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UMS CEO outlines health‑system ties with University System of Maryland and strategic goals
Summary
University of Maryland Medical System CEO presented UMS history, governance links to USM, strategic priorities and workforce challenges, and answered regents’ questions about governance reforms and collaborations with Johns Hopkins.
Dr. Mohan Santha, president and CEO of the University of Maryland Medical System, told the University System of Maryland Board of Regents on Feb. 14 that UMS is a private, not‑for‑profit health system with a statutory, symbiotic relationship to the public university system and described UMS’s current strategic priorities and statewide role.
Santha summarized the 1984 statutory privatization that separated the medical system from the public university while preserving close oversight and partnership: three USM regents serve on the UMS board and the chancellor and UMB president are ex officio members. He said privatization allowed UMS to compete for talent and capital and to invest without relying on ongoing state subsidies, and that the arrangement underpins UMS’s growth to an organization employing roughly 28,000 people with annual revenues in the billions.
Santha laid out four “galvanizing themes” guiding UMS: (1) delivering measurable, compassionate, high‑quality clinical care; (2) leveraging its scale to transform healthcare delivery; (3) acting as an anchor institution in Maryland’s communities; and (4) differentiating through academic medicine and discovery. He said Maryland’s unique hospital reimbursement model positions UMS to lead national payment and care-delivery innovation.
On workforce, Santha said the biggest operational challenge is recruiting and retaining skilled clinicians and staff after pandemic-era workforce losses. He described partnerships with USM campuses — for example, joint nurse-education efforts that expanded seats at the University of Maryland School of Nursing — as ways to expand the pipeline and called workforce development a strategic priority.
Regents asked about governance and past procurement issues. Santha said UMS strengthened governance, compliance and conflicts-of-interest procedures after earlier scrutiny and described annual compliance summits to keep practices ‘‘best in class.’’ He also said UMS collaborates with Johns Hopkins on research and statewide pandemic response and cited the CTSA grant as one formal example of existing research collaboration.
Santha described strategic moves to act more like an integrated health system — aligning finances and investments across campuses and programs — and highlighted UMS efforts in rural healthcare (Eastern Shore), commercializing internally developed intellectual property, and partnerships with USM institutions on initiatives including the Institute for Healthcare Computing. He said UMS aims over five years to be recognized for patient safety, talent development and program leadership in areas such as cancer, musculoskeletal, cardiac and neuroscience care.
Ending: Santha invited questions and offered to return; the board moved on after a period of Q&A.
