New senior vice president and general counsel named to lead legal affairs for UF Health

Randall C. Jenkins, Esq., has been named UF Health senior vice president and general counsel, responsible for all legal affairs for the university’s academic health center, including hospital systems on the Gainesville and Jacksonville health campuses. He will continue to have oversight of the UF Healthcare Education Insurance Company and UF Self-Insurance Program. His appointment is effective today (June 10).

“Randy is exceptionally well-suited to serve in this role and will guide a restructuring of our legal support for our academic health center to create additional efficiencies and ensure clear communication and collaboration within UF Health and across the university,” said David R. Nelson, M.D., senior vice president for health affairs at UF and president of UF Health.

As president of the UF Healthcare Education Insurance Company, or HEIC, which administers professional and general liability programs for the academic health centers at five universities within the State University System, he serves as the professional liability self-insurance administrator for Florida’s first and largest Self-Insurance Program, which protects all UF Health entities. He also simultaneously serves as executive director of the Florida Board of Governors Self-Insurance Programs for the professional liability entities also protecting the University of Central Florida, Florida State University, Florida Atlantic University and Florida International University.

Jenkins previously performed a variety of medical-legal roles for UF Health, ranging from handling medical malpractice lawsuits and licensure complaints to improving patient safety through teaching and loss prevention initiatives that have often received national and international peer review recognition. He and his team at SIP helped design and implement the UF Health Patient Safety and Presuit Mediation Program, which permits patients and providers to meet and resolve patient issues in a confidential and collaborative setting to facilitate understanding and resolution using an alternative other than litigation.

Jenkins also spearheaded the initial federal listing of the Florida Academic Healthcare Patient Safety Organization, which unites sister universities in deliberation and analysis of patient safety opportunities, and continues to serve as the organization’s president. Similarly, on a national level, he collaborated with Harvard Health to create the Academic Medical Center Patient Safety Organization, which allows UF Health and Harvard Health to learn patient safety lessons and share improvement opportunities with each other under the assurances of strong federal confidentiality laws.

He also has a proven commitment to the university teaching mission and has taught for over 15 years as a clinical associate professor at the UF College of Public Health and Health Professions and as an adjunct professor at the UF Levin College of Law, teaching medical malpractice. The graduate M.H.A. students have awarded him their excellence in teaching award several times during his tenure.

Prior to joining UF, Jenkins worked in hospital administration at Citrus Memorial Hospital, where he was responsible for the professional service patient care departments and later served as a medical professional liability insurance defense lawyer at MarksGray in Jacksonville.

He graduated magna cum laude from Wake Forest University with a bachelor of science in politics, with emphasis in communications, before earning his law degree cum laude here at UF’s Levin College of Law.