Our medical school has the distinction of international pre-eminence in medical education. We have been recognized regionally for our sub-specialty clinical expertise and are developing a national reputation for our research in the biological mechanisms and clinical treatments in cancer, neurosciences, pulmonary disorders and infectious diseases. We have much to be proud of and yet much remains to be accomplished. We have advanced as an institution primarily because we have remained focused on our mission and behaved in a manner consistent with our values (see attachment). Success in achieving our goals will be dependent on our ability to ‘bring out the best’ in our faculty, staff and students. This requires effective mentoring and a nurturing learning environment.
We have grown at incredible speed in both our facilities and our faculty, staff and student bodies. Unfortunately, we suffer today from the consequences of this rapid growth with an infrastructure that has not advanced at the same rate. Our clinical capacity is insufficient to meet current and future patient needs; our operating systems are in need of upgrades; and our human resources have been stretched to near the breaking point. We all experience frustration when we see great potential within our reach and yet cannot quite grasp it because of these limitations. Most of these deficiencies have been recognized and corrections will be implemented over the next several years. Throughout this plan additional objectives will be identified which will result in even greater improvements in our infrastructure in support of all three of our missions.
Even as these support systems are being strengthened, we must set our sights clearly on the goals for the next five years. As our Health Sciences Center’s vision states, we
identify and solve the most important questions of human health in our communities
We must embrace bold new initiatives that will lead us and the populations we serve toward an ever brighter future.
Before outlining the goals for our three missions, there are certain over-arching objectives which deserve mention. These cross-cutting themes help define who we are as an institution and how we think about health in New Mexico. They include public health; diversity; Native American health and ethics.
Our school has a social contract with our state to address those issues of health which impact our unique populations. New Mexico remains medically underserved and we suffer from the result of this as depicted in many of the indicators of poor health, such as high rates of perinatal mortality, cancer, mental health problems, hepatitis C, substance abuse, trauma, oral disease, obesity, diabetes and asthma.
Embracing the principles of public health and incorporating them into our routine way of thinking is critical as we work with the state and other partners in developing sound health care policy and implementing a New Mexico Public Health Plan. These efforts should emphasize our Hispanic, Native American, and other populations who bear a disproportionate burden of these health problems. The formulation of these strategies and their implementation must occur in collaboration with the communities for whom these programs are designed. In addition to supporting local health care providers through the use of high-technology and other methods and in the direct delivery of highly specialized clinical services, we will help design innovative strategies to carry out disease prevention and health promotion programs that will help reduce these health care disparities.
Therefore, further enhancing our Institute for Public Health and creating academic units for Epidemiology and Biostatistics will be fundamental to this effort. Likewise, creating an Oral Health Institute with a primary focus on educational programs will be a high priority. Both of these Institutes and their programs in combination with the ethics program and those in the Center for Native American Health will allow our School, our Health Sciences Center and our University to best meet the terms of our social contract with the populations we serve and who support us.
Our institution has a compelling interest in assuring a regional representation of diversity among our faculty, staff and student body to:
It is imperative that our school obtain a critical mass of both Hispanic and Native American students and faculty role-models, and that we assure a learning environment that enhances cultural sensitivity and competence. A diverse student-body promotes cross-racial understanding, creates a richer learning experience and better prepares our students to serve the communities of New Mexico.
Given growing physician shortages, our School must seek new ways to retain our graduates in the state. We know that physicians tend to practice in the vicinity of where they are trained in residency. We also know that there is a higher likelihood that physicians will return to communities where they graduated from high school. Additionally, there is well-documented data to show that people of color are more likely to serve communities of color.
An exciting means of retaining the best and the brightest New Mexicans and accomplishing both of these objectives will be the creation of a new Medical School track called the Combined Degree Program (CDP). This will be implemented in partnership with the undergraduate colleges of the University of New Mexico, especially the College of Arts and Sciences. The CDP will permit us to recruit highly accomplished and motivated high school students into a seven year program culminating in both a bachelor’s degree and the M.D. degree. Although any high school student can apply, we will have a special preference for students in communities that are both underrepresented in our profession and medically underserved in the state. This will occur in concert with an expansion of our class size from 75 to 100 students with the additional 25 students matriculated into the CDP. Additionally, we will place a greater priority on accepting New Mexicans into expanded residency programs. The CDP and the expanded residency program plan will require huge changes in how we deliver a baccalaureate undergraduate curriculum and the manner in which we select residents. It will also require significant additional resources from the state and elsewhere to support the overall effort.
