Strategic Initiatives 2021-2026

The University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus has grown into one of the country’s leading academic medical centers and a destination for the finest healthcare. In each of our mission areas, we have made tremendous strides and our forward momentum shows no signs of slowing.

This year, a new set of strategic initiatives will guide us into the next stage of our development. Created with the vision and passion of many among our community, these initiatives serve as milestones on our journey forward and guideposts on our path to what is next for CU Anschutz.

To look forward, we first take a look back: Five years ago, we set a number of strategic priorities to guide our campus in key areas.

Those priorities were:

• investing in clinical excellence
• increasing and diversifying research funding
• investing in innovation
• escalating our work in mental health and wellness
• and boosting marketing efforts on a regional and national scale

With a focus on these priorities, we have made rapid advancements and elevated our competitive profile. Looking ahead, we will sustain progress in these areas while embarking on ambitious new initiatives that will further differentiate CU Anschutz as a leader and innovator.

Throughout 2020, we dedicated ourselves to charting our course from this foundation of strength. Our Office of Strategic Initiatives convened more than 700 stakeholders to help us cast our sights on our next chapter. From this intensive and inspiring work, we have developed five strategic initiatives that will take us into the future.

We are grateful to all of those who gave time and energy to the development of these initiatives including members of the steering committee and working groups, our partners at InWorks, and members of our extended community at UCHealth, Children’s Hospital Colorado and the cities of Aurora and Denver.

On this page, you will learn about these strategic initiatives, and where we are headed through 2026 and beyond. I hope you will share my excitement about these efforts, and all that lies ahead for our campus and our community.

Sincerely,

Donald M. Elliman, Jr.
Chancellor

About This Initiative

The future of healthcare is in the harmonization and smart application of data. We will build an integrated data infrastructure by investing in data analytics, health AI and bioinformatics.

By closely coordinating the vast amounts of information available to our work, we bring real-time data to our fingertips and make vital insights more accessible. Integrating data will help us uncover possibilities in research and patient care to push the boundaries of what’s possible to improve more lives across the Rocky Mountain region and beyond.

Creating a stronger data infrastructure will also give us an opportunity to monitor our success in diversity, equity and inclusion, and hold ourselves accountable to our goals.

Mission Areas

About This Initiative

Working across disciplines is key to the continued success of CU Anschutz. A healthcare innovation institute will accelerate collaboration and speed breakthroughs to market.

Such an institute is more than a building or a center - it is a vehicle to  create new partnerships and pathways to propel research discoveries.

A healthcare innovation institute will step up the collaboration across disciplines already taking place on campus and attract more industry partners interested in fostering innovation, entrepreneurship and delivery of  patient care.

Mission Areas

About This Initiative

At our core, we are an academic medical campus supporting learners to be the best in the healthcare workforce.

Connecting existing student support services and scaling up others will help ensure future leaders training here benefit from a strong sense of  belonging and thrive in an environment that promotes wellness. Growing our base of services and making resources for mental health and wellness easy to access will help us accomplish this goal.

As our campus continues to expand and attract the best and the brightest students from diverse backgrounds, we are also committed to investing in their success. With an eye toward diversity, equity and inclusion, we will make the CU Anschutz Medical Campus a welcoming and accessible destination for a diverse community of learners.

Mission Areas

About This Initiative

One of our primary missions on this campus is to save and improve lives –not just in Colorado, but across the region, country and globe. Ensuring that  patients are informed and have access to the resources they need to make  educated decisions about their own care is a big part of how we do that.

Working closely with UCHealth, Children’s Hospital Colorado and other healthcare partners, we will make medicine easier and more accessible for  patients.

By bringing the latest and best technologies to improve access and care – telehealth, econsults, remote monitoring and more - we will empower our  patients by giving them the tools to navigate their own care and by putting their own data to work for them.

Mission Areas

About This Initiative

Our people are our greatest asset. By investing in their growth and development, we help them reach even greater heights.

Over the next several years, we will identify new ways to help our  employees advance in lasting, fulfilling careers within the University of Colorado system.

That is why we will be designing career pathways to expand access to employment, inspire professional growth, promote mental health and wellness, and accelerate career advancement.

We will also be pursuing hiring practices that promote a diverse and inclusive workforce, as well as evaluating innovative approaches to  tenure and promotion. These are just a few of the strategies we will pursue in the coming years.

Mission Areas

Our workforce at CU Anschutz drives our breakthroughs, so it made sense to look within for inspiration for our future. For that reason, the Office of Strategic Initiatives partnered with the Inworks Innovation Initiative, an innovation group based at the university, and applied its unique philosophy of Design Innovation (DI) to our campus’s strategic process.

As an academic medical campus, advancing the wellbeing of individuals, families and communities is at the heart of all we do. The tenets of diversity, equity and inclusion are woven into the fabric of each of our mission areas. As a result, the inclusive, human-centered philosophy of DI was a natural fit for CU Anschutz’s strategic process.

Rather than generating a top-down vision for the campus, the design innovation  methodology allowed all campus stakeholders—from employees and students to patients and neighbors in the community—to have a voice in the future of the university.

Through this partnership, members of the campus community were able to contribute to a vision for how CU Anschutz might continue to break new ground in health sciences education, research, patient care and community engagement. The Office of Strategic Initiatives convened a steering committee and four working groups centered on each of these mission areas.

Working groups were designed around each of the four mission areas outlined in this strategic framework.

Working group members were selected to promote representation from each school or college at CU Anschutz, and key units within each pillar. Woven throughout the pillars of the strategic framework are the two themes of (1) mental health and holistic wellness and (2) diversity, equity and inclusion.

Working group members were asked to recommend priorities and initiatives for the CU Anschutz Medical Campus for the next five years. Trained facilitators from Inworks facilitated a six-session DI process with these working groups to generate, test and prototype ideas within and across working groups and the broader campus community.

At three critical touchpoints, the school and college deans—along with a steering committee comprising senior-level leadership at CU Anschutz and its affiliate partners—reviewed the recommendations from each working group and provided feedback.

Chancellor Don Elliman and his leadership team distilled the recommendations generated by the campus community, vetted them with critical partners, and sought to align them with the University of Colorado system strategic plan. These five strategic initiatives arose from that process, and capture nearly 80% of the original recommendations put forward.

Advisory groups consisting of major stakeholders and decision makers are designing implementation plans for each of these five strategic initiatives. These groups will identify measures of success and key performance indicators for steady progress toward these goals. The Office of Strategic Initiatives will track this progress and provide project management support to meet important milestones along the way.

To maintain transparency and ensure that the campus community continues to have a strong voice throughout, the Office of Strategic Initiatives will provide regular updates and opportunities to engage via its website and other campus forums.