Marc Benioff, chief executive officer of Salesforce Inc., said he pushed San Francisco officials to clean up the city before his company's annual conference began in his hometown this week and was pleased with the results.

“We put a lot of pressure on the city this year,” Benioff said during a press event Wednesday. “This looks great. It's very safe at the moment. We're moving in the right direction.”

Benioff caused a stir last month when he said that Dreamforce, San Francisco's largest convention, could leave the city if the event's attendees experienced homelessness and drug use.

“Nobody liked that — I didn’t like saying it,” Benioff said of his threat during a separate event Wednesday on stage with California Gov. Gavin Newsom.

“We're coming after you, we want to keep you here,” Newsom said after Benioff noted that the city this week was the cleanest he'd ever seen.

About 43,000 people are expected to participate in Dreamforce, which will generate nearly $90 million for the city, a Salesforce spokesperson said, citing data from the San Francisco Travel Association. The conference is scheduled to end on Thursday.

Moving Salesforce's flagship annual meeting out of the city would be another blow to the region's tourism economy after major events hosted by Oracle Corp. and Google's cloud division were relocated from Alphabet Inc. According to the San Francisco Travel Association, conference spending remains well below pandemic levels — falling to $587 million in 2022 after generating nearly $2 billion in 2019.

The association estimates that convention-related hotel room nights will decline 34% in 2024 compared to this year. Overall visitor spending recovered faster and is expected to reach 88% of pre-pandemic levels this year.

Although Benioff was pleased with how this year went, he did not respond to a press question about whether Dreamforce would be back in San Francisco in 2024, saying city officials still had more work to do. “Homelessness remains a major problem in our city,” Benioff said, adding that more housing is needed and more police officers should be hired.

“It is an ongoing effort to increase the visibility of police and community ambassadors in key tourist areas,” said a spokesperson for Mayor London Breed’s office. “San Francisco is committed to making Dreamforce a world-class event, as we do year after year.”

Salesforce officials said there had been no reports of security incidents related to homelessness or drug use among conference attendees as of Wednesday afternoon. A spokesman for the San Francisco Police Department said there were no such incidents at last year's Dreamforce event.

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The post Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff says San Francisco cleaned up its troubled downtown after he pressured Metropolis Corridor appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

For decades, hordes of business titans have flocked to San Francisco every year for Salesforce's main conference – but that could be changing.

Marc Benioff, CEO of the customer management platform provider, warned that this year's Dreamforce conference could be the last to be held in the Golden City.

Dreamforce has been a major draw for the region since its inception two decades ago – about 40,000 people are expected to come to the Moscone Center for the two-day event, which begins Sept. 12.

The event program is top-notch: speakers include OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, Stanford computer science professor Fei-Fei Li, as well as celebrities like Matthew McConaughey, The Office's Rainn Wilson, and Oscar-winning director Spike Lee.

But San Francisco may no longer be up to the task of hosting a star-studded roster, Benioff warned.

According to Benioff, the event – this year complete with a performance by the Foo Fighters – was plagued by attendees complaining about homelessness and the city's dirty streets.

“If this Dreamforce is affected by the current situation with homelessness and drug use, it could be the last Dreamforce in the city,” Benioff told the San Francisco Chronicle in an interview published this week.

San Francisco has been making headlines for all the wrong reasons in recent months: Homelessness is rampant, shoplifting is on the rise, and gun violence and homicides remain high compared to before the pandemic.

For their part, Benioff and Salesforce are trying to help.

The warning that Dreamforce could leave San Francisco came after it was revealed that Salesforce had donated $1 million to the Salvation Army, an organization focused on helping the homeless.

Benioff added that he was working hard to ensure guests had an enjoyable time at Dreamforce, noting that organizers of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit, scheduled to take place in San Francisco in September, were also doing exactly that will observe.

“As always, we are working hand in hand with the city,” Benioff said. “We will bring a significant number of people to the city – 40,000 people – bringing $57 million to the downtown economy. So it is in all of our interests that things go well and that APEC goes well. This should be the focus of the city.”

