It is my great pleasure to announce the appointment of Dr. Jason Fish as the next CEO of Yale Health, effective July 1, 2023. A transformative and experienced leader in health care delivery and operations, he is deeply committed to advancing patient-centered clinical care and building strong teams that deliver exceptional service.
Dr. Fish is currently the chief medical officer of Southwestern Health Resources (SWHR), which was founded as a collaboration between Texas Health Resources and the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center to support their strategic and operational transition to population health management across North Texas. As a patient-centered, clinically integrated network of thirty-one hospitals and more than 7,000 clinicians, SWHR cares for over 800,000 patients across sixteen counties in North Texas. Dr. Fish also serves as the chief medical officer for SWHR’s regional Medicare Advantage health plan.
With an unwavering focus on the health care needs of patients and communities and extensive knowledge of strategic operations, Dr. Fish has introduced initiatives—spanning the continuum from wellness to advanced disease—that have improved patient outcomes, increased quality and efficiency of care delivery, and enhanced support systems for staff. These initiatives include efforts to partner with mental health providers to improve screening and treatment. A key aspect underlying his work has been the identification of behavioral and social determinants, such as food insecurity, unemployment, and other factors, that lead to inequities in health and health care. The positive effects of this focus on health inequities were evident when, in 2021, through targeted interventions based on key patient and neighborhood identifiers of risk for moderate to severe COVID-19, Dr. Fish’s teams reduced acute hospitalizations for COVID by 50 percent from the January to August spikes in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.
Dr. Fish values partnerships and has forged strong relationships aimed at meeting the needs of the SWHR’s patients. These partnerships include close ties to surrounding hospitals and associated facilities, as well as community organizations. Noting the inefficiencies in transitioning patients out of hospital stays, he used a data-driven approach and leveraged his partnerships with hospitals and post-acute care facilities to improve these transitions in care. These efforts ensure patients needing additional care following hospitalization received it from a high-quality network of post-acute facilities, such as skilled nursing facilities, home health agencies, and rehabilitation facilities.
With a background in health services and population health, Dr. Fish has exercised effective population health management through innovation and robust data analytics. Several of his care delivery improvements have been published in the medical literature, and he has spoken internationally on his deployed population health strategies. He currently uses artificial intelligence models to predict key health care events, such as unplanned hospitalizations, recurrent emergency room utilization, or progression of diabetes or kidney disease. These models identify rising risks for patients early in the course of their illnesses, thus enabling their clinical teams to intervene before patients’ conditions worsen.
As a practicing primary care physician in a team-based practice, Dr. Fish understands first-hand the importance of monitoring and improving, when indicated, workplace processes and culture. It is with this careful attention to the needs of clinicians and staff that he helped to build the flexible and effective systems that enabled SWHR to respond rapidly to changes throughout the pandemic and maintain continuity of high-quality care for patients.
Dr. Fish earned his B.A. in English with a minor in mathematics at Whittier College and his M.D. at Weill-Cornell Medical College. He did his residency in general internal medicine at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), where he also completed the Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program and earned a Master of Science in Health Services Research from UCLA’s School of Public Health. While at University of Texas Southwestern, he earned a Master of Science in Healthcare Management and Administrative Sciences and was appointed to the rank of professor of medicine, in recognition of his publications and teaching activities.
Dr. Fish is looking forward to working with the Yale Health team to care for the health and well-being of the Yale community. He also will be coming to Yale with his wife, Dr. Veronica Meneses, and they will be first-year empty nesters, with both of their children in college. Drs. Fish and Meneses love to hike and are looking forward to exploring all the local trails with their two dogs. In his free time, Dr. Fish enjoys music, literature, and the cinema, with a particular love for science fiction, and is eager to experience the richness of all the opportunities offered at Yale and New Haven.
I am deeply grateful to my colleagues at Yale Health for their unflagging dedication to the health and well-being of the university community and to Interim CEO Nanci Fortgang for her leadership during the transition. I also appreciate the efforts of the search advisory committee, chaired by Vice Provost for Health Affairs Dr. Stephanie Spangler and Vice President for Human Resources John Whelan, and the student consultative council. To members of the Yale community who shared with the committee and me your input, thank you for helping us with the search process.
I invite you to join me in enthusiastically and warmly welcoming Dr. Fish and his family to Yale!
