Dean Claudia Lucchinetti, dean of Dell Medical School and senior vice president for medical affairs, joined Texas Social Work’s Dean Allan Cole for Spring 2025 Fireside Chat, discussing a variety of topics related to social work’s interdisciplinary role with health care.
The conversation, which centered on how collaboration between the two schools improves lives, highlighted several aspects of social work research and the importance of valuing the “human side” of medicine for optimal results.
Patient-Centered and Value-Based Care
The discussion quickly turned to patient-centered and value-based care approaches, which focuses care toward the whole picture of a patient’s experience and needs. Valued-based care, as the deans discussed, moves health outcomes to the center of the conversation. As Lucchinetti explained, instead of focusing on margins and volume, practitioners “want to drive outcomes that are meaningful to patients. It’s a shift in thinking.”
The deans illustrated that taking purposeful approaches, such as simple changes such as getting eye-level with patients to establish trust or shaking a patient’s hand to develop mutual respect, creates a better environment to deliver stronger results. Dean Lucchinetti described instances from practice such as asking for a farmer’s wife to join the room to discuss health history, while Dean Cole shared stories of how recognizing family members results in “remarkable memories” that increase the trust between doctor and patient. Both deans agreed that this kind of paradigm shift starts in the classroom where physicians are trained, and that social workers have a key role in developing this kind of rapport with patients.
Designing a new approach from the ground up
The UT Austin Medical Center, currently in development on the south side of the Forty Acres, serves as a “greenfield opportunity” to shape health care delivery from the foundation, Dean Lucchinetti said. The center will include UT Austin Hospital, a specialty hospital, and UT MD Anderson Cancer Center, a new, comprehensive cancer center in Austin’s backyard. Dean Cole noted how Texas Social Work is one of the few — if not the only — schools of social work to have a direct partnership with a medical school, and with such a “destination facility” coming online, there are “unprecedented” opportunities for medical social work.
Dean Lucchinetti confirmed the Dell Med team is incorporating team-based approaches in their curriculum, and affirmed that collaborating with partners across campus such as Texas Social Work is necessary to weave the principles of patient-centered and value-based care throughout the program.
“AI is the new stethoscope”
Both deans see opportunities and challenges in artificial intelligence, yet both believe that technologies such as artificial intelligence is a net positive when it comes to health care delivery. The deans held a mutually shared view that AI could transform medical paperwork processing and help create breakthrough research, but as Dean Lucchinetti noted, “there is often a chasm between what AI promises and what it actually does.”
To explore the limitations and opportunities of AI, Texas Social Work formed the “Working Group on AI and Other Technologies,” which is leading conversations about integrating AI in classroom and practice settings. Meanwhile, Dell Med is exploring AI applications from digital twins to reducing clerical workload, giving physicians more quality time with patients.
A Shared Vision for Health Care’s Future
Looking ahead, both schools are forging stronger partnerships to support patients and the providers who care for them. Dean Cole, in his role as deputy for health humanities and technology, is advancing the integration of humanities and arts into health care delivery — a perspective that complements the scientific approach.
The conversation concluded with both leaders emphasizing the need for an integrated health care approach.
“We need to build the ethical environment along with the technology,” said Lucchinetti, who is an internationally recognized neurologist specializing in neuroimmunology and experimental neuropathy. “We have to be proactive from the time we start training to when we start applying.”
From building a health care workforce to serve a growing community in Central Texas to supporting health care providers and patients, both leaders see an integrated effort at the heart of a successful collaboration.
“UT is an incredible place,” Dean Cole concluded. “Dean Lucchinetti reminds us that the ‘we’ is more important than the ‘me.’”