Spotlight
Health Alliance
| USF Health
Dr. Brad Bjornstad, chief medical officer of Florida Hospital Tampa, sports his USF Bulls pride.
Photo by Eric Younghans | USF Health
A strategic alliance forged this spring between Florida Hospital and USF Health will help translate the university's leading medical research into innovative, patient-centered treatments at four Tampa Bay hospitals.
The public-private partnership expands key specialty areas at hospitals in Hillsborough, Pinellas and Pasco counties. USF Health physicians join private physicians on multidisciplinary teams managing patient care in cardiology at Florida Hospital Pepin Heart Institute, breast health at Florida Hospital Tampa, neuroscience at Florida Hospital Zephyrhills, and surgical oncology, melanoma and breast cancer at Florida Hospital North Pinellas (formerly Helen Ellis Memorial Hospital) in Tarpon Springs.
"Our partnership with USF Health will bring their leading-edge research right to the doorsteps of residents in communities where we have hospitals in Tampa Bay," says Mike Schultz, president and CEO of the Florida Region for Adventist Health System, the parent company of Florida Hospital.
At Florida Hospital Pepin Heart Institute, for instance, patients will benefit from collaborative genomic screening research that uses an individual's genetic profile to customize prevention, diagnosis and treatment of cardiovascular disease.
"No other providers in Tampa Bay will be able to replicate the level of how we begin to tailor procedures to individual patients to maintain their heart health," says Dr. Stephen Klasko, CEO of USF Health and dean of the Morsani College of Medicine.
A series of research and education partnerships with major healthcare providers, including Florida Hospital, Tampa General Hospital, Moffitt Cancer Center and HCA, is helping position USF's academic health center at the hub of medical care regionally and beyond.