In other areas, the challenge of meeting the need of New Mexico for physicians with special expertise in public health will be addressed through innovative programs integrating public health throughout the medical school curriculum. Certificate in Public Health programs will be developed for the medical students, residents, and faculty.
Additionally, we will be offering a number of new advanced degrees in Diagnostic and Therapeutic Sciences and other certificated educational programs that are designed to provide New Mexicans greater access to the bio-medical sciences and health care professions.
Our success in meeting these and other challenges will lead to dramatic improvements in the health of our populations through better access to physicians and other health care providers.
Research in our institution has grown over 250% in just the past 5 years and nearly 400% in the past 10 years. Our focus over the next five years will be in those areas resulting in the greatest impact on New Mexico’s health care needs, as noted above. Keeping this in mind, we will grow our infectious disease, cancer, pulmonary and neurosciences research programs. Furthermore, designation as a National Cancer Institute, Comprehensive Cancer Center remains a high priority.
In addition to the traditional NIH supported individual investigator initiatives and program projects, we will pay special attention to interdisciplinary translational and clinical scientific inquiry. In partnerships with our colleagues in the Colleges of Engineering and Pharmacy and Arts and Sciences, as well as Sandia National Laboratories, we will expand our efforts in bio-engineering and bio-computing. This will require an academic unit for Computational Biology and Informatics and novel graduate programs in various disciplines of bio-engineering. Our intent is to produce the next generation of scientists who will be more effective in addressing the research agenda of the future.
There is a set of expectations between research Universities and the communities that support them. Intrinsic to this are certain assumptions. One of these is that publicly funded discoveries in basic and applied research will produce tangible benefits back to society - including contributing to economic development. Supporting our entrepreneurial faculty in bringing their discoveries to the marketplace is an important aspect of this relationship between the academy and society. The challenge will be to protect our academic freedom and the values this principle brings to the world while at the same time pursuing a new source of funding that will provide fiscal strength to the institution. Facilitation and streamlining the process of commercialization of the products of our scientific labors will become a high priority for our school.
Our clinical services will continue to advance as our capacity improves and we implement programs intended to reduce medical errors and improve patient safety. Furthermore, a major initiative will be to design and model new ways to deliver health services that reduce costs and improve outcomes. One model discussed in our Strategic Plan is called ‘Care One’. This program recognizes that 20% of our patient population utilizes 80% of health services resources. Furthermore, the top 1% accounts for nearly half of these resources.
The Care One program would apply a greater and more concentrated degree of health services and comprehensive case management to the highly complex and chronic disease group that makeup this 1% through the utilization of multi-disciplinary teams of specialty physicians and nursing personnel along with social and other support services. A different team approach utilizing primary care physicians, nurse practitioners, physician assistants and others would be available to the less severely diseased population. Finally, proven and effective disease prevention and health promotion strategies would be offered to the larger and otherwise healthy group of our patients. The hypothesis is that there will be less utilization of high cost hospital services as measured by lower bed days and Emergency Department visits and a higher quality of life for our patients. Furthermore, by improving access and delivery of a more cost effective and higher quality service to our patients, our faculty, hospital staff and patient satisfaction will be greatly enhanced.
This Summary and the detailed Strategic Plan that follows is the product of many hours of deliberation and careful introspection by faculty, staff, students, partners, allies, and community members. This Strategic Plan is intended to be the compass that will point us toward our future. But it is also intended to provide a source of energy, inspiration, purpose, and meaning to all of us who will be traveling together on this journey. When we have succeeded, we will have left a legacy to the peoples of New Mexico that will be felt for decades and generations to come.
Paul B. Roth, M.D.
Dean, School of Medicine
Assoc. Vice President for Clinical Affairs
Goal: The School of Medicine will provide outstanding students from all of the communities of New Mexico a continuum of education in the health sciences and health services that encourages life-long learning.
1.1 Develop and implement a combined degree program with UNM College of Arts and Sciences to recruit and retain outstanding New Mexico High School students from diverse, rural, and underserved communities of New Mexico and those with exceptional academic preparation.
1.2 Expand opportunities for New Mexicans and strengthen healthcare in New Mexico by increasing the medical school class from 75 to 100 students.
1.3 Strengthen community-based programs and SOM recruitment of rural, underserved, Hispanic, and Native American students and residents.
1.4 Integrate the principles of public health and experiences in public health with the Medical School curriculum such that School of Medicine graduates, residents, and faculty will be eligible for a Certificate in Public Health.