San Francisco State

The West Coast city's newfound notoriety could be one of the themes of the conference, where San Francisco Mayor London Breed will speak during Dreamforce.

She will certainly have a lot to discuss. Just last week, the Democrat criticized the city's “homeless coalition” after a court denied the city's right to clear homeless encampments.

According to a 2022 count, just over 7,750 people live on the streets of San Francisco. Of these, around 3,360 sleep outdoors, while around 4,400 sleep in emergency shelters.

In addition, around 6,000 women were homeless and subjected to “overwhelming” levels of violence last year.

According to reports in the San Francisco Chronicle, many women are forced to sell sex to survive, while others are attacked on the streets or in shelters.

Homelessness is exacerbated by drug problems, which in turn drive out employers and businesses.

In April of this year, Whole Foods announced it was closing its flagship store in downtown San Francisco, citing employee safety.

The decision came after the San Francisco Standard reported that hours had been changed because of shoplifting and that restroom rules had been put in place because staff had found syringes and pipes in the facilities.

The city was also the scene of a high-profile knife attack that caught the attention of some of the biggest names in tech.

Bob Lee, the creator of Cash App, was killed in April and died in hospital after suffering multiple stab wounds.

Although a technology consultant has since been charged in the attack, the incident sparked a broader discussion about crime in San Francisco.

Elon Musk, a frequent critic of the city that calls his platform X – formerly Twitter – home, wrote on the social media site at the time: “Violent crime in SF is terrible, and even when attackers are caught, they are often immediately released .” ”

I'm very sorry to hear that. Many people I know have been severely attacked.

Violent crime in SF is terrible and even when attackers are caught, they are often immediately released.

Is the city taking stricter measures to lock up repeat violent offenders @BrookeJenkinsSF?

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 5, 2023

Musk, who is also CEO of Tesla, has similarly claimed that many Twitter employees “feel unsafe coming to work,” calling downtown San Francisco a “disaster,” describing it as “an abandoned zombie -Apocalypse”.

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Droves of business titans have made an annual pilgrimage to Salesforce’s headline conference in San Francisco for decades—but all that could be set to change.

Marc Benioff, CEO of the customer management platform provider, has warned that this year’s Dreamforce conference could be the last held in the Golden City.

Dreamforce has been a major pull to the area since it launched two decades ago—with some 40,000 people expected to descend on the Moscone Center for the two-day event beginning Sept. 12.

The event lineup is world-class: Speakers include OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, Stanford computer science professor, Fei-Fei Li, as well as celebrities such as Matthew McConaughey, The Office’s Rainn Wilson, and Oscar-winning director Spike Lee.

But San Francisco may no longer be up to the task of hosting a star-studded lineup, Benioff has warned.

The event—this year complete with a performance from Foo Fighters—has previously been plagued by complaints from attendees about the homelessness and dirty city streets, Benioff has claimed.

“If this Dreamforce is impacted by the current situation with homelessness and drug use it may be the last Dreamforce” in the city, Benioff told the San Francisco Chronicle in an interview published this week.

San Francisco has made headlines for all the wrong reasons in recent months: Homelessness is rampant, shoplifting is on the rise, and gun violence and homicides remain elevated compared with before the pandemic.

For his part, Benioff and Salesforce are trying to help.

The warning Dreamforce may depart San Francisco came after the news Salesforce had donated $1 million to the Salvation Army, an organization focused on helping homeless people.

Benioff added he was working hard to ensure guests had an enjoyable time at Dreamforce, noting that organizers of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit due to be held in San Francisco in September will also be closely watching.

“We’re working hand in hand with the city as we always do,” Benioff explained. “We’ll bring a significant number of people to the city—40,000 people—and it will generate $57 million in the downtown economy. So it’s in all of our interests for it to go well, and for APEC to go well. This should be the focus of the city.”

The state of San Francisco

The West Coast city’s newfound notoriety may form one of the themes of the conference, with Mayor of San Francisco London Breed set to speak during Dreamforce.

