Health Sciences Update
Nov. 7, 2006
Dear Colleagues:
One year ago, issues related to our medical center’s liver transplant program were raised in local media. While the subsequent 12 months challenged us in multiple ways, they also provided an opportunity for us to review and assess all aspects of our health sciences enterprise and make meaningful changes to ensure the continual evolution and improvement of our programs. Following is an update on our activities and – even more gratifying – a sampling of the awards and accolades we have received in the past year, a rich testimony to the excellence of teaching, research and patient care at the University of California, Irvine.
Key to our progress are 17 reviews and surveys of UC Irvine Medical Center conducted in the past year by external agencies, including the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the California Department of Health Services and the blue-ribbon committee I appointed to conduct a thorough, independent review of events leading to the liver transplant program’s closure. The committee submitted its report to me in February 2006 and our follow-up has been vigorous and highly productive.
Blue-Ribbon Committee Recommendations
We created a new position – vice chancellor for health affairs and dean of the School of Medicine – that will report directly to my office and oversee the entire spectrum of UCI health sciences. A national search – led by Dr. Alan Barbour, a professor in the School of Medicine – is currently under way. A shortlist of outstanding candidates has been identified, interviews are taking place and we expect to name the new vice chancellor in the near future.
To ensure the continuing momentum of our health sciences activities and initiatives until the vice chancellor is on board, an executive management committee composed of senior representatives from the School of Medicine and UC Irvine Medical Center is meeting weekly and playing a key role in building a foundation upon which the incoming vice chancellor can build.
With the recent stepping down of Dean Tom Cesario, Dr. Manuel Porto is serving as acting dean of the College of Health Sciences. Dr. Porto, who joined UCI in 1984, has been listed in the national edition of Best Doctors in America several times and is widely recognized for his teaching and clinical work. To assist Dr. Porto, we have appointed Dennis Cunningham acting vice dean for academic affairs and Dr. John Heydt acting vice dean for clinical operations. Dr. Alberto Manetta will continue his role as senior associate dean of educational affairs, overseeing medical education programs and PRIME–LC, and Dr. Frank Meyskens will continue as senior associate dean for health sciences.
This summer, 70 School of Medicine and medical center leaders participated in intensive strategic planning sessions at Vanderbilt University’s Center for Better Health. Their goal: to optimally align and integrate the various components of UCI health sciences. Continuing this effort, we are developing a framework for ongoing evaluation of our health sciences priorities and programs, refining the health sciences vision and identity, implementing leadership development programs, reviewing faculty roles and compensation models, integrating our health sciences organizational structure and enhancing the quality of health sciences communications.
We also retained Navigant Consulting – internationally known for its financial, regulatory and operational advisory services – to review progress toward recommendations made after a medical center site visit four years ago and make further recommendations as appropriate. The outcome of this return visit was excellent; most of Navigant’s additional recommendations have been completed or are in process.
To ensure that existing or potential problems can be easily reported, we hired Gecole Harley, an attorney with extensive experience as a mediator and organizational problem-solver, as ombudsperson for health sciences. Reporting directly to my office, she provides confidential, impartial and informal dispute resolution assistance to employees – including faculty, staff, health care professionals, residents, medical students and volunteers – at the medical center, School of Medicine, Gottschalk Medical Plaza and our community clinics.
Finally, we are reviewing all of our clinical programs to identify vulnerabilities and close the gap between current and best practices. The review committee is composed of senior administrators and ad hoc members who are nationally recognized experts in their fields; the depth and quality of their feedback has been extraordinary. I am pleased that this process is significantly ahead of schedule: More than half of the departmental reviews have been completed, with action plans developed and currently being implemented. Our target date for completion of all reviews has been moved up from April 2008 to September 2007.
Health Sciences Achievements and Distinctions
Thanks to the commitment and dedication of UC Irvine Medical Center’s employee community, our hospital was recently named among the top 50 nationally for quality and safety by the Leapfrog Group, an independent consortium of Fortune 500 companies that reports on health care quality, safety and affordability. Of more than 1,200 hospitals measured, the medical center received top marks for medication safety, doctor-patient communication and efforts to decrease hospital-acquired infections. UC Irvine Medical Center also was recently recognized by the University Healthsystem Consortium as one of the top 20 academic medical centers nationwide for high performance in quality and safety across a wide variety of patient populations.
U.S. News & World Report currently ranks the medical center among the best hospitals nationally in the areas of gynecology, urology, cancer and digestive disorders. And for the second straight year, the School of Medicine cracked U.S. News’ ranking of the top 50 medical schools for research. In 2005-06, UCI health sciences researchers were awarded $210 million in extramural funding, surpassing all previous totals, and $61 million in private support – another all-time record that indicates the growing engagement of our friends in the community.
Building for the Future
Construction on the new university hospital at UC Irvine Medical Center is moving ahead, with the framework towering impressively over Interstate 5 near the Chapman exit. More than $13 million in private support was raised for the hospital in 2005-06 – including $900,000 from our employee community and bringing the campaign total to $30 million. Two years remain to reach the $50 million fundraising target; the hospital is scheduled for completion in early 2009.
We recently established three new programs to broaden educational opportunities for our students. Nursing science, Orange County’s first four-year undergraduate program, will help address California’s critical nursing shortage. Pharmaceutical sciences will prepare students for careers in the pharmaceutical and biotech industries. And the public health program, in conjunction with social ecology, will educate students on emerging threats associated with global environmental change, bioterrorism and human population growth. These undergraduate programs are the first steps for these emerging programs, which will ultimately offer master’s and doctoral degrees.
The progress we’ve made over the past year has been extraordinary. As we continue to live our values – applying them to the work we do and to our interactions with others – the coming year will be even more productive and gratifying. I want to extend my heartfelt thanks to all members of our employee community for their patience and support as we worked through these issues. And I particularly want to thank those among you who put in extra days, weeks – even months – to facilitate the development of solutions and strategies for a successful future.
Michael V. Drake, M.D.
Chancellor
