As a leader at UW Medicine, Dr. Thomas Hei is focused on improving the patient care experience and creating an immersive care environment.

As a family medicine doctor at the UW Medicine Primary Care clinic in Factoria, Thomas Hei, MD, gets to do a little bit of everything. That’s exactly how he likes it.

“At the end of my third year of medical school, after completing all my specialty rotations, I was a little bit despondent,” he says. “I liked them all, and I didn’t want to have to choose!”

Hei’s final rotation in family medicine showed him a path where he wouldn’t have to choose. Today, Hei’s work includes managing chronic diseases such as diabetes and hypertension, wellness promotion, internal medicine, pediatrics, obstetrics and gynecology, preventive medicine and outpatient procedures.

While honing his skills in many different areas, Hei has also built rewarding long-term relationships with his patients.

“There’s one patient I see who I delivered, and not only does she still see me, but so does her daughter,” says Hei. “I have patients I’ve seen for 20 years, I’ve gotten to know their grandchildren. That’s not something you see so often anymore in modern health care — there’s an emphasis on convenience that can lessen the focus on, and benefits of, continuity of care.”

Another example of the importance of continuity of care is an immigrant family for whom Hei is the primary care physician for four generations of patients.

“Given the many barriers for them, including language and cultural differences, I’ve been able to provide care for them because I know their histories, and because I’ve spent years building up trust through language barriers and cultural differences,” says Hei. “Because of that trust, they listen to my advice.”

Working toward a better patient experience

Hei grew up in Taiwan, immigrating to the United States at age 14. Medicine had interested him as a kid, but as a new immigrant who didn’t speak English, that dream seemed out of reach — until one teacher intervened.

“In high school, I did really well in my AP Biology class,” says Hei. “That teacher suggested that, since I had done well in biology, I could think about medical school, and that suggestion reignited things.”

Hei got another opportunity when, as an undergraduate at UC Irvine, he was a co-author on a highly publicized study that correlated rates of TV watching in children with high cholesterol. That study helped his application to medical school at UCLA.

“All these things were kind of lucky,” says Hei.

In another lucky moment, the family medicine rotation that helped Hei find his path was a recent addition to the curriculum, a result of a push in California to graduate more primary care doctors. After completing that rotation and graduating from medical school, Hei came to Seattle to start his residency in family medicine at Valley Medical Center. He says he chose Seattle “because it has the best primary care and family medicine training in the country.”

The support of another mentor helped Hei become a leader early in his career.

“After my residency, I joined the UW Neighborhood Clinics, which is now UW Medicine Primary Care, right as it was getting off the ground,” Hei says. As a result, he had the chance to write new protocols and help refine policies and procedures — experience that would soon lead to a major step forward in his career.

“About a year and a half after I started, my clinic needed a new clinic director. Tom Norris, MD, the chief medical officer at the time, asked if I would do it. I was barely out of residency, but with Tom’s support, I was able to step into a leadership role early on and learn about compliance, safety, quality and how to adjust different systems and workflows to improve patient care.”

That experience serves Hei well in his current position. In addition to being a primary care physician who sees patients, he is the ambulatory associate medical director for UW Medicine. As a leader at UW Medicine, he’s focused on improving the patient care experience and creating what he calls an immersive care environment.

“I want to make sure that — from check-in through the visit and even when patients contact us after a visit with questions or needs — they feel cared for and know that their concerns are important to us,” says Hei.

Primary care — a crucial, undervalued part of healthcare

Primary care plays a vital role in keeping people healthy. It’s also consistently undervalued.

According to a recent report by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), primary care physicians are paid significantly less than their peers in other specialties. And, while burnout has increased in all health professions, it is particularly acute among primary care providers, over half of whom reported feeling symptoms of burnout in 2022.

The combination of lower pay and increased burnout has led to a shortage of primary care providers. The American Association of Medical Colleges (AAMC) projects that, by 2037, there will be a shortage of 87,000 primary care doctors. The effects of the shortage are compounded by the fact that primary care physicians are increasingly providing specialty care in crucial areas such as obstetrics and gynecology and behavioral health.

