Associate Dean for Health Care Excellence & Organizational Enrichment
Health Care Excellence and Organizational Enrichment’s Mission is to cultivate a culture of excellence and a safe environment, where all individuals, experiences and differences are welcomed, valued and respected.
Health care is undergoing major changes, which require transformation and a growth mind set to face the many challenges impacting heath and health care delivery. Among these challenges is the recognition and the urgent need to address health care disparities, which is paramount to achieving health care excellence. Innovative health care solutions are required, with a focus on social determinants of health known currently as social drivers of health, and are at the core of the strategies to provide culturally responsive care that recognizes and respects various populations’ unique needs and perspectives. Sensitivity to cultural differences helps to better understand our patients, which builds trust, an essential component for initiatives striving to reduce health care gaps.
In addition, to achieve health care excellence our teams need to be forces for positive change in the lives of our patients by listening carefully, thinking critically and being compassionate. We also need to create a safe learning environment, where students, residents and fellows are not only provided the latest medical and research information but also witnessing role models and adopting our thirst for excellence. It is also critical to acknowledge health care team burnout and moral injuries associated with this work and to provide resources and opportunities for connection and growth.
Organizational enrichment emerges as a promising strategy to effectively foster health care team engagement within organizations. The goal is to create a healthy work environment and employee work-life integration that intrinsically motivates employees to be their best. Organizational enrichment is about creating a work culture based on psychological safety at work where leaders encourage a growth mindset and employees strive to take on more responsibility.
Madeline Joseph, MD, associate dean for health care excellence and organizational enrichment, is working with clinical department leadership and deans at the University of Florida College of Medicine – Jacksonville to provide a professional, respectful, and positive environment that is psychologically safe and free from discrimination, harassment, mistreatment, abuse or coercion of students, residents, faculty, and staff. In her role, Dr. Joseph is collaborating with other senior leaders to develop strategies and goals to decrease health disparities in health care delivery and outcomes. She will also support academic leaders to engage in practices that focus on ongoing, mission-driven, systematic recruitment and retention of a comprehensive workforce of residents/fellows, faculty members, senior administrative staff members, and other relevant members of its graduate medical education community. Dr. Joseph is working with leaders from the Office of Educational Affairs to provide educational resources to support program directors in ensuring resident competency in cultural humility and in demonstrating respect and responsiveness to various patient populations and to support responsiveness to the larger context and system of health care, including the social determinants of health, as well as the ability to effectively utilize other community resources to provide excellent health care.
The ultimate goal of our UF College of Medicine – Jacksonville is to create an environment that recognizes and values health care excellence and creates strategies that address the unique needs of our patient population and the communities that we serve.