She’ll certainly have plenty to discuss. Only last week the Democrat blasted the city’s “homeless coalition” after a court blocked the city’s right to clear homeless encampments.

According to a 2022 count, there are just over 7,750 people living on the streets of San Francisco. Of those, approximately 3,360 are sleeping rough, while approximately 4,400 sleep in shelters.

On top of that, over the past year, some 6,000 women have been homeless at any given time, and are facing “overwhelming” levels of violence.

Many women are being forced to sell sex in order to survive, while others are assaulted living on the streets or in shelters according to reports from the San Francisco Chronicle.

Homelessness is compounded by drug problems, which in turn are pushing out employers and businesses.

In April this year, Whole Foods announced it was closing its flagship store in downtown San Francisco, citing employee safety.

The decision came after the San Francisco Standard reported opening hours had been changed because of shoplifting, while rules were introduced to bathroom use because staff found syringes and pipes in the facilities.

The city was also the scene of a high-profile stabbing that caught the attention of some of the biggest names in tech.

Cash App creator Bob Lee was killed in April, dying in hospital after suffering multiple knife wounds.

Although a tech consultant has since been charged with the attack, the incident prompted a wider conversation about crime in San Francisco.

Elon Musk, a frequent critic of the city his platform X—formerly Twitter—calls home, wrote on the social media site at the time: “Violent crime in SF is horrific, and even if attackers are caught, they are often released immediately.”

See more

Very sorry to hear that. Many people I know have been severely assaulted.

Violent crime in SF is horrific and even if attackers are caught, they are often released immediately.

Is the city taking stronger action to incarcerate repeat violent offenders @BrookeJenkinsSF?

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 5, 2023

Musk, who is also CEO of Tesla, has similarly claimed many Twitter employees “feel unsafe coming to work” and labeled downtown San Francisco a “disaster,” likening it to “a derelict zombie apocalypse.”

The post Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff says Dreamforce could go away San Francisco appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff is one of San Francisco’s biggest advocates, but claims he might have to relocate its marquee conference owing to the city’s homelessness and drug problems. Fabrice Coffrini—AFP/Getty Images

San Francisco is a hot-button topic for just about everyone these days, including the vocal tech industry leaders whose offices are scattered throughout the city’s sprawling downtown.

To Elon Musk, owner of X (formerly Twitter), located in the grungy Civic Center neighborhood, San Francisco is a “postapocalyptic” place. Venture capitalist Jason Calacanis has condemned the city as being run by “evil, incompetent fools and grifters who accomplish nothing except enabling rampant violence.”

The critics seemed to have won a new convert this week when Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, a longtime champion of San Francisco, threatened to move his annual Dreamforce conference to another city because of the rampant homelessness and drug use. “If this Dreamforce is impacted by the current situation with homelessness and drug use it may be the last Dreamforce,” Benioff told the San Francisco Chronicle in a story published Tuesday.

On Wednesday, however, Benioff, who was raised in San Francisco, was back to his usual self, talking up the city’s merits during Salesforce’s quarterly earnings call.

“We’re really seeing downtown San Francisco become A.I. central,” Benioff said during the conference call. He ticked off a list of hot A.I. startups based in the city, and noted that one such company (that he said he was not permitted to name) had just leased the entire building that Salesforce-owned Slack once occupied.

San Francisco, Benioff said on the call, “is becoming the number one A.I. city in the world.”

It was a jarring change of tune from Benioff’s comments hours earlier, and indicative of the ambivalent attitudes and glaring extremes on display every day in San Francisco.

Even as the city attracts a constant stream of richly funded tech startups and entrepreneurs, San Francisco remains in the midst of a dire crisis involving homelessness and a surge in lethal drug overdoses, with 473 people dying in 2023 alone. On Tuesday, a San Francisco court order preventing officials from clearing homeless encampments caught the ire of California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who called it “preposterous” and “inhumane.”

A source close to the situation told Fortune that Salesforce has been “communicating” its concerns to the city and the Moscone Center, the convention center that hosts Dreamforce, and noted that Salesforce could cancel any future bookings of the Moscone at any time (though with high cancellation fees).

