Caring Wisely FY 2025 Project Contest

UCSF Health and the UCSF Center for Healthcare Value (CHV) sponsors awards of up to $50,000 for one year to faculty and staff for collaborative projects that can be implemented to reduce waste and lower health care costs while maintaining or improving health at UCSF Health, which consists of UCSF Medical Center, Benioff Children’s Hospital San Francisco, Benioff Children’s Hospital Oakland, and the UCSF faculty practice group and ambulatory clinics.

 

 

We invite the submission of any proposal that improves healthcare value at UCSF Health. UCSF Health is also particularly interested in proposals that address value improvement opportunities in one of the below areas. All submissions must have a plan to evaluate and improve health equity:

  • Improve Hospital Throughput and Reduce Excess Inpatient Bed Days
  • Improve Outpatient, Inpatient, or Perioperative Clinical Access
  • Reduce Hospital Acquired Conditions and Infections
  • Reduce Unnecessary Testing

Read important information about this forum

  • Jan 22 - Mar 1 - Project Contest 1st Round

    Proposal Submission Deadline

    Proposal submissions due by 5pm | Fri., March 1, 2024

    • Projects with a projected direct cost savings of greater than $250,000 are more likely to be selected (click on the "Read important information about this forum" link on the home page to see more criteria for winning).
    • The Center for Healthcare Value will offer “Office Hours” to answer questions and provide guidance on cost analysis. To schedule a 25 minute Zoom meeting, please email Brian.Holt@ucsf.edu.

    During this time, project teams should:

    • Build your core team and extended stakeholders interested in this problem.
    • Browse proposals and comment to improve others' proposal.
    • Review comments and provide additional information if necessary.
  • Mar 11 - 2nd Round Finalists Announced
    • 2nd Round Finalists announced on March 11th, 2024
    • Proposal submissions are reviewed.
    • Selected finalists will be invited to proceed to the Optimization Phase.
  • Mar 11 - Mar 29: 2nd Round Finalists Optimization Phase

    Final updates to 2nd round proposals must be complete before 5pm | Fri., March 29th, 2024

    During this time, project teams should:

    • Optimize your proposal
      • Stay on top of OpenProposal comments, answer questions, and ask new ones!
    • Continue to build your core team and extended stakeholders interested in this problem
    • Obtain sign-off from the Executive Sponsor(s)
  • Apr 15 - Apr 29: Executive Committee Review of 2nd Round Submissions
    • Finalist proposals are reviewed.
  • May 6: FY25 Caring WiselyTM $50K Project Awards Announced

    Winners will be announced on Mon., May 6, 2024

Open Submission

Proposals (32 total)

Displaying 1 - 10

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Establishing a Lab Stewardship Program to Reduce Lab Overutilization

Submitted by Anoop Muniyappa on March 1, 2024 - 4:28pm Last revised by Catherine Lau on July 25, 2024 - 11:26am.
Proposal Status: 
Awarded

PROPOSAL TITLE: Establishing a Lab Stewardship Program to Reduce Lab Overutilization

PROJECT LEAD(S): Parul Bhargava, MD, Anoop Muniyappa, MD, MS, Teddy Peng, MD

EXECUTIVE SPONSOR(S): Amy Lu, MD, MPH, Andrew Auerbach­­­, MD

ABSTRACT 

Expedited Post-Discharge Enrollment into Care at Home: Reducing Length of Stay and Preventable Readmissions for Medically Complex Homebound Older Adults

Submitted by Robert Zimbroff on March 1, 2024 - 12:21pm Last revised by Catherine Lau on July 25, 2024 - 11:26am.
Proposal Status: 
Awarded

PROJECT LEADS

  • Robbie Zimbroff, MD - Assistant Professor, Division of Geriatrics; Assistant Medical Director, Care at Home (Outpatient Lead)
  • Todd James, MD - Professor, Division of Geriatrics; Co-Lead, Age-Friendly Emergency Department (Inpatient Lead)
  • Melody Luo, MPH - Age-Friendly Health Systems QI Specialist (Admin and QI lead)