“I can’t just refer my patients to a specialist for every problem, because there aren’t enough specialists,” says Hei. “If I refer a patient to, for example, an endocrinologist to manage their diabetes, that means that patient now goes to the endocrinologist for all their diabetes care — and that limits the endocrinologist’s ability to help consult for future complex patients.”

Instead, Hei collaborates with his specialist colleagues to offer the best treatment to his patients at the primary care clinic.

According to the HRSA report, primary care doctors are the first point of contact for patients and play a vital role in preventive care, early detection and treatment of diseases, management of chronic conditions, and acute care in both inpatient and outpatient settings.

“We’re absolutely crucial,” says Hei. “Without primary care, so many patients wouldn’t be able to get the care they need.”

For Hei, the importance of primary care underscores the need for an immersive care environment that makes the patient feel heard.

“It doesn’t matter how much you know or how smart you are,” Hei says, “if you’re not communicating with your patient and making them feel cared for, you’re not an effective doctor.”

Endowing position to support patient care

Hei’s dedication to his patients is being recognized by his recent appointment to the Stephen and Rita Anderson Endowed Chair in Family Medicine. Stephen and Rita are longtime patients of Hei’s who created the chair to recognize the contribution of primary care physicians. They were thrilled when Hei was appointed the inaugural holder.

“Rita and I feel privileged to have Dr. Hei as our primary care doctor,” says Stephen. “In addition to providing quality care he’s very accessible. It’s hard to put into words the comfort and security we feel from having him as our doctor, and it’s an honor to be able to support him through this chair.”

Endowing a clinical professorship, chair, medical directorship or other position for a physician supports and honors the holder’s commitment to patient care and advancing clinical care in their field. These endowed positions support the recruitment and retention of world-class faculty and provide direct financial support to UW Medicine’s mission to improve the health of the public.

Hei’s chair is unusual, as endowed positions are rarely given to primary care providers. They are generally created to support researchers or specialists. Endowing a position for a primary care position elevates the work of this frequently overlooked specialty and recognizes physicians who are often passed over for these sorts of recognitions.

For Hei, the endowed chair came as a surprise — one for which he is very grateful.

“I didn’t think I was doing anything different or special for this patient,” he says. “I was doing my job, and he’s just been incredibly generous.”

While Hei may not have thought his care was anything out of the ordinary, his colleagues certainly find him worthy of recognition.

“Dr. Hei’s commitment to his patients extends beyond a given disease or treatment plan, accompanying them on their healthcare journey to achieve their goals,” says Paul James, MD, chair of the family medicine department. “Such commitment is extraordinary in today’s healthcare system. We’re all grateful to physicians like Dr. Hei for showing the way to improved primary care.”

Having an endowed chair isn’t just a recognition for Hei — it’s an opportunity for him to devote more time to creating a better primary care experience. Because Hei’s endowed position is designed to advance patient care, it is structured to allow him to spend more time on leadership by cutting back on administrative demands.

“I want to honor the intent of the chair and the donor, and to me, that all comes back to creating an immersive care environment,” he says. “The extra bandwidth that comes with having an endowed chair will allow me to work on that.”

These endowed chairs, professorships and directorships also include discretionary funds that can be used for clinical priority program needs — for example, to hire a research assistant to assess patient outcomes data.

“I want to make sure that every patient feels as cared for as this patient did,” says Hei.

Creating an immersive care environment, one doctor — and patient — at a time

Endowed chairs, clinical professorships and medical directorships are one way — a powerful way — to support UW Medicine Primary Care and physicians like Hei. Other ways of helping are accessible to every patient.

“I very much appreciate patients giving us feedback,” Hei says. “Not just positive feedback, although I’ll take that any day of the week, but if there’s something that wasn’t as good as you expected, let us know. We can’t change if we don’t know something is wrong.”

As always with Hei, it comes back to ensuring patients have the best possible experience.

“I find it invigorating,” he says, “to be in a position where I’m helping people.”

Written by Alex Israel