Phase two begins.
President Steven Knapp and Provost Steven Lerman will hold a town hall meeting for faculty, staff and students at the Medical Center tomorrow. The subject of the meeting will be the review of the Medical Center that was requested last May by the Medical Center Committee of the Board of Trustees. The meeting comes as the university enters phase two of the review, in which faculty and other stakeholders will be engaged in planning for the Medical Center’s future structure, vision and strategy.
“The consultants found that the Medical Center has made tremendous progress over the course of the last decade, resolving its earlier financial issues, developing its still young School of Public Health and Health Services (SPHHS) and launching a new School of Nursing (SON),” says Dr. Knapp. “This review will help us prepare our academic health programs to achieve even greater success in the challenging period ahead.”
The second phase will be guided by recommendations developed by a team of experts from BDC Advisors, who in phase one of the process performed an organizational assessment based on more than 30 interviews with stakeholders over the course of three months, with particular focus on the current structural relationship between the Medical Center and the School of Medicine and Health Sciences (SMHS).
The multiphase review was requested by the Medical Center Committee of the Board of Trustees in view of the approaching 10th anniversary of the creation of the center’s current structure, the changing conditions of the health care marketplace as a result of local competition and health care reform legislation, and the university’s commitment to raising the center’s academic stature.
Based on its phase one review, BDC Advisors has presented to the university a set of recommendations. These recommendations are publicly available by clicking here.
Specific recommendations included:
• having the deans of SMHS, SPHHS and SON report directly to the provost;
• eliminating the vice provost/vice president for health affairs as a separate position; and
• strengthening the role of the dean of SMHS by giving him or her responsibility for the school’s educational and research activities as well as its relationships with its clinical partners.
In making these recommendations, BDC Advisors stated that this restructuring would “better position [the Medical Center] to meet current and future needs” and encouraged the university to “engage its faculty and medical center partners in a process to further evaluate and test this recommendation.”
BDC Advisors also noted that “there is a need to clarify the vision, strategy and financial plan, including philanthropy,” shared by the university, George Washington University Hospital and Medical Faculty Associates.
BDC Advisors emphasized that while the Medical Center and its partners “performed well over the past decade, fundamental changes in the health care economy and local market are changing the competitive landscape.”
In the future, it said, “health system success will be based less on reputation and volume and more on integration of care and effectively delivering better quality and more efficient care. Strategies that succeeded over the past decade are unlikely to be sufficient in the next.”
At Dr. Knapp’s request, Dr. Lerman has formed an advisory committee to facilitate the phase two review process, which will begin officially with tomorrow’s town hall meeting.
The advisory committee will hold its first meeting next week. At the same time, the university is in ongoing discussions with current Medical Center leadership, including Senior Vice Provost and Vice President for Health Affairs John “Skip” Williams, to determine the best way to move forward. Dr. James Scott last month announced his intention to step down as dean of the School of Medicine and Health Sciences in January and return full time to the faculty to ensure the independence of the next phase of the review.
“I am extremely grateful to Drs. Williams and Scott for their service and to the Board of Trustees for its support as we continue to build the stature of our academic health programs and enhance their many contributions to human well-being,” says Dr. Knapp.