Our Difference

The UCLA Robert G. Kardashian Center for Esophageal Health is a unique center that benefits from an unparalleled environment for carrying out its core missions: providing outstanding clinical and health-promoting services, advancing the state of the field through cutting-edge research, educating clinicians and the public and serving the broader community of greater Los Angeles in ways that improve lives.

Expert care for esophageal disorders

Unlike most hospital esophageal and motility programs, UCLA’s features a quaternary care academic medical center and a renowned medical school — all within a short walk of one another on the same physical campus of a world-class university. The UCLA Robert G. Kardashian Center for Esophageal Health is part of the integrated UCLA Health system, with premier hospitals, clinics operating throughout Los Angeles, and even UCLA faculty physicians staffing partner community hospitals in the region. Taking advantage of these rich resources, the center promotes patient-centered, holistic, and state-of-the-art care — along with research — that brings wide-ranging experts to bear on fundamental issues of esophageal health, motility studies, and treatment.

Patients from throughout the region and around the world are referred to our center's expert clinicians for the treatment of some of the most complex esophageal conditions, to benefit from motility expertise, to be a part of cutting-edge research, and to receive promising new therapies.

The center also provides outstanding care for more common conditions such as gastroesophageal reflux disease. With all patients, the goal is not just diagnosing and treating the disease but optimizing health.

We do this through the efforts of our multidisciplinary team that includes specialists drawn from a vast pool of experts on the UCLA campus, including:

• Physicians
• Registered dietitians
• Integrative health practitioners
• GI health psychologists

Esophageal research spans from laboratory studies to community outreach

The state-of-the-art care provided at the center is advanced by the world-renowned research enterprise both within the Vatche and Tamar Manoukian Division of Digestive Diseases, the UCLA Health Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center,  UCLA Department of Surgery and throughout UCLA, where scientists in research laboratories work closely with physicians to bring discoveries to fruition in the form of new and improved diagnostics, treatments and prevention strategies. The revolutions in genetic studies, data science, and information technology have ushered in a new era of precision health — the ability to deliver the right treatment to the right patient, every time. In conjunction with UCLA's new Institute for Precision Health, the center is leveraging these remarkable advances, along with the breadth and depth of expertise at UCLA, to develop personalized approaches to health promotion and treatment.

The center is also an integral part of the  UCLA Value-Based Care Research Consortium, which uses research to design strategies for improving the quality and outcomes of care while reducing cost. This consortium, a multidisciplinary effort involving physicians, biomedical scientists and biostatisticians, is ensuring that diagnostic tests, medications and procedures for esophageal conditions are ordered and prescribed appropriately and in an evidence-based manner.

The center harnesses the power of technology to improve patients' access to care through such strategies as an interactive electronic health record, telemedicine, home health monitoring, and the latest screening and diagnostic modalities. As part of our Technology Development Group, scientists and physicians work with entrepreneurs in a constant effort to develop innovative technologies that will improve the health of our patients and our community.

As part of our educational mission and with the growing infrastructure for UCLA Health, we collaborate with faculty in both hospital and outpatient care settings throughout Los Angeles to ensure that patients, including traditionally underserved populations, receive the highest-quality care. We also engage with our community to educate patients about steps they can take to improve their health. At the UCLA Robert G. Kardashian Center for Esophageal Health, we view ourselves as part of an integrative healthcare team — working with patients, primary care physicians, other specialists, scientists, and educators to promote healthy and fulfilling lives.