Health care costs are astronomical. Many don’t get the care they need, or receive treatments that would be unnecessary if prevention were prioritized. And the economic model is wrong: doctors and hospitals often are paid not for helping patients get and stay healthy, but for intervening when longstanding health challenges become crises.
Redesigning Clinical Care
Dell Medical School is helping to change this, redesigning care in a way that’s centered on people and that rewards value.
The effort is led by faculty and other medical school experts from the Design Institute for Health and Value Institute for Health and Care, working alongside thought leaders in the community. The result is new models of care that patients are experiencing now in Austin and Travis County — and that people across the country and around the world will benefit from as new ways of doing things are tested and proven in Central Texas.
UT Health Austin
Dell Med’s approach to care is in practice at UT Health Austin, which includes over 40 primary care, walk-in and specialty clinics as well as adult and pediatric programs in partnership with Ascension Seton and Dell Children’s Medical Center of Central Texas.
Working directly with patients, UT Health Austin’s health care professionals create individualized care plans to help patients reach the goals that matter most to them — in the care room and beyond.
Community Settings
Dell Med faculty, joined by physicians in residency, also practice in community settings across Central Texas.
At Dell Seton Medical Center at The University of Texas, the primary teaching hospital affiliated with Dell Med, up-and-coming doctors complete their training, providing care to patients under the supervision of faculty. In addition, Dell Seton joins CommUnityCare Health Centers and Integral Care as a place where shared leadership brings a common focus to improvement. The chairs of Dell Med’s departments of Surgery and Perioperative Care, Women’s Health and Psychiatry are all heads of Ascension Seton’s service lines in their areas of specialization.
Dell Med faculty and residents also provide care at CommUnity Care and People’s Community Clinic, and Dell Med students join with volunteer physicians, medical students from the University of Texas Medical Branch, and UT Austin nursing and pre-health undergraduate students to staff the C.D. Doyle Clinic, which provides care for un- and underinsured patients, particularly those experiencing homelessness.