“We’re working hand in hand with the city, as we always do,” Benioff told the Chronicle on Tuesday. “We’ll bring a significant number of people to the city—40,000 people—and it will generate $57 million in the downtown economy. So it’s in all of our interests for it to go well, and for APEC to go well. This should be the focus of the city.”

While there haven’t been any reported Dreamforce issues tied to homelessness or drug use in recent years, the Chronicle pointed out, Benioff had once shared with the Chronicle in 2018 that some attendees had sent him emails expressing concerns about the homelessness crisis and the unsanitary condition of the streets.

This year’s Dreamforce is set to kick off in San Francisco in less than two weeks. As for the event’s location in 2024, we may have to wait until Salesforce’s next earnings call.

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• Representatives for the California force are currently on a recruitment drive, visiting four Texas colleges 
• It comes after the police department had funding cut, causing them to pay out high amounts of overtime 
• San Francisco is currently experiencing high numbers of homelessness and open drug use 

San Francisco is trying to recruit cops from Texas as it faces a shortage of officers, after businessman Marc Benioff slammed the city’s homeless and drug problems.

The San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) is visiting four Texas university campuses throughout the month as part of a new recruitment drive. 

Candidates from outside of the state of California will take a written test, a physical ability test and an interview to see if they make they cut.

A police spokesperson told the San Francisco Standard that the number of estimated applications this year is 2,104, nearly a 20 percent increase from 1,756 last year.  

The recruitment push comes as the department faces staffing issues, causing them to pay out high amounts of overtime. 

Representatives for the California force are currently on a recruitment drive, visiting four Universities in Texas As part of the move, the SFPD are visiting four Universities, with the poster for Sam Houston State seen here The four Texan universities are Texas Southern University, Sam Houston State University, Prairie View A&M University and Texas A&M University Corpus Christi

The Standard reported that between 2017 and 2022, cops spent $88.9 million more on its employees, despite working fewer hours. 

The four Texan universities are Texas Southern University, Sam Houston State University, Prairie View A&M University and Texas A&M University Corpus Christi. 

Following widespread calls for reforms that swept the national following the murder of George Floyd, the department in the California city had their funding cut. 

Mayor London Breed was one of the first to openly speak out in support of defunding the police.

During a July 2020 press conference, Breed said: ‘We chose to change how this city and how this country treats our young Black men.’

Breed announced $120 million would be cut from the police and sheriff’s departments to reinvest in programs that help black and brown communities.

The following year, Breed u-turned on the decision and increased the police budget as the city faced a rampant rise in property crime and looting. 

At the time, she said: ‘More aggressive with the changes in our policies and less tolerant with all the bulls*** that has destroyed our city.’

Mayor London Breed speaks during the celebration of the 9th Annual Chinatown Night Out in San Francisco, California, United States on September 6, 2023 Latest figures up until Sunday show that there have been more homicides so far this year, than the whole of last year

Last year the San Francisco Board of Supervisors approved a $50 million increase in SFPD’s budget.

Latest figures up until Sunday show that there have been more homicides so far this year than the whole of last year. 

So far, there have been 40 murders in the city in 2023, while there was just 36 last year. 

Likewise, the number of robberies in the city is also higher now than for the whole of last year, with 1,989 reported incidents this year, compared to just 1,704 last year.  

The number of total crimes this year is also closely catching up with last years full total, with 36,573 crimes committed this year, compared to 37,674 in 2022.

It comes after Salesforce Inc. CEO Marc Benioff said that he had pushed officials in the city to clean the place up before the company’s annual conference. 

AI convention Dreamforce, which draws 40,000 people from around the world according to the company, was held in the city last week. 

During a press event on Wednesday, Benioff said: ‘We put a lot of pressure on the city this year. It looks great. It’s very safe right now. We’re moving in the right direction.’

Benioff, 58, held the event at the Moscone Center, which is in an area that is currently facing issues including homelessness, crime and open air drug markets, according to Kron4.

