University of Maryland Medicine: A Shared Vision for the Future

September 19, 2008

Dear Colleagues, Students, Alumni and Friends,

As the interim President and CEO of University of Maryland Medical System (UMMS) and Vice President of Medical Affairs for the University of Maryland and the Dean of the School of Medicine (SOM), we are sending you this "open letter" to outline our shared vision for the future of Maryland Medicine.

Keeping UMMS and the SOM at the vanguard of quality clinical care while maintaining our economic vitality, culture of discovery and innovation, and producing the future physicians of Maryland is our highest priority. That is why we are highly committed to working collaboratively and in a spirit of partnership. Furthermore, we will strive to more fully maximize the resources and expertise of our entire healthcare system to better serve our patients while achieving economies of scale.

As you may know, UMMS consists of the flagship 705-bed University of Maryland Medical Center in downtown Baltimore and eight high-quality community and specialty service hospitals located throughout the state. These include the Baltimore Washington Medical Center, Maryland General Hospital, Kernan Hospital, University Specialty Hospital and Mount Washington Pediatric Hospital, located in the Baltimore region, and Shore Health System Hospitals and the Chester River Hospital Center, located on Maryland's Eastern Shore. With its 11,500 employees, UMMS is the state's third largest private employer and provides a full range of health care services to more than 600,000 patients each year. Closely affiliated with this large enterprise is the SOM.

In the UMMS system, the University of Maryland Medical Center (UMMC) has a special linkage with the SOM due to their close physical proximity and the fact that all of the physicians who practice at UMMC are employed by and are members of the SOM faculty. This linkage between UMMC and SOM forms what is known as an "academic medical center." Our academic medical center benefits each of the UMMS member hospitals by providing them access to resources, capital and research-based innovations in patient care. It also benefits the state and surrounding mid-Atlantic region by training more than half of the physicians who practice in the state of Maryland and generating nearly $5 billion in economic activity each year.

The prestigious Leapfrog Group, an independent patient advocacy organization, recently rated UMMC— and its SOM doctors—as one of the top-50 acute care hospitals in the nation for quality care and patient safety. The SOM ranks in the top 10 percent of the 76 public medical schools and in the top 15 percent among all 129 medical schools in the nation based upon the American Association of Medical College's ranking of research grant and contract expenditures. Just recently, our Marlene and Stewart Greenebaum Cancer Center was named as one of only 64 National Cancer Institute-designated cancer centers. This prestigious designation is bestowed upon only the nation's top cancer centers.

These are just a few examples of areas where we have achieved clinical excellence by investing heavily in technologies and expertise that have the greatest potential for preventing unnecessary deaths and illnