JOHNESE SPISSO
President, UCLA Health; CEO, UCLA Hospital System;
Associate Vice Chancellor, UCLA Health Sciences
UCLA Health
Johnese Spisso has been president of UCLA Health, CEO of UCLA Hospital System and associate vice chancellor of UCLA Health Sciences since 2016. With 30 years of experience, she is a nationally recognized academic health care leader, overseeing operations of UCLA’s hospitals, clinics and the health system’s regional outreach strategy.
Spisso led UCLA’s expansion to provide convenient access to care throughout Southern California, with more than 250 clinics recording more than 3.1 million outpatient visits in 2021. In 2021, UCLA Health announced its plans to transform a former medical center into a state-of-the-art neuropsychiatric hospital that will help address the region’s unmet need for behavioral health services. The new hospital will meet the state’s highest standards for acute psychiatric hospital buildings and will include comprehensive behavioral health care services for adult, geriatric, child, adolescent and intensive care patients, as well as crisis care. In addition to expanding inpatient capacity, an adjacent medical office building will be renovated to expand, relocate and optimize outpatient behavioral health programs and clinic research and educational programs associated with the licensed neuropsychiatric hospital and dedicated psychiatric emergency services.
Spisso also led collaborations with the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health to expand the age range of Medi-Cal patients that UCLA Health is able to treat as inpatients. Historically, Medi-Cal only covered hospitalization of patients younger than 21. As of October 2022, UCLA Health is able to provide inpatient treatment to Medi-Cal patients of all ages. This is a major milestone in UCLA Health’s ongoing quest for greater access to health care.
