Office of the Executive Vice Chancellor
The University of Kansas Medical Center is part of the University of Kansas and is governed by the Kansas Board of Regents system.
Each year, I welcome this opportunity to come to the Medical Center to give you a personal update on the state of the university and the state of this academic health center. Today's convocation is particularly momentous, because the School of Medicine will celebrate its centennial during 2005, followed by the School of Nursing in 2006.
When you think of all the changes that have occurred along Rainbow Boulevard during the past century, and all the changes in the practice of medicine and medical research in that time, you feel great pride.
From modest beginnings with the Bell Hospital and a program split between Lawrence and Kansas City the University of Kansas has had a tremendous impact on health care throughout Kansas and the United States.
We have taught and sent forth 100 graduating classes of doctors some to the great hospitals and research centers of the world, others to inner city clinics and rural practices.
Thanks to the KU Medical Center, that simple phrase "The doctor will see you now" comes like a benediction to anxious patients in a thousand waiting rooms.
Without you, and without the graduates we produce here, the face of health care in Kansas would be dramatically different.
But even with this proud history, we have to admit, these are challenging times for academic health centers. You know this better than anyone. I am beginning my 10th year as Chancellor and Don Hagen is beginning his 10th year as Executive Vice Chancellor. Together, with you, we have seen the rise of managed care, capitation, various federal adjustments to Medicaid and Medicare, federal legislation , like the stark laws, which dramatically change the ways we operate, discounted reimbursement mechanisms, pleas to train fewer specialists, and pleas to train more specialists, pleas to train fewer nurses and pleas to train more nurses. Dr. Atkinson told me yesterday that now we are getting pleas to train more physicians.
Our state's budget cuts have not made things easier, and they have required sacrifices. You have had to work extra hard to maintain quality in these circumstances. Still, even at a difficult time, last year's Legislature added $500,000 for the KU Medical Center, reflecting a portion of the Board of Regents' original request for a special appropriate to this campus. I believe the state budget is beginning to turn around. Better days are ahead.
The most significant non-budget issue for KU last spring is one that offers great opportunity for the Med Center. The Kansas Economic Growth Act created a "Biosciences Authority" in the state, modeled, in part, on the University of Kansas Hospital Authority. The goal of this bill is to invest $500 million in new tax revenue--generated over the next decade by growing biosciences companies--to fund biosciences research, commercialization, facilities, and new faculty positions at KU and other universities in the state.
KU can be a major beneficiary of such an initiative, because of you, because we are the state's leading medical research university and a strong partner in the Kansas City Area Life Sciences Institute. KU and the Board of Regents supported this bill, and are grateful to Representative Kenny Wilk and Senator Nick Jordan for their visionary leadership of this initiative.
The Board of Regents will be represented on the Biosciences Authority Board by myself, along with President Wefald of Kansas State. We are eager to get started.
We have seen an unprecedented growth in the Research activity of KU faculty, fueled by the NIH budget reaching $24 billion, double what it was only a few years ago. Last year, KU faculty at KUMC, competed for and won $70 million in research grants and contracts, up from $42 million in 1997. This kind of effort is why the legislature authorized construction of KU's Medical Research Building, which is beginning to rise across the street.
As you know, it is a big building, and is consuming whole parking lots in the process.
It reminds me of how research continues to be a growth industry for the entire university, with total expenditures reaching $258 million during fiscal year 2003. Last fall, at Lawrence, we announced "the largest grant ever awarded to a Kansas university," at $17 million from the National Science Foundation for the Center for Environmentally Beneficial Catalysis.
Not to be outdone, Joan Hunt and the KU Medical Center recently received an $18 million, five-year award from the National Institutes of Health to support the Kansas IdeA Networks of Biomedical Research Excellence (K-INBRE).
"It is the largest grant ever awarded to a Kansas university," a phrase I enjoy using and would be happy to recite every nine to 12 months!
Research is not the only area we take pride in. Nursing and Allied Health have had many educational successes.
Innovations in technology-based education
Creating "Certificate Programs" for Post-Professional Health Care Providers across Kansas
Board of Regents approval for new degrees to meet the demands of the Healthcare Marketplace
Rankings - the 2004 edition of the US News & World Report ranked the following programs:
Similarly, the School of Medicine has much to be proud of.
The Hospital, The University of Kansas Teaching Hospital, has gone from 175 million dollars in revenue in 1997 to over 400 million this past year, and from 13,000 patients in 1977 to almost 19,000 this year. The Hospital has earned its highest accreditation ranking ever. If you measure volume by the average daily census, it is the highest ever recorded by the hospital.
