It’s Fall (Faculty Meeting), Y’all

Good morning!

Thanksgiving is over, but last week’s Fall Faculty Meeting was an opportunity to highlight our recent accomplishments and thank those who contributed to the excellence of this institution in 2023.

The state of this institution and the characteristics that make up its foundation – training future health professionals, caring for patients and leading impactful research – are strong, and I value all of the work you’ve done over the past year tostrengthen it further. Our patients and others who have a vested interest in this Medical Center have noticed.

I closed out my presentation by sharing some emails I recently received from appreciative patients and families who were so moved and appreciative of the care we provided that they had to tell someone. I love reading these personal accounts. This feedback represents the spectrum of our patient care, and it’s not uncommon that I hear about high praise like this coming in for the work being done here. In addition to saying thanks for letting me know about what we did right in the care we provided them or their loved one, I also ask them to “Tell your friends.” Thank you all for the work you do to create such wonderful comments.

During my presentation, I went into depth on a broad array of topics, but here are some highlights from across our institution.

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Leapfrog

I’ve mentioned this before but it bears repeating how excited I am for our fall 2023 Leapfrog scores. UMMC Grenada earned an A in the annual survey and our Jackson hospitals together earned a B, which was closer to an A than a C. These represent the highest scores we’ve ever received from the national nonprofit that sets standards for excellence in patient care.

It is great news, but it is not the end of the road in our quality journey. Quality is still our number one priority. I firmly believe if you get that piece right, everything else will follow. We’re going to keep our foot on the gas and go for all A's in the future.

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UMMC 2025 Five-Year Strategic Plan

We have five overarching strategies in our plan – maximize value in quality of care, drive strategic clinical growth, expand health care services statewide, position academic programs for the next generation of learners and strengthen research programs – and 20 goals for this, the third year of the plan.

We’ve got a lot of wins coming out of the strategic plan initiatives thus far in fiscal 2024, including in the area of patient care access.

We’ve measured a 17.4 percent increase over last year in outpatient clinic patient encounters, and we’re ahead of where we budgeted in several important performance indicators:

• 11.2 percent ahead in outpatient surgeries
• 15.1 percent in outpatient clinic visits

The number one complaint I hear from people outside the Medical Center is, “I can’t get an appointment.” We’re making significant strides in this area, most notably in radiology area. Dr. Rich Duszak, chair of radiology, has implemented several initiatives that have dropped first-available appointment timelines to same-day from what was as far out as more than month.

To address another strategic goal, 15 research faculty have been hired in the last year, with four focused on cancer research. We plan for 20 basic science and 10 population health cancer researchers in the next three to five years.

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Financials

Our patient care revenues are ahead of where we budgeted, but our operating expenses are also higher than budgeted. We’re almost $10 million off, so that’s a challenge. The good news is revenue dollars are going up, but we’ve got to watch expenses carefully. There are a number of academic medical centers across the country that are not growing or are in bad financial situations, so I feel very good about where we are. We’ll correct the budget deficit, and I expect that we will hit or exceed our targets.

Assisting our bottom line, we had almost 5,000 donors give about $35 million in FY23 to all parts of the Medical Center. The appreciation our supporters show to what you do here is heartwarming and impactful on many levels.

Our annual appropriation from the Mississippi Legislature for FY24 is $184.4 million, which is up $7 million from last year. If we include the $55M we were appropriated last year for the new School of Nursing facility, that’s over $100 million in funding for extra projects on this campus. Included in that figure:

• $40 million for new School of Dentistry building
• $6 million for adolescent psych unit (ARPA funds)
• $16.89 million for facilities improvements and renovations
• $3 million for repairs and improvements of grounds and infrastructure

As a reminder, be sure you coordinate with Anna Moak Sparks and Kristy Simms before talking with lawmakers. They’re hugely responsible for these successes we’ve had. Coordinate with them; I can’t say that enough.

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Education

Our enrollment was up about 300 students across all schools in 2022-2023, 3,114 in total, including residents and fellows. We’ve had lots of growth in particular in the now, which is exciting and greatly needed.

One area for growth is the new traditional BSN program in Oxford. For years, we’ve had an accelerated program there, and students began enrolling in this new option this fall. I think it will be wildly popular.

We want to give kudos to Dr. Jay Garner, dean of the School of Health Related Professions, and his team, as 100 percent of students in the Bachelor of Radiologic Science, Master of Magnetic Resonance Imaging and Master of Nuclear Medicine Technology passed their board exams on the first attempt.

And we have a new curriculum in the School of Medicine. The early indicators such as student satisfaction, student performance and informal faculty feedback are very positive.

The state of our education mission area is strong.

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Research

Our research mission is also doing well and running on all cylinders.

We were awarded $96.8 million in extramural funds in FY23, which was a bit of a dip from the previous year, but in part because of a change in how we report clinical trials funding.

Some recent research highlights include:

• Jason Griggs received the Wilmer Souder Award, the highest honor by the International Association of Dental Researchers.
• The School of Population Health held its inaugural research day and celebrated record highs in awarded research grants and money.
• Under the direction of Dr. Michael Garrett, chair of the Department of Cell and Molecular Biology, the Molecular Center of Health and Disease was established and named an NIH-designated center.

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Patient Care

I already mentioned our positive momentum in access. This effort will be helped when the current build-out of unused space in University Hospital and Conerly Critical Care Hospital are complete, which will make available an additional 18 ICU and 32 med/surg beds.

I also shared with the faculty and others in the audience that we have embarked on a project that could have a significant impact on the lives of all Mississippians.

You all know we have terrible cancer outcomes in Mississippi. We have a lot of need. I would wager every single person reading this in some way or another has had their own lives or those of their family members, neighbors, loved ones or friends impacted by cancer. Our goal is to achieve National Cancer Institute (NCI) Designation for our center, which we anticipate to be a decade-long goal and plan. It feels like the stars have lined up, and the time is really right. It’s something we as an organization will put a lot of focus, energy and horsepower behind. I feel like, as the only academic medical center in the state, it’s our responsibility and obligation to do this work.

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20-year citations

Near the end of my presentation, I was honored to recognize our 20-year faculty for 2023:

• Sheila Bouldin, School of Medicine
• Jeff Carron, School of Medicine
• Marilyn Harrington, School of Nursing
• Michael Hebert, School of Medicine
• Billy Mink, School of Medicine
• John Schweinfurth, School of Medicine
• Stanley Smith, School of Medicine

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These are all just snippets of the treasure trove of information I shared in my hour-long talk. We have so many reasons to feel hopeful about the future of the Medical Center in 2024. All these accomplishments, partnerships and community efforts combined help us move closer to A Healthier Mississippi.