EXECUTIVE SPONSORS

  • Cynthia Barginere, DNP, RN, FACHE - President of Adult Services, UCSF Health; Senior Vice

Reducing Unnecessary Respiratory Virus Testing in the Pediatric Emergency Department

Submitted by Daniel Shapiro on March 1, 2024 - 9:33am Last revised by Catherine Lau on July 25, 2024 - 11:26am.
Proposal Status: 
Awarded

PROPOSAL TITLE: Reducing Unnecessary Respiratory Virus Testing in the Pediatric Emergency Department

PROJECT LEADS: 

  • Emily Roben, MD, MS, Director for Quality and Safety, UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital Emergency Department, Oakland
  • Israel Green-Hopkins, MD, Director for Quality and Safety, UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital Emergency Department, San Francisco

EXECUTIVE SPONSORS:

Physician-ordered Genetic Testing for Cancer Patients: Improving Access and Equity through Mainstreaming

Submitted by Kelly Gordon on March 1, 2024 - 3:41pm Last revised by Kelly Gordon on March 29, 2024 - 1:42pm.
Proposal Status: 
Selected for 2nd Round

PROPOSAL TITLE:  Physician-ordered Genetic Testing for Cancer Patients:  Improving Access and Equity through Mainstreaming

PROJECT LEAD(S):  Bethan Powell, MD; Amie Blanco, MS, CGC; Kelly Gordon, MS, MLIS

EXECUTIVE SPONSOR(S):   Laurel Bray-Hanin, VP, COO, UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center

Advancing Personalized Cancer Patient Education in the Digital Age

Submitted by Shu Yi Chen on March 1, 2024 - 2:23pm Last revised by Shu Yi Chen on March 27, 2024 - 11:50am.
Proposal Status: 
Selected for 2nd Round

PROJECT LEAD(S): Jaqueline Simpsons RN MSN

                                  Mackenzie Clark PharmD co-lead

                                  Sherry Chen Rph  co-lead

EXECUTIVE SPONSOR(S): Dr.Karen Chee MD Medical Director of Hematology San Mateo

ABSTRACT 

Expanding the Accelerated Discharge Program: An Interprofessional Effort to Use Early Identification and Coordination of Next Day Discharges to Improve Rate of On-Time Discharges and Reduce Length of Stay

Submitted by David Arboleda on February 28, 2025 - 3:22pm
Proposal Status: 
Open

The Accelerated Discharge Program team systemically collected data on common discharge barriers, developed expertise in addressing common discharge issues and discharge efficiencies, improved identification of patients likely to discharge and assisted with discharge tasks. Length of stay improved to 7.4 days in the intervention group. Through the Caring Wisely program, our interprofessional team seeks to develop a platform to communicate discharge barriers with other disciplines at the unit and the health system level through more Informatics and Apex build support. We ultimately aim to further increase the number of on-time discharges, improve estimated day of discharge (“EDD”) accuracy, reduce LOS, and support UCSF’s global capacity optimization efforts.

Reducing Hospital-Acquired Infections Through Creation of HAI Diagnostic Excellence at UCSF

Submitted by Amy Larsen on February 28, 2025 - 3:11pm
Proposal Status: 
Open

PROPOSAL TITLE: Reducing Hospital-Acquired Infections Through Creation of HAI Diagnostic Excellence at UCSF

PROJECT LEAD(S): Cass Sandoval, Adult Critical Care CNS; Amy Larsen, Adult Critical Care CNS; Lindsay Bolt, Adult Medical CNS

EXECUTIVE SPONSOR(S): 

Reducing Inpatient Admissions for Vasa Previa

Submitted by Chiara Corbetta-Rastelli on February 28, 2025 - 3:05pm
Proposal Status: 
Open

PROJECT LEAD(S):

-Chiara Corbetta-Rastelli, MD

-Kate Swanson, MD

EXECUTIVE SPONSOR(S):

-Juan Gonzalez, MD, MS, PhD, Division Chief, UCSF Maternal Fetal Medicine

-Melissa Rosenstein, MD, Medical Director for Quality and Patient Safety for UCSF OB

ABSTRACT:

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