1.5 Develop new applications for innovations in Medical Education Technology (including simulation, computer and web- based instruction, and virtual reality), standardized patients, and interdisciplinary education for all of the education programs of the School of Medicine.
1.6 Establish comprehensive Oral Health education programs to address the critical shortage of Oral Health professionals in New Mexico.
1.7 Improve the access to varied health professions for New Mexico and enhance the academic standing and scholarship of the Diagnostic and Therapeutic Sciences programs by creating new graduate degree programs.
1.8 Strengthen the scientific curriculum of the educational programs of the School of Medicine.
1.9 Will establish a plan for increasing targeted residency programs to accommodate the graduates of the Combined Degree Program.
Goal: The School of Medicine will take a leadership role in developing comprehensive and unique health care services delivery systems which meets the needs of all of the citizens of the State.
2.1 The School of Medicine, working with its partners at University Hospitals and the Veterans’ Administration Medical Center, will develop strategic clinical priorities over the next 12 months. Additionally, University Hospitals and the SOM will develop a five-year strategic plan that will define the scope and depth of clinical services provided by University Hospitals and the faculty of the School of Medicine.
2.2 Develop an innovative patient-centered national model for health care delivery in which the appropriate resources are available to the patient in the appropriate amount at the appropriate time to maximize clinical outcome and reduce overall costs. A key aspect of this initiative will be the “Care One” approach: management of resource-intensive patients using multidisciplinary teams (social workers, nursing staff, community healthcare workers etc.).
2.3 Create facilities to nurture and stimulate model specialty and primary care clinical practice with appropriate resources, including staff, equipment and information systems.
2.4 Increase the satisfaction of patients, hospital staff, and clinical faculty to above the mean for UHC Press-Ganey peers.
2.5 Enhance and support the business practice through collaboration between the UPA and UH to assure effective physician billing and collection. The UPA will coordinate practice management support, and conduct training in the areas of physician billing and compliance, and provide information/data support to all clinical departments.
2.6 Develop Patient Safety and Quality of Care Programs and coordinate with University Hospitals to enhance the clinical care delivered to our patients. Risk management and other clinical outcomes data is utilized to assess and implement patient safety strategies and to improve error reduction.
2.7 Work with the Department of Health to develop strategic public health plan for the state and assume an appropriate and active role in its implementation.
2.8 Implement innovative clinical outreach models that utilize appropriate technologies to assist community providers with disease management, care management, and easy access to UNM faculty expert consultation to address New Mexico illnesses and support rural communities.
2.9 The clinical program will feature state of the art technology and intelligent systems to deliver safe, effective and timely care.
2.10 Develop clinical financial data that incorporates hospital and physician revenues to identify net financial impact of various programs and use this information in prioritization discussions.
Goal: Support and enhance a broad basis of clinical, basic and translation research while coordinating with New Mexico and national partners to conduct research targeted at distinct health needs.
3.1 Compete successfully for high-quality graduate students and post-doctoral fellows.
3.2 Develop nationally recognized research foci that address national and state health priorities.
3.3 Establish a broad research infrastructure support mechanism that is a model throughout the university and region.
3.4 Develop an institutional reward system for faculty participating in multidisciplinary research.
3.5 To be successful in obtaining funding (>$10 mil/year) for big-research initiatives through partnering within UNM, and with other universities and state institutions.
3.6 To establish the UNM-SOM as the top medical school conducting research with Native American populations.
3.7 To increase the commercialization of intellectual property (IP).
Administration’s purpose is to assure the successful achievement of the first three missions of the School of Medicine. The School of Medicine will plan, develop and improve facilities and programs and policies that “bring out the best” and reward performance.
4.1 The SOM will implement strategies to fully execute the “One Faculty” concept among the SOM faculty. The SOM will continue to improve internal communications with faculty, students and staff, as well as with its partners at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center (VAMC) and the University community.
4.2 The SOM will enhance its efforts to broaden the diversity of its faculty, students and staff to better serve the citizens of New Mexico.
4.3 The SOM will work to enhance its Development Office activities and results.
4.4 The SOM will support the development and growth of strategic programs, centers, and departments, particularly those that advance multi-disciplinary and multi-mission objectives. The SOM will provide the necessary infrastructure to assure the success of both new and existing programs of strategic importance.
4.5 The SOM will have highly effective programs for faculty development and for faculty and new staff mentoring. The faculty programs will achieve national recognition.
4.6 The SOM will continue to improve existing data bases so that integration of financial and productivity data will support strategic decision making in real time.