Benioff also posted on the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, saying: ‘San Francisco has been incredibly clean, beautiful, and safe for the last 3 days of Dreamforce.

‘It is great that the city is able to put its best foot forward for this major event that brings in 40K people from around the world, and $80M to the economy.

‘It is important to ask why the city cannot be this clean and safe every single day?’

Salesforce Inc. CEO Marc Benioff, pictured here, said he had pushed officials in the beleaguered California city to clean the place up The AI convention, which draws 40,000 people from around the world according to the company, was held in the city over the past few days

Benioff had previously warned that the company could pull the large scale convention from the city due to the ongoing problems it is facing.

He told The San Francisco Chronicle: ‘If this Dreamforce is impacted by the current situation with homelessness and drug use it may be the last Dreamforce.’

Mayor London Breed responded to Benioff’s claim that Dreamforce made the city’s transformation possible.

She told ABC7 News: ‘It’s not just because of Dreamforce. There are other conventions. This is what we do for every convention that comes to SF.

‘My pushback is San Francisco changing. Things are getting better.’

Despite this, Mayor Breed did concede that some areas of the city, particularly the Tenderloin and South of Market, did still present challenges. 

The city has struggled for years with rampant fentanyl use and fatal overdoses, and is on pace for its deadliest year yet.

More than 849 people are expected to die of drug overdoses in 2023, on pace to exceed the current record of 720 deaths in 2020

In the first five months of 2023, preliminary reports show there were 346 overdose deaths in the city – an increase of more than 40 percent from the same period in 2022.

Latest figures show that overdose deaths are continuing to rise, soaring in August with an additional 84 deaths, 66 involving fentanyl.  

Economists have warned the city is spiraling into an ‘urban doom loop’ – a vicious circle of interconnected trends and forces that send cities into economic and social ruin.

Over the past few months, dozens of retailers announced they would be vacating the downtown area of the city.

Drug addicts and the homeless congregate in the Tenderloin District of the California city Open drug use is now common in the city, something which the police are cracking down on San Francisco Police have attempted to shut down open-air drugs markets in the hard-hit Tenderloin and SoMa areas of the city. Pictured: 64-year-old Deliada Valdez who has been homeless for four years is seen in Tenderloin District of San Francisco, California, United States on August 28, 2023

Retail stalwart Old Navy announced they would be shuttering their flagship store in the area last month, becoming the latest chain to exit the city.

Nordstrom also announced they would be closing all of their locations in the city.

The company said that due to the ‘changing dynamics’ of San Francisco it would be shuttering all remaining stores in the next few months.

In April, Whole Foods announced it was closing all their locations, with Anthropologie and Office Depot having also made the same decisions.

High theft has proved a problem in the area recently, with a Walgreens in the city center resolving to chaining their freezers to stop shoplifters.

A map reveals the major businesses which have left, or plan to leave, San Francisco in recent months

A disturbing recent report showed 95 retailers in downtown San Francisco have closed since the start of the COVID pandemic, a decline of more than 50 percent.

Out of 203 retailers open in 2019 in the city’s Union Square area, just 107 are still operating, a drop of 47 percent in just a few pandemic-ravaged years.

One Target store in the city has been forced to lock up more of its products to stave off thieves.

An employee at the location previously said it was being robbed as often as ‘every ten minutes.’

Video footage of another Target has been shared on social media and shows large quantities of their stock now behind barriers.

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Marc Benioff, chief executive officer of Salesforce Marlena Sloss/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Salesforce Inc. Chief Executive Officer Marc Benioff said he pushed San Francisco officials to clean up the city before his company’s annual conference began in its hometown this week and is happy with the results.

“We put a lot of pressure on the city this year,” Benioff said Wednesday during a press event. “It looks great. It’s very safe right now. We’re moving in the right direction.” 

Benioff caused a stir last month when he said that Dreamforce, San Francisco’s largest convention, could leave the city if those attending the event were affected by homelessness and drug use.

“Nobody liked that — I didn’t like to say it,” Benioff said about his threat during a separate event Wednesday on stage with California Governor Gavin Newsom.

