The goal:

Healthcare of the highest order.

Reinforce and further enhance our position as a leading national academic medical center.

Topics on this page

Latest updates

  • State of the Plan: Year 2

    President Sarah Mangelsdorf reflects on the University of Rochester’s strong progress, campus growth, and resilience heading into 2025–26.

  • Portrait of Wendy Parisi.

    Unbound: Wendy Parisi

    Leading efforts to improve health outcomes at URMC, Wendy drives system-level change to ensure accessible, patient-centered care for people across communities.

Overview

Building on URMC’s 100-year history, CEO and Dean David Linehan shares a vision where our Medical Center is the best place to work, learn, innovate, and heal. His confidence we will achieve that springs from URMC’s people and our shared track record of accomplishments.

“The quality of our people is what makes me glad to come to work every day,” Linehan says. “It’s inspired me to think about how we can create a bold future together. When I ask people why they chose to work for the Medical Center and our health system, the answer is almost always the same. It is our collective ‘why’—advancing research, training, and patient care to help people live their best and healthiest lives.”

That “why” will fuel our future and fulfill our mission of helping each other be ever better for the people who entrust us with their lives.

To explore the Medical Center’s goals, milestones, and progress in greater depth, head to the University of Rochester Medical Center’s Strategic Plan pages (VPN needed).

Archive of objectives and progress

Below you’ll find an archived record of the objectives and tactics that shaped our strategic plan. We keep this snapshot available so our community can reference the steps we took, the beliefs that guided them, and the progress we measured. These items are no longer being updated, but they remain part of our story.

Questions or thoughts about this archive? Interested in collaborating on future initiatives? Reach out anytime—we’re glad to hear from you.

Objective

Reinforce our position as a national referral center for highly specialized care + upstate New York’s health system of choice

Tactics Status
Continue to modernize and expand clinical facilities ⬤ Completed
Manage and improve the patient experience by enhancing digital technologies (Digital Front Door) ⬤ Progress made
Develop sub-acute care and long-term care strategy with partnerships and new models of care ⬤ Progress made
Address critical shortages in oral health care access and services ⬤ Progress made
Develop plans to improve access across key specialties ⬤ Progress made
Further integration with UR Medicine affiliates & Expand network footprint to advance value-based care, quality and margin improvement ⬤ Completed
Improve reputation in national quality rankings ⬤ Completed

Tactics Status
Clinical / System Integration success in value-based contracts, market share & key quality indicators ⬤ Progress made
Achieve & Exceed Patient Experience Goals ⬤ Reset needed
Improvement in Workforce Recruitment & Retention Goals (broad representation, attrition rates <10% for staff and x% for faculty) ⬤ Progress made
Achieve Efficiency and Outcomes Goals via Care Model Transformation ⬤ Progress made
Facility / Infrastructure Modernization ⬤ Progress made
Close Gaps in Full-Service Tertiary / Quaternary Programs ⬤ Progress made

Objective

Launch nimble, transdisciplinary centers for scholarly domains where we can be most consequential

Tactics Status
Enhance cancer research portfolio & clinical trials ⬤ Completed
Enhance new transdisciplinary institutes/cores ⬤ Completed
Develop a new Research Space Masterplan that includes both wet and dry lab expansion space and support transdisciplinary centers ⬤ Progress made
Grow clinical trials portfolio ⬤ Completed
Enhance national research reputation via improvement in Blue Ridge rankings, honorific scholarly work & joint venture with industry partnerships ⬤ Progress made

Tactics Status
Total Research Funding (including NIH) per Investigator ⬤ Progress made
Increase in Program Reputation Indicators in Key Focus Areas of Strength (Marketing Prowess) ⬤ Progress made
Increase in Philanthropic, Government and Other Partnership Investments in Research ⬤ Progress made
Increase Clinical Trials ⬤ Progress made
Team Science – Increase multi-PI and Programs Grants ⬤ Progress made

Objective

Strengthen our position as a preeminent educational institution emphasizing innovation in biomedical education, fair access to opportunity, broad representation across our community, and overall affordability.

Tactics Status
Increase learner access to educational opportunity ⬤ Progress made
Transform and innovate nursing education to meet growing health and workforce demands ⬤ Completed
Open an undergraduate dental degree program ⬤ Progress made
Provide a rich learning environment ⬤ Progress made
Ensure Learner Success ⬤ Progress made
Enhance research training programs for predoctoral and postdoctoral fellows by increasing training grants opportunities and aligning with research COE’s. ⬤ Progress made
Create value and impact ⬤ Progress made
Improve reputation in USNWR / other rankings ⬤ Completed

Tactics Status
Innovation in Education ⬤ Progress made
Breadth of representation in Applicants ⬤ Progress made
Strengthen Oral Health Workforce and Academic Faculty ⬤ Progress made
Measures of student engagement, wellness, and overall connectedness ⬤ Progress made
Increased admissions to SON and Allied Health programs
Increase number of Certificate Programs in Key Workforce Shortage Areas		 ⬤ Progress made
Increase scholarship ⬤ Progress made

Objective

Be the preferred destination for faculty, staff, learners and patients regardless aspects of identity

 

Tactics Status
Launch formal, URMC-wide wellness program. ⬤ Completed
Teach graduate medical education learners to improve outcomes for underserved within their own practices ⬤ Completed
Improve outcomes in clinical care in underserved ⬤ Completed
Enhance recruitment and retention efforts ⬤ Completed

Tactics Status
Improved faculty, staff and learner satisfaction and retention ⬤ Progress made
Build an infrastructure that actively addresses racial bias through education programs, policies, and procedures. ⬤ Progress made
Recruit – increase the number of diverse faculty, staff, and students ⬤ Progress made
Nurture – improved satisfaction scores ⬤ Progress made
Exemplify – increase the number of culture and climate initiatives ⬤ Progress made
Engage – decreased disparities in clinical care in key metrics ⬤ Progress made

Objective

Generate financial resources to thrive and enable support of URMC and URochester strategic plans.

Tactics Status
Rebuild healthcare staff workforce ⬤ Completed
Achieve financial sustainability plan ⬤ Progress made
New partnerships ⬤ Progress made
Meet philanthropy goals ⬤ Completed

Tactics Status
Financial Sustainability Plan ⬤ Progress made
Philanthropy ⬤ Progress made
Venture Fund ⬤ Progress made
Payer and Other Partnerships ⬤ Progress made

news and updates

Better Things

Better Things

The Boundless Possibility blog aims to address questions as fundamental as “What’s happening with the strategic plan?”

Circular logo with a hand pointing upward and the words BOUNDLESS POSSIBILITY.
Circular logo with a hand pointing upward and the words BOUNDLESS POSSIBILITY.

Explore goals and progress

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Icon of a human figure wearing a graduation cap with a rolled-up scroll above and to the left, connected by a dotted yellow line.
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Commitment to Nondiscrimination

In compliance with federal and state requirements, the University does not discriminate—either negatively, such as by denying opportunity, or positively, by providing preferences or benefits—based on sex, race, color, national origin, religion, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law (collectively, “protected characteristics”). The strategies, goals, and metrics in this strategic plan will never be used to unlawfully disadvantage or provide a benefit to any current or prospective faculty, staff, student, patient, or community member based on protected characteristics. No member of the University will be rewarded or penalized based on metrics influenced by protected characteristics. All persons are welcome, regardless of their own protected characteristics or those of their family members.