Other hospital accomplishments include:
These are all reasons to be proud of what's happening at the Medical Center, and there are many more accomplishments I could mention. Let me add one more.
Early on the morning of Father's Day, an 80-year-old water pipe in Murphy Hall decided to break and create a Kansas version of Niagara Falls. The resulting flood brought to Dr. Hagen's mind a line from the Navy Hymn: "Oh, hear us when we cry to Thee, For those in peril on the sea!"
The clean up has been a trial for those who were drenched, and for those of you who supported your colleagues during this crisis. To all of you, I say thanks for a job well done.
The flood reminds us that we have many challenges ahead. We are still working hard to integrate clinical care, teaching and research, and we have not yet capitalized on all the opportunities that arise from the interface of the School of Medicine and the Hospital.
What we do know is that our future destiny is dependent upon the University, the Hospital, and KUPI physicians working together productively to solve mutual problems for mutual benefit.
I have recently worked to put together a series of principles that are important to this relationship, and I have consulted with Dr. Hagen, Dr. Atkinson, Dr. Miller, and Irene Cumming, the President of the Hospital, on how we can live by these principles.
The assumption that we all share is that we want our joint enterprise, the KUMC to be the outstanding academic medical center in the Midwest.
To accomplish this we will have to regularly plan together for the future. In addition, we have to fully understand and respect each o6ther in order to take advantage of the strengths of each organization.
If we share priorities, and also share a commitment to excellence in integrating patient care, education and research we should be able to allocate resources and responsibilities to achieve success.
There are some basic behaviors that we must honestly admit to each other are probably necessary for this process to work.
We need to recognize that differences in culture between the hospital and the university may exist; but that our role is to find ways to respect those differences and turn them into advantages for our mutual success.
We also need to remember, as I know that you recognize, that what we do at KUMC reverberates across the Kansas City metro area and across the state of Kansas. We have many constituents, and they expect us to work together to create the premier academic health center and teaching hospital in this region.
We will need to focus on the kinds of positive accomplishments I have spoken of today, and take great pride in each other's individual successes if we are to create the joint success that we all work for.
The person responsible for much of the success that we have accomplished in the last 10 years is Dr. Donald Hagen, retired three star Admiral, former Surgeon General of the Navy, the Executive Vice Chancellor of the KU Medical Center, and one of the finest human beings who it has ever been my privilege to know.
In 1997, when we began to plan for the KU Hospital Authority, it quickly became apparent that if such an authority were to be created, the EVC's position would inevitably change, and many of the duties the EVC had held in regard to the Hospital would end up residing in the Authority Board and the presidency of the Hospital.
To put it simply, some of Dr. Hagen's authority would transfer, just as the authority of the Chancellor and the authority of the Board of Regents would also transfer to the new structure.
The Regents were magnificent in facing this change. They were willing to transfer this entire 100 million dollar state asset to the Hospital Authority without any cost. Dr. Hagen was similarly magnificent. Time after time he made clear that he was solely interested in what was best for the patients, best for the faculty, best for the students, and best for the staff. This was always his priority. He understood that the new structure would not work if confusion existed about where responsibilities lay.
He also knew and made me aware, that the EVC's position would change, both at the time of the transition to the Authority and at the time he eventually left the EVC's position.
To my great regret, we have reached that moment. Dr. Hagen has indicated to me his desire to retire at the end of this calendar year, December 31, 2004. I will miss him. I don't know when I've enjoyed working with anyone more.
I have carefully considered the transition that this action necessitates, and I have consulted with administrators, faculty members, clinical and Basic Science Chairs, and our friends in the Kansas City community. I have also consulted with the American Association of Healthcare Consultants. I believe that it is important for the university to have stable and continuous leadership at this critical point in our history, and I believe we have a proven leader who can provide that stable leadership. I am announcing today that I have asked Dr. Barbara Atkinson to assume the dual position of Dean of the School of Medicine and Executive Vice Chancellor of the Kansas University Medical Center. She has agreed to take this position, beginning January 1, 2005.
I don't have to tell you anything about Dr. Atkinson. She is a distinguished faculty member, the only member of the Institute of Medicine on our faculty, and she has been a superb Dean at a time of many challenges. Her success speaks for itself.
I have every confidence in her and I look forward to working with her to achieve our goal of KU being the premier academic health center for this region.
I have asked that first Dr. Hagen, then Irene Cumming speak to this moment, because I know what respect they have for Dr. Atkinson, and then I would ask that Dr. Atkinson speak to you about possibilities that she sees ahead as we prepare to enter into a new chapter in the history of this academic health center.
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The University of Kansas Medical Center