The Board of Visitors’ Health System Board convened Thursday morning at Boar’s Head Resort to hear a presentation from leaders of the U.Va. Health Ehlers-Danlos and Hypermobility Disorders Center on the EDS Center’s mission and emerging role. HSB members also heard an update from U.Va. Health officials on the Medical Center’s efforts to expand patient care beyond the “physical spaces” of the hospital and reviewed a financial report on the Medical Center’s performance in fiscal year 2026, which ended with a positive margin driven by higher-than-expected revenue.
As part of the meeting’s agenda, HSB members also reviewed the $42 million budget for FY27. According to the report, the budget will decrease overall from FY26 — which had an operating budget of $51 million. The School of Medicine will have an increased projected budget of $5 million from last year and the School of Nursing will witness a $1 million projected budget increase. Conversely, the Medical Center’s budget is expected to decrease by $28 million.
HSB is a Board committee composed of seven Board members that oversee the operations of the University’s Medical Center and provide strategic oversight for the School of Medicine, the School of Nursing and U.Va. Community Health. In addition, six appointed members of the public and eight other University leaders serve in an advisory capacity without voting power.
During open session at Thursday’s meeting, Dacre Knight — medical director of the U.Va. Health Ehlers-Danlos Syndromes and Hypermobility Disorders Center — and Ina Stephens — professor of Pediatrics, Pediatric Infectious Diseases and Integrative Medicine at the Medical Center and Pediatric Infectious Diseases Consultant for U.Va. Children’s Hospital — presented the work of the University’s new Ehlers-Danlos and Hypermobility Disorder Center.
Ehlers-Danlos syndrome is a cluster of 13 disorders which affect the body’s connective tissue, often resulting in a greater range of motion for patients’ joints, hyperextensive skin and fragility in the body’s organs, often leading to pain and chronic fatigue. According to Stephens, EDS is difficult to diagnose because “connective tissue is every single place in your body,” meaning the disease manifests itself in a variety of forms. As a result, patients often go untreated or receive “fragmented care.”
According to Knight and Stephens, the EDS Center — which was established in 2025 — is one of 15 Ehlers-Danlos clinics in the United States, and the waitlist to receive treatment is now approaching 3,000 patients. Knight and Stevens said they believe this statistic reflects the EDS Center’s success in meeting a high, unmet demand for EDS and hypermobility care.
Knight explained that he believes the novelty of the program will assist the Medical Center in becoming the “world’s leading destination center” for EDS treatment and serve as a model for future EDS clinics in other parts of the country. Knight said that he is currently mentoring a clinician at the University of California, San Francisco to establish a center there as well.
“There is no program like this at Duke. There is nothing like this at Johns Hopkins,” Knight said. “I wish that there were more of these programs. I hope that one day that every academic institution will have a program like this, because patients do demand it.”
According to Stephens, the EDS Center’s work includes clinical care, research and a comprehensive curriculum on Ehlers-Danlos syndrome for medical students at the University across multiple stages of instruction. Knight also noted that the EDS Center recently received a grant from the National Institutes of Health for its biomedical research.
In response to a question from Board member C. Evans Poston regarding the EDS Center’s plans to reduce the number of patients on the waitlist, Knight said that the EDS Center is currently developing a strategy to address this. He further explained that the EDS Center is taking steps to engage with prospective patients while they wait for care.
As an example of the EDS Center’s engagement with prospective patients, Knight pointed to the recent EDS research symposium that took place April 9-10. The symposium brought together patients, clinicians, researchers and students to examine and discuss the disease through a series of presentations, discussions and workshops. Stephens also noted that the EDS Center uses telehealth to conduct many follow-up appointments to “get more patients in” overall.
U.Va. Health Assistant Chief Novella Thompson also presented at Thursday’s meeting on the Medical Center’s efforts to expand care options beyond the hospital and directly into patients’ homes and communities. She noted four “purpose-built divisions” that she said are reflective of the Medical Center’s success in broadening access to care.
