Please join us in welcoming Robert Leverence, M.D., FACP, to UT Health San Antonio as UT Health Physicians’ Chief Medical Officer. Dr. Leverence brings with him more than 20 years of clinical, administrative and leadership experience in academic medicine. In this newly expanded position, Dr. Leverence will provide leadership and expertise for the practice’s ambulatory clinical operations to include integration and alignment, clinical effectiveness, medical staff supervision and physician leadership development. Leading a unified clinical infrastructure, he will ensure coordinated delivery of care in support of a patient centered model of care at all UT Health locations. Dr. Leverence will also maintain an active clinical practice offering primary care services.
Dr. Leverence comes to us from Gainesville, Florida, where he was the chief medical officer for the University of Florida College of Medicine. Prior to becoming the chief medical officer, he was the vice chair for clinical operations in the Department of Medicine at the University of Florida. As vice chair, Dr. Leverence supervised all clinical operations for the Department of Medicine, including inpatient primary and consult services, seven off-site clinics, the cath lab, and endoscopy. He helped found the divisions of Hospital Medicine and Palliative Care, as well as the Allergy Clinic, Integrative Medicine Program, and the Global Health Program and Fellowship. Under his tenure, the department maintained an average daily census (ADC) of over 360 inpatients and expanded their MICU from 24 to 48 beds. They implemented a hospital-wide standardized health literacy screen and published on it. Dr. Leverence was the physician driver for an institution-wide cell-based HIPAA secure texting communication system that replaced their traditional paging system. He helped grow the department’s faculty by over 200 members and increased clinic visits from 88,000 to nearly 200,000 annually.
Dr. Leverence received a B.S. degree in biochemistry with honors and distinction from The University of Iowa and earned his medical degree from The University of Iowa College of Medicine. He completed his internship and residency in internal medicine and pediatrics at The University of Rochester. Dr. Leverence completed the Primary Care Faculty Development Fellowship Program at Michigan State University Office of Medical Education Research and Development in 2001. He is joined in San Antonio by his wife, Kathy, an RN with experience in oncology and palliative care.
We would also like to express our sincere gratitude to Carlayne Jackson, M.D., who helped guide the practice through many changes during her nine years as the chief medical officer. She helped transition our fragmented clinical enterprise to the Medical Arts & Research Center; contributed to the adoption of EPIC as our electronic medical record, and aided in initiating many quality and operational improvements that have placed the practice on a patient-centered journey. Dr. Jackson was key to the definition of the medical director position and the creation of the Executive Health Program and Women’s Health Program. She played a major role in identifying critical patient experience metrics and in designing processes to improve our performance.
Dr. Jackson will continue to see patients in the South Texas ALS clinic (considered one of the top ALS centers in the country), as well as conducting research on neuromuscular diseases in a specialized multidisciplinary setting. Her research clinic has been recognized as a MDA ALS Research Center of Excellence.
Please, join us in welcoming Dr. Leverence as he assumes his new role and in thanking Dr. Jackson for her contributions to the practice.
