Medical School Hotline

In addition to its academic and research missions, medical schools also have a mission to provide highly skilled clinical care services. These clinical services are usually organized in one or more faculty practice plans. Hawai‘i is particularly challenged by circumstances that have resulted in an overall physician shortage with more serious shortages in certain specialties, and with problems related to geographical difficulties in access to care. As a state school, the John A. Burns School of Medicine (JABSOM) shares in the land grant responsibilities of the University to provide community service. To help fulfill this mission, JABSOM looks to its clinical departments and to faculty practice plans to attract, retain, and support new physicians and to develop needed clinical services. For JABSOM, those faculty practice plans now include UCERA, staffed by members of all clinical departments except Pediatrics, and Kapiolani Medical Specialists staffed by members of the Department of Pediatrics.

While JABSOM was a relatively new school, of necessity it first needed to focus on its teaching and later its research missions. With increasing maturity, the school is now expanding its clinical service mission, especially in areas of the state's greatest needs.

UCERA is a non-profit 501(c) 3 organization affiliated with the University of Hawai‘i. It is aligned with the mission of the John A. Burns School of Medicine and UCERA's clinical departments mirror those of the medical school. In keeping with the School's vision of Attaining Lasting Optimal Health for All (ALOHA), and its mission to be part of the fabric of Hawai‘i, the School is committed to excellence and leadership in: educating current and future healthcare professionals and leaders; delivering high-quality healthcare; conducting research and translating discoveries into practice; establishing community partnerships and fostering multidisciplinary collaboration; pursuing alliances unique to Hawai‘i and the Asia-Pacific region; acting with forethought regarding right relationships, respect, and moral action, i.e. “pono.”

UCERA's principal purpose is to provide the vehicle by which the School fulfills or supports its mission of education and clinical service. UCERA administers the clinical practice of participating faculty members and aims to provide funding to build and sustain the infrastructure of the School and its departments. In its role as a faculty practice plan, UCERA contracts with insurance companies and is authorized to bill, collect and disburse patient care and other revenues earned by participating faculty members and to enter into contracts for the generation and collection of such revenues.

The principal activities of UCERA include:

1. Managing the clinical practice of the faculty, including, without limitation, billing, collection, and other financial aspects of clinical practice;

2. Entering into contractual arrangements, which may include affiliations or joint ventures, with hospitals, managed care organizations, networks of health care providers, government agencies or other healthcare organizations or entities;

3. Securing, in cooperation with JABSOM, appropriate sites for faculty to provide patient care;

4. Establishing, managing and operating one or more networks of academic healthcare providers;

5. Providing high-quality clinical teaching and clinical research environments for the JABSOM faculty.

Of particular importance to the Hawai‘i Medical Journal (HMJ), UCERA became the parent corporation of the HMJ when the journal's founder and long-time sustainer, the Hawai‘i Medical Association, decided it could no longer do so. HMJ helps to fulfill the School's mission to educate current and future healthcare professionals, to improve healthcare, to foster research and to highlight new research findings, especially as they relate to issues of importance to Hawai‘i and the Asia-Pacific region. Over the years, many faculty members have worked alongside community physicians for HMJ, providing members to the editorial board, serving as reviewers, and writing for publication. In fact, the Journal's editor at the time of the transition to UCERA is now the Interim Chair of the School's Department of Native Hawaiian Health.

UCERA is governed by a voluntary Board of Directors. JABSOM's Dean Jerris Hedges is the Chairperson of the Board of Directors, and board membership includes both the clinical department chairs and a number of community members. Current board members include: Dr. Elizabeth Tam, Vice-Chair who is also Chair of the Department of Internal Medicine; Dr. Danny Takanishi, Treasurer and Chair of the Department of Surgery; Judge James A. Burns, Secretary and Community Member; Sandra Tsuruda, Assistant Secretary (non-voting); Dr. Kheng See Ang, Community Member; Kathryn Inkinen, Community Member; Mr. John Holzman, designee of the UH Board of Regents; Dr. Kalani Brady, Interim Chair of the Department of Native Hawaiian Health; Dr. Roseanne Harrigan, Chair of the Department of Complementary and Alternative Medicine; Dr. Jeffrey Killeen, Acting Chair of the Department of Pathology; Dr. Earl Hishinuma, Department of Psychiatry; Dr. Satoru Izutsu, JABSOM Vice-Dean; Dr. Kamal Masaki, Acting Chair of the Department of Geriatric Medicine; Dr. Neal Palafox, Chair of the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health; Dr. Raul Rudoy, Chair of the Department of Pediatrics; and, Dr. Lynnae Sauvage, Chair of the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Women's Health. Dr. Roy Magnusson, UCERA's Chief Medical Officer and JABSOM Associate Dean for Clinical Affairs, and Dr. Patricia Blanchette, UCERA's Chief Operating Officer, serve in an ex-officio capacity to the UCERA board.

UCERA currently has over one hundred and twenty physician providers and an equal number of support staff members whose central services include Medical Billing, Revenue Cycle Management, Contracting, Compliance, Finance, Human Resources, Inhouse Counsel, Compensation Management, and Information Technology and Security. In addition to the central office staff, UCERA staff members also work in many clinical departments providing clinic staffing and department clinical administrative support.

UCERA has had many success stories over the past few years, including the following examples:

• The Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Women's Health is providing a great deal of clinical service and faculty support to stem the serious decline of specialists and subspecialists in this field in Hawai‘i. The department operates many clinics, provides services in underserved areas, and also provides shortage specialty services in hospitals and clinics, including emergency coverage.

• Supporting the efforts of the Department of Family Medicine and Community Services and Hilo Medical Center, the UCERA central staff provided the organizing logistical work and financial management for the establishment of the new Hawai‘i Island Family Health Center in Hilo to serve as the base of a planned new rural Family Medicine residency program in Hilo.

• UCERA worked with its Department of Surgery to contract with the Queen's Medical Center to recruit and retain new trauma surgeons and to provide 24/7 coverage for these services to the state's major trauma center.

• UCERA supports the work of the Department of Psychiatry in its provision of most of the psychiatric professional services at the Queen's Medical Center.

• UCERA provides the central billing service for the Department of Geriatric Medicine's Teaching Nursing Home Program (TNH) whereby faculty geriatricians and geriatric medicine fellows provide service in over twenty nursing homes. This is greatly needed care in a critical shortage field.

• The Department of Native Hawaiian Health provides culturally competent clinical services on O‘ahu and at Kalaupapa on Moloka‘i.

These are only some examples of how UCERA serves to assist the School in its community service efforts. All of the examples cited underscore how the focus of UCERA's efforts with the School have been targeted on areas of serious community need, and where the shortages have been the most acute, and where clinical services have been needed both to provide patient care and to serve as a base for the school's clinical teaching activities.

It is said that the best medical care is that provided when a medical student or resident is looking over your shoulder to learn. If this is true, JABSOM's clinical faculty and its faculty practices certainly provide some of the best medical care in Hawai‘i.