Into the Future

Good morning!

I was recently asked to speak to the IHL Board on the next 10 years for UMMC, and I want to share with you some of what I presented to them.

This will be the first column of a two-part VC Notes about the future of the Medical Center, including all parts of our mission. This week, I want to focus on administration, education and research. Next week, I will address health care.

The following really reflects a blur between the next five to 10 years. Some plans are firm and some are still under development and contingent upon – well, everything.

So, first, let’s look back at the last seven years, touching on just a few of the many successes. In the summer and fall of 2015, after I was named vice chancellor in March, a small team of leaders visited several academic medical centers around the country to learn from them. We visited those that, like us, are in rural states, are state entities, and face serious challenges in the health status of its citizens. And most were the only academic medical center in that state. We selected entities that, in our opinion, had made advances or tackled challenges that we also needed to address. From those visits, we gleaned the model for legislation, which the state legislature passed in 2017, that would allow future business and operational flexibility. We solidified our plans around our health care quality program and gained a deeper understanding of the need for a robust enterprise-wide data system, among other things.

Here are a few highlights since 2015:

• 2015 – health care quality program established; began expanding data management infrastructure
• 2017 – HCCA legislation passed (to allow some business and operational flexibility)
• 2017 – opened School of Medicine building and Translational Research Center facilities
• 2017 – established School of Population Health
• 2019 – opened Clinical Research Trials Unit
• 2020 – opened Sanderson Tower (successful $100M philanthropic campaign)
• 2020 – opened Mississippi Center for Emergency Services
• 2021 – completed successful SACS Accreditation
• Over the seven years, growth in: revenue (~20% total); enrollment; external research funding (>70%); and clinical volumes and footprint
• PANDEMIC

Now for the future. The following are some of the goals and initiatives for administration, education and research, not an exhaustive list nor in rank order.

On the leadership team, we need to be intentional in thinking about succession planning and bandwidth.

It is critical that we achieve an overall financial bottom line to meet the IHL financial sustainability requirements and to allow for investment in the Medical Center. We have targeted earnings of 6-8 % over the next five to six years. This is an aggressive target but essential to our future if we are to make the most critical investment of all – an annual re-investment in our employees through incentive pay, merit pool and market adjustments.

We will continue to advance our annual fundraising target.

In education, we will elevate our efforts toward achieving greater diversity in our student body, residents, faculty and leadership teams at UMMC, and we will benchmark ourselves against national metrics. 

We have plans for the growth of all six schools based on the workforce needs in Mississippi. The retention of our graduates will continue to be a key metric of focus for the foreseeable future. Leadership in the schools will be important in helping us achieve the high goals set. In the next year, we will have identified a dean for the School of Health Related Professions. Dr. Thomas Dobbs has just begun as the dean for the School of Population Health, and I anticipate expansion in all aspects of the school and its programs.

We are thrilled to be planning a new education building for the School of Nursing. We have plans to grow our nursing programs on this campus as well as in Oxford and to seek other partnership possibilities. 

A long-term goal for the School of Medicine is for Mississippi to achieve a national ranking of middle third for physicians per capita by 2035. We are in the early phase of planning and seeking funding for a School of Dentistry clinic building, which will allow us to renovate the current dental school building for research and education and prepare for growth of our dental and dental hygiene student population. In the Graduate School for Health Sciences, we are increasing student enrollment with an eye toward creating a pipeline of future scientists for UMMC.

We have made great gains in our research enterprise over the last few years. A key future element is an increased focus on clinical trials. As we have reached the target of $100M per year of external funding, we want to set a new benchmark of $160-200M per year of external funding for the Medical Center. Of course, this is a multiyear goal. We have established expectations for School of Medicine basic science departments regarding external funding levels, and we will expand the process of setting expectations for other research faculty across the organization.

We have stated our key areas of research focus are and will be: cardiovascular, diabetes, obesity, cancer, health disparities/population health, neurosciences and women’s and children’s health. For cancer, we will intensify our efforts markedly with a goal of achieving NCI designation. We consider this an ethical imperative. 

We have set a target of increasing our Blue Ridge Institute Medical Research ranking for total NIH funding from the current rank of 91/143 to rank of 70 in five to seven years.

So, as we look across the horizon to the next five to ten years, this is much of what is on my mind. These are bold plans but they are necessary for A Healthier Mississippi.