The first example Thompson pointed to was the Community Paramedicine Program, which connects patients with healthcare resources through home visits to complete healthcare plans and identify personalized treatment approaches. The Medical Center also deploys paramedic teams to patients’ residences during health crises and connects them with primary care physicians and clinical specialists. Thompson said that the program reflects the Medical Center’s shift from “crisis response to early intervention.”
Thompson also highlighted the Medical Center’s Virginia at Home program, which offers in-home visits for elderly patients confined to their residences after discharge. The program also identifies changes to the patients’ lives that could reduce the risk of future hospital visits. She cited one example in which the Medical Center’s community paramedicine team arranged the installation of railing for a 101-year-old patient at risk of falling.
As another example of the Medical Center expanding its care, Thompson pointed to the Community Health Worker program — which places health workers at the “frontlines” by having them live in the communities they serve. Thompson noted another example of expanding care is the U.Va. Health Mobile Care — a van that visits patients across the Charlottesville area to provide medical care on-site.
Thompson framed all four of these efforts as a “core extension” of the Medical Center’s current mission — to provide clinical excellence and continuity of care — directly into communities across the Commonwealth.
“When we think about U.Va. Health, we often picture hospitals, clinics, academic spaces,” Thompson said. “But for most patients, health doesn't actually happen in those spaces, it happens in their homes [and] in our communities.”
Mitch Rosner, U.Va. Health chief executive officer and executive vice president for health affairs, said that the work of the EDS Center and Medical Center reflect “important examples” of U.Va. Health’s efforts to better address the needs of its patients and community.
After presentations concluded, HSB went into closed session to review the operations of the Medical Center, School of Medicine and School of Nursing. HSB members further consulted with the Office of the University Counsel to ensure compliance with federal and state legal requirements and discussed initiatives including recruitment and retention strategies, according to the meeting agenda.
HSB members then returned to open session and reviewed a financial report on the Medical Center’s performance as FY26 draws to a close. The report indicated that the Medical Center concluded with a positive profit margin due to higher-than-expected revenue. The Medical Center still recorded a profit despite overspending its initial budget on “additional pharmaceuticals.”
Specifically, the School of Medicine generated a $21 million deficit, which it attributed to increased spending on day-to-day operations and costs related to graduate students, driving down tuition revenue. The School of Medicine has proposed a number of tuition increases in light of these costs, including a 3 percent increase in tuition for students in the Biomedical Sciences Graduate Program and Master of Public Health Sciences program, as well as first-year in-state students and out-of-state Medical Education students.
According to the report, the School of Nursing’s income is “favorable to a break-even budget” and on track to stay within its original budget.
In addition to the financial report, HSB also received written reports from the Medical Center, the School of Medicine and the School of Nursing that detailed the operational updates — such as the opening of new locations — milestones and performance of the different entities for members to consider.
The Medical Center’s report highlighted that Newsweek’s Hospital 2026 list ranked the School of Medicine first in the Commonwealth and No. 52 nationally, among a number of other awards and recognitions.
The report also contained results of the Medical Center’s patient experience surveys, which yielded above average ratings for the University’s inpatient and outpatient clinic experience compared to other academic medical centers. The Medical Center’s Emergency Department’s score of 81.10 was below average relative to other institutions, however, placing it in the No. 46 percentile.
The reports also indicated that the School of Nursing continues to maintain highly competitive acceptance rates for a number of programs. For the Fall 2026 semester, 90 students will enroll in the Bachelors of Science in Nursing program, down from an initial applicant pool of over 3,000. This enrollment rate of approximately 3 percent is consistent with emerging national trends that show record numbers of Nursing School applicants being turned away.
HSB also voted on five action items in open session. Among them, Board members unanimously approved a more than $5 million contract with Partners & Simons, Inc. — a brand consultancy and marketing firm — to promote the Medical Center. They also approved a Quality Improvement and Patient Safety plan for 2027-2030, which seeks to outline the “structure and processes” to reduce preventable harm in the Medical Center, according to the HSB meeting agenda.
HSB is scheduled to reconvene during the next series of regular Board meetings, which will take place Sept. 16-19.
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