After a nationwide search, Paul J. Wesolowski, MBA, an achieved well being care chief, has been named the first-ever Vice Chancellor for Strategic Partnerships on the College of Tennessee Well being Science Middle. The brand new place displays UTHSC’s dedication to strengthening and increasing the medical, academic, and all strategic partnerships throughout the state which might be important to its mission to enhance the well being of all Tennesseans.
Wesolowski, who joins UTHSC on Might 1, has greater than 35 years of expertise in hospital and well being care management, administration, and administration. He served because the senior vice chairman and chief working officer for the Virginia Commonwealth College (VCU) Well being System in Richmond from 2017 to 2022, the place he was accountable for $1.7 billion in managed providers and eight,500 full-time staff. Previous to that, he was the vice chairman for skilled providers on the Medical Faculty of Virginia Hospitals of the VCU Well being System from 2012-2017. Along with overseeing operations at VCU Well being, a Degree 1 hospital with 26,000 surgical procedures and virtually 100,000 emergency visits yearly and a number of nationwide recognitions for high quality care, Wesolowski additionally performed a pivotal function in VCU Well being’s neighborhood help and outreach through the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I’m actually excited for the chance to return to Memphis and work on this nice neighborhood and in addition all throughout the state for UT Well being Science Middle,” Wesolowski stated. “I believe it’s a distinctive alternative to actually construct and enhance well being look after all Tennesseans. There’s enormous strategic potential in UT Well being Science Middle’s having partnerships with a number of hospitals, as a result of we are able to cowl a broader geographic area and supply our trainees so many glorious alternatives.”
As the biggest educator of well being care professionals throughout the state, with six schools – Dentistry, Graduate Well being Sciences, Well being Professions, Medication, Nursing, and Pharmacy – UTHSC’s school and greater than 1,400 residents and fellows workers main hospitals in Memphis and throughout Tennessee.
UTHSC’s major campus is in Memphis, the place it has longtime medical and academic partnerships with hospitals enabling a complete health-care ecosystem that features Regional One Well being, Le Bonheur Youngsters’s Hospital, Memphis Veteran’s Affairs Medical Middle, St. Jude Youngsters’s Analysis Hospital, Baptist Memorial Healthcare, Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare, and St. Francis Hospital, in addition to a number of specialty clinics, doctor observe teams, neighborhood, and public well being packages. Simply final week, UTHSC was honored by Collierville’s Chamber of Commerce for its highly effective regional influence, and UTHSC is advancing its neighborhood engagement and influence in Memphis and past – a strategic crucial that the brand new Vice Chancellor for Strategic Partnerships will lead.
The college additionally has campuses in Nashville, Knoxville, and Chattanooga, with medical and academic partnerships at main hospitals, together with Ascension Saint Thomas Hospital in Nashville, Erlanger Well being System in Chattanooga, the College of Tennessee Medical Middle in Knoxville, and West Tennessee Healthcare – Jackson Madison County Hospital in Jackson, in addition to greater than 880 clinical-educational coaching websites in communities throughout Tennessee, all supported by means of strategic partnerships. The Vice Chancellor for Strategic Partnerships will allow these important relationships to thrive and to broaden UTHSC’s influence in communities all throughout the good state of Tennessee.
“Partnerships are highly effective,” stated UTHSC Chancellor Peter Buckley, MD. “We exist in partnerships. Moreover, we are able to’t do what we do with out our companions, and what we do is important to Tennessee. As our first-ever Vice Chancellor for Strategic Partnerships, Paul will lead these partnerships in collaboration with our deans and different campus leaders, as we search to increase our influence on the well being of Tennesseans, from the most important cities to the agricultural areas of our state.”
The brand new vice chancellor place is the results of a world guide’s suggestion for supporting, unifying, and rising UTHSC’s companion relationships. The vice chancellor will work with hospitals, doctor teams, neighborhood well being, and well being system companions to construct and increase medical packages of excellence; develop neighborhood engagement and outreach providers; and help alliances that improve analysis alternatives. The vice chancellor will even be an engaged companion in civic and neighborhood actions, enabling new alternatives for UTHSC to collaborate and serve.
“Paul is a confirmed well being care chief with many years of expertise in constructing relationships important to bettering establishments and forging new affiliations. His excellent work at VCU and plenty of different well being care organizations throughout his profession bodes properly for the influence he may have at UTHSC. We’re thrilled he’s becoming a member of us in our noble and important mission.”
Chancellor Buckley
“Collaborations and partnerships are important for this establishment and its continued progress and for strengthening {our relationships} with civic and enterprise communities throughout Tennessee,” stated Phil Wenk, DDS, CEO of Delta Dental of Tennessee, and chair of the UTHSC Advisory Board. “The brand new vice chancellor for strategic partnerships is a place that can set UTHSC up for future success, and Paul is the precise particular person to tackle this new thrilling function.”
Wesolowski graduated from The Pennsylvania State College with a Bachelor of Science diploma in Resort, Restaurant, and Institutional Administration. He holds a Grasp’s in Enterprise Administration from Saint Francis College in Loretto, Pennsylvania.
He started his profession because the kitchen manufacturing supervisor at Youngsters’s Hospital of Philadelphia, a famend kids’s facility. The meals providers place launched him to hospital operations and repair administration and allowed him to develop expertise in each. “One of many hallmarks of my profession is I haven’t at all times been the skilled in what I’ve needed to do, and so I’ve strived to convey others collectively to harness expertise in addressing advanced questions,” he stated. “I see myself as a servant chief.”
Throughout his profession, Wesolowski has served as a frontrunner in a number of well being care establishments, together with as the company vice chairman of ambulatory operations and enterprise improvement for Well being Alliance Hospital in Leominster, Massachusetts, with roughly 1,600 staff and 150 acute-care beds. He additionally was vice chairman for operations on the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, yearly ranked the nation’s No. 1 rehabilitation hospital by U. S. Information & World Report since 1991. Additionally, whereas at VCU, he cast a extremely revolutionary new partnership with Sheltering Arms Rehabilitation – additionally involving Richmond’s Veteran’s Affairs Well being System – to allow a extra complete and multidisciplinary strategy to care that entails specialists in all of the well being sciences collaborating collectively.
“I’m actually captivated with public well being and well being care basically and pursuing excellence and I do assume we do that greatest collectively as a group. I’m going again to that group philosophy. In operations, it’s all in regards to the group. I believe, as we glance to enhance well being for all people, it’s a bunch effort.”
Paul Wesolowski
Reflecting the various stakeholders for this new function, the search committee had very broad illustration and was beautifully chaired by Wendy Likes, PhD, DNSc, dean of the Faculty of Nursing, and Nicholas Verne, MD, chair of the Division of Medication within the Faculty of Medication, with strategic enter from many interviewees throughout all campuses, companions, and communities. “Thanks to Wendy and Nick and to your complete search committee, and naturally, additionally to our many colleagues and associates, who got here collectively to assist us choose an excellent chief for this essential new place for our establishment and for Tennessee,” Chancellor Buckley stated.
