the same time, we can do a better job in providing those services both within and outside of Children’s.”
Because the Pediatric Group has a very distinct mission, it needs a distinct identity, added Dr. Ron Mitchell, Professor and Vice Chair of the Department of Otolaryngology – Head and Neck Surgery at UT Southwestern, and Chief of Pediatric Otolaryngology.
“We are academic pediatric providers who work at various locations,” he said, “but we still bring to each location UT Southwestern’s mission, which is to provide outstanding clinical care in an environment where we promote education and research.”
Dr. Mack Mitchell said the groups hold all the providers accountable for the care they collectively provide. “We’re a learning organization; we want to measure what we do, and make what we do better,” he said. “And we want to not only improve the outcomes of care that we provide, but also we want to do that at a lower cost in the future so that we are providing value-based care.”
Dr. Mack Mitchell holds the Nancy S. and Jeremy L. Halreich Professorship in Gastroenterology.
Dr. Ron Mitchell holds the William Beckner, M.D., Distinguished Chair in Otolaryngology.
Dr. Perez-Fontan holds the Robert L. Moore Chair in Pediatrics.