Sincerely,
Peter Salovey
President
Chris Argyris Professor of Psychology
Announcement – CEO of Yale Health
Dear Members of the Yale Community,
It is my great pleasure to announce the appointment of Dr. Jason Fish as the next CEO of Yale Health, effective July 1, 2023. A transformative and experienced leader in health care delivery and operations, he is deeply committed to advancing patient-centered clinical care and building strong teams that deliver exceptional service.
Dr. Fish is currently the chief medical officer of Southwestern Health Resources (SWHR), which was founded as a collaboration between Texas Health Resources and the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center to support their strategic and operational transition to population health management across North Texas. As a patient-centered, clinically integrated network of thirty-one hospitals and more than 7,000 clinicians, SWHR cares for over 800,000 patients across sixteen counties in North Texas. Dr. Fish also serves as the chief medical officer for SWHR’s regional Medicare Advantage health plan.
With an unwavering focus on the health care needs of patients and communities and extensive knowledge of strategic operations, Dr. Fish has introduced initiatives—spanning the continuum from wellness to advanced disease—that have improved patient outcomes, increased quality and efficiency of care delivery, and enhanced support systems for staff. These initiatives include efforts to partner with mental health providers to improve screening and treatment. A key aspect underlying his work has been the identification of behavioral and social determinants, such as food insecurity, unemployment, and other factors, that lead to inequities in health and health care. The positive effects of this focus on health inequities were evident when, in 2021, through targeted interventions based on key patient and neighborhood identifiers of risk for moderate to severe COVID-19, Dr. Fish’s teams reduced acute hospitalizations for COVID by 50 percent from the January to August spikes in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.
Dr. Fish values partnerships and has forged strong relationships aimed at meeting the needs of the SWHR’s patients. These partnerships include close ties to surrounding hospitals and associated facilities, as well as community organizations. Noting the inefficiencies in transitioning patients out of hospital stays, he used a data-driven approach and leveraged his partnerships with hospitals and post-acute care facilities to improve these transitions in care. These efforts ensure patients needing additional care following hospitalization received it from a high-quality network of post-acute facilities, such as skilled nursing facilities, home health agencies, and rehabilitation facilities.
With a background in health services and population health, Dr. Fish has exercised effective population health management through innovation and robust data analytics. Several of his care delivery improvements have been published in the medical literature, and he has spoken internationally on his deployed population health strategies. He currently uses artificial intelligence models to predict key health care events, such as unplanned hospitalizations, recurrent emergency room utilization, or progression of diabetes or kidney disease. These models identify rising risks for patients early in the course of their illnesses, thus enabling their clinical teams to intervene before patients’ conditions worsen.
As a practicing primary care physician in a team-based practice, Dr. Fish understands first-hand the importance of monitoring and improving, when indicated, workplace processes and culture. It is with this careful attention to the needs of clinicians and staff that he helped to build the flexible and effective systems that enabled SWHR to respond rapidly to changes throughout the pandemic and maintain continuity of high-quality care for patients.
Dr. Fish earned his B.A. in English with a minor in mathematics at Whittier College and his M.D. at Weill-Cornell Medical College. He did his residency in general internal medicine at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), where he also completed the Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program and earned a Master of Science in Health Services Research from UCLA’s School of Public Health. While at University of Texas Southwestern, he earned a Master of Science in Healthcare Management and Administrative Sciences and was appointed to the rank of professor of medicine, in recognition of his publications and teaching activities.
Dr. Fish is looking forward to working with the Yale Health team to care for the health and well-being of the Yale community. He also will be coming to Yale with his wife, Dr. Veronica Meneses, and they will be first-year empty nesters, with both of their children in college. Drs. Fish and Meneses love to hike and are looking forward to exploring all the local trails with their two dogs. In his free time, Dr. Fish enjoys music, literature, and the cinema, with a particular love for science fiction, and is eager to experience the richness of all the opportunities offered at Yale and New Haven.
I am deeply grateful to my colleagues at Yale Health for their unflagging dedication to the health and well-being of the university community and to Interim CEO Nanci Fortgang for her leadership during the transition. I also appreciate the efforts of the search advisory committee, chaired by Vice Provost for Health Affairs Dr. Stephanie Spangler and Vice President for Human Resources John Whelan, and the student consultative council. To members of the Yale community who shared with the committee and me your input, thank you for helping us with the search process.
I invite you to join me in enthusiastically and warmly welcoming Dr. Fish and his family to Yale!
Sincerely,
Peter Salovey
President
Chris Argyris Professor of Psychology