“We’re sucking up to you, we want to keep you here,” Newsom said, after Benioff remarked that the city this week is the cleanest he’s ever seen it.

About 43,000 people are expected to attend Dreamforce, which will generate almost $90 million for the city, a Salesforce spokesperson said, citing San Francisco Travel Association data. The conference is scheduled to conclude on Thursday. 

A move away from the city by Salesforce’s most-significant annual meeting would be another blow to the area’s tourism economy, following the relocation of major events run by Oracle Corp. and the cloud division of Alphabet Inc.’s Google. Conference spending remains far below pandemic levels — falling to $587 million in 2022 after generating almost $2 billion in 2019, according to the San Francisco Travel Association. 

The association estimates that convention-related hotel stays will decline 34% in 2024 compared with this year. Overall visitor spending has been quicker to rebound, and is expected to be at 88% of pre-pandemic levels this year.

Despite being happy with how things have gone this year, Benioff didn’t respond to a press question about whether Dreamforce would be back in San Francisco in 2024, saying city officials have more work to do. “Homelessness remains a major issue in our city,” Benioff said, adding that more housing is needed and more police officers should be hired.

“Ramping up police visibility and community ambassadors in key tourist areas has been an ongoing effort,” said a spokesperson for Mayor London Breed’s office. “San Francisco is committed to making Dreamforce a world-class event, as we do year after year.”

Salesforce representatives said there haven’t been any reports of safety incidents around homelessness or drug use affecting conference attendees as of Wednesday afternoon. A San Francisco Police Department spokesman said there were no such incidents during last year’s Dreamforce event either.

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Tech

By Thomas Barrabi

Published
Sep. 14, 2023, 12:41 p.m. ET

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff took credit for San Francisco’s effort to clean up the streets ahead of his company’s biggest annual conference this week — days after he publicly threatened to pull the event due to rampant crime and homelessness in the city.

Benioff had demanded action from city and state officials ahead of his firm’s annual “Dreamforce” conference, warning that the 2023 edition could be the last to take place in San Francisco unless local leaders addressed his concerns.

“We put a lot of pressure on the city this year,” Benioff told reporters on Wednesday, according to Bloomberg. “It looks great. It’s very safe right now. We’re moving in the right direction.”

Losing the Dreamforce conference would be yet another major blow for San Francisco, which has seen an exodus of companies and constant criticism from executives as it struggles with lawlessness, drug use and other glaring public safety issues.

This year, the conference was expected to attract approximately 43,000 visitors and generate nearly $90 million in revenue for San Francisco, according to data from the San Francisco Travel Association cited by Salesforce.

Marc Benioff had demanded action from city and state officials ahead of his firm’s annual “Dreamforce” conference.AP

Benioff reportedly dodged a follow-up question on whether San Francisco’s apparent progress meant that Salesforce’s conference would return next year.

“Homelessness remains a major issue in our city,” Benioff said.

He also called on San Francisco to hire more police officers, step up enforcement of existing laws and build more affordable housing.

San Francisco is contending with a wave of petty crime and homelessness.AP

A Gallup poll last month found that nearly half of Americans believe the once-shimmering City by the Bay is a dangerous place, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

One notable critic of San Francisco’s management is X owner Elon Musk, who said in May that the city felt “post-apocalyptic.”

Bloomberg noted that Oracle and Google had recently moved events out of San Francisco.

Dreamforce runs through Thursday and features a mixture of speeches and panel discussions, entertainment and appearances from well-known celebrities and blue-chip executives.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom joked that local officials were sucking up to Benioff.AP

Speaking at a later event on Wednesday, Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom quipped that officials were “sucking up” to Benioff because “we want to keep you here.”

“Ramping up police visibility and community ambassadors in key tourist areas has been an ongoing effort,” a spokesperson for San Francisco Mayor London Breed said in a statement. “San Francisco is committed to making Dreamforce a world-class event, as we do year after year.”

Last month, Benioff openly stated that Dreamforce would need a new home if local officials did not address major issues plaguing San Francisco.

