Becker’s Healthcare Podcast Dr. Vladimir Manuel, Vice Chair of Clinical Affairs for the Department of Family Medicine & Scott Jahnke, Senior Director of Operations at UCLA Health
Nov 23, 2025
Scott Jahnke, Senior Director of Operations at UCLA Health, specializes in optimizing hospital workflows and developing command centers. Dr. Vladimir Manuel, Vice Chair of Clinical Affairs in Family Medicine, focuses on improvement science and urgent care development. They discuss innovative approaches to de-escalating care, enhancing decision-making to reduce unnecessary admissions, and creating a learning culture with data. The conversation highlights the importance of operationalizing improvements and preparing systems before implementing AI solutions.
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Command Center Created A Firefighting Culture
- Scott Jahnke described building a command center that initially escalated every case and created a firefighting mentality.
- Meeting improvement science leaders helped them shift to root-cause fixes and de-escalation of care.
Key Decision Moments Drive Utilization
- Dr. Vladimir Manuel emphasized that resource use is driven by key decision moments, not just processes.
- Changing decision effectiveness can eliminate unnecessary admissions and reduce utilization massively.
Reduce Work By Improving Upstream Decisions
- Improve decision effectiveness upstream to avoid entire workflows and save clinician time.
- Empower transfer center staff to make better decisions so physicians spend time only with needed patients.