Our practices continue to grow. During the third quarter of fiscal year 2018, there were 169,010 patient visits, compared with 163,141 during the same period for fiscal year 2017. That represents a 4 percent increase. We can attribute this to an increase in the number of faculty and mid-level providers, as well as improved access to care.

We are pleased to report the UF Health North medical office building is fully occupied. With a tentative November 2019 opening of the Wildlight practice — off I-95 and A1A in neighboring Nassau County— the north campus hospital will be fully supported by our practices.

A new primary care and pediatric practice will open in Nocatee in October 2018. Meanwhile, we are still looking at different ways to optimize our primary and specialty care presence at the Emerson location. A task force is looking at all options.

We are laser-focused in three areas, with several committees actively working to address them:

• Improved access to care
• Patient satisfaction, as we have recruited a new patient experience officer
• Provider satisfaction and wellness, as we are working on a wellness center proposal

MyUFHealth

We continue to enhance patient communication using the MyUFHealth patient portal. At the end of March, there were 72,030 users, and this number is increasing quite rapidly. As previously mentioned, patients can now make credit card payments through this portal, which is an added convenience.

Pictured is the MyUFHealth homepage.

New budget

Our fiscal year 2019 budget is complete. This was my first budget season, and it was an interesting exercise, financially speaking. I want to thank our finance team, led by Tim Reinschmidt, vice president of finance. They have put in innumerable hours going through the numbers and assumptions with a fine-tooth comb and facilitating discussions with the clinical departments. I am optimistic we will meet, if not exceed, budget expectations.