Marc Benioff had threatened to pull “Dreamforce” out of San Francisco.AP

“If this Dreamforce is impacted by the current situation with homelessness and drug use it may be the last Dreamforce” in the city, Benioff told the San Francisco Chronicle on Aug. 29.

Salesforce did not immediately return The Post’s request for further comment.

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• patient care

• January 21, 2022

American College of Surgeons Confers Level 1 Surgery Status After Rigorous Evaluation Process

By Jess Bertold

Members of the team at UCSF Benioff Children’s San Francisco who worked toward securing Level 1 Surgery status celebrate their success. Image credit: Raymond Ibale

UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital San Francisco has been verified as a Level 1 Children’s Surgery Center by the American College of Surgeons (ACS) – in honor that was six years in the making.

UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital San Francisco was the second children’s hospital in California to achieve Level 1 Surgery status, after UC Davis Children’s Hospital. To receive the designation, a hospital must demonstrate compliance with the ACS Children’s Surgery Verification program standards, and enroll in the ACS Pediatric National Surgical Quality Improvement Program (NSQIP), a multispecialty database used to measure surgical outcomes and improve care. UCSF enrolled in the Pediatric NSQIP in 2015.

“Becoming a Level 1 Surgery center reflects a great deal of planning, commitment, and hard work on the part of many staff and faculty and demonstrates our unwavering commitment to the patients and families we serve,” said Matt Cook, president of UCSF Benioff Children’s hospitals. “We are excited to continue building upon our pediatric health system in order to provide the safest and highest quality patient-centered care.”

UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital Oakland is an ACS-verified Level 1 Trauma Center, and recently hired a NSQIP pediatric surgeon champion and pediatric surgical quality analyst to facilitate its verification process as a Level 1 Surgery Center.

A Creative COVID Workaround

To meet the 136 standards required in the ACS application, the San Francisco facility assembled a Children’s Surgery Verification team and created a Perioperative Performance Improvement and Patient Safety (PIPS) Committee, which includes representatives from every pediatric surgical specialty, medical proceduralists, anesthesiology, neonatology , critical care medicine, hospital leadership, OR nursing, radiology, emergency medicine, and the Child Life Program.

Ayanna Fritton, RN, Children’s Surgery program manager, helped to guide the Children’s Surgery Verification program from infancy and through the application and evaluation process.

Additionally, “the program structure gave way for the creation of new policies and procedures, building a data source platform and implementing changes to the current credentialing and privileging for specific providers,” said Ayanna Fritton, RN, Children’s Surgery Program Manager, who has helped to guide the program from infancy and through the application and evaluation process.

“The ACS standards go beyond the hospital walls into community outreach, patient transport and follow-up discharge care, always with the goal of joining these pieces with the in-hospital experience,” Fritton said. “This way, we are providing high-quality, coordinated care to all patients, including many who are medically complex.”

A two-day site visit is the ACS’s required last step in the application process. Every site visit has a three-person survey team comprising a pediatric surgeon, anesthesiologist and nurse who review the hospital facility, clinical outcome data and quality improvement process. The original site visit was scheduled for May 2020, but was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Lan Vu, MD, UCSF associate professor of Surgery, is medical director of surgical quality and physician champion of the Children’s Surgery Verification program.

UCSF’s Children’s Surgery Verification team got creative, volunteering to be a pilot site for the ACS to test their virtual site visit format. They made a series of hospital tour videos featuring the three critical care units, perioperative area, ED and radiology. It was narrated by Lan Vu, MD, UCSF associate professor of Surgery, medical director of surgical quality and physician champion of the Children’s Surgery Verification program.

Of more than 220 children’s hospitals across the country, only 38 were verified Level 1 Children’s Surgery Centers at the time of UCSF’s designation. ACS renews verification status every three years, and enrollment in the verification program is currently voluntary.

“We anticipate that verification status may dictate resource allocation and patient referrals in the future, similar to the established Trauma Center designation,” Vu said. “More importantly, the program supports UCSF’s mission to provide excellence in patient care.”

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