Peter Weir, MD, MPH, population health advocate, educator, and physician leader, has been named chief population health officer at University of Utah Health, effective July 1, 2023.
The creation of this new role and Weir’s appointment are part of a strategic system-level advance of the foundational work in progress and a renewed institutional focus on the future of advancing health in our communities. Weir’s initial objectives are to lead, integrate, and elevate population health initiatives across U of U Health, provide system-wide leadership for advancing home-based care, further develop Population Health Clinics at the University of Utah, and design an employee population health initiative.
“I look forward to promoting, building, and supporting population health programs for the entire health system and community in this leadership position,” Weir says. “My goal is to help move our health system toward creating compassionate and financially sustainable delivery models that address unmet needs and improve the health of our patients.”
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Weir received his medical degree from the Medical College of Wisconsin in 2000, followed by subsequent training and residency at the U of U School of Medicine in Family Medicine. Since then, he has served as a clinician and educator in the Departments of Pediatrics, Family & Preventive Medicine, and Population Health Sciences. As a leader, he has served as medical director of the ARUP Family Health Clinic, medical director of the University of Utah Physician Assistant program, and most recently as the executive medical director of the Population Health Program.
Weir’s work in population health has also included leading a team tasked with improving access to medical care for refugee populations in Salt Lake City and developing an employer-based clinic that focused on improving the health and reducing overall costs of its 6,500 members. In that work, his team built an innovative chronic disease management model and was able to demonstrate improved outcomes while flattening health care costs for the company.
The population health team’s objective is to catalyze health care delivery transformation by supporting novel and financially sustainable clinical models that demonstrate improved patient outcomes at a lower cost. By using a population health lens when looking for opportunities, the team seeks out populations of people with outcome disparities, develops scalable innovative care model pilots, and stands accountable to improve outcomes for those populations. This team is uniquely designed and charged with spanning the entire health system, working collaboratively with departments in both the ambulatory and inpatient settings. The team partners closely with University of Utah Health Plans to advance value-based care opportunities. Recent progress includes the Intensive Outpatient Clinic, Heal at Home, and the newly formed Population Health Center. The team is currently working to design and support programs that improve outcomes for targeted Medicaid populations.
“Dr. Weir has already done truly pioneering work in patient-focused, value-driven health care,” says Sam Finlayson, MD, MPH, MBA, chief clinical officer at University of Utah Health and interim dean of the Spencer Fox Eccles School of Medicine. “But this is just the beginning. We are extremely fortunate to have Dr. Weir in this new leadership role and very excited about the future of our population health initiatives at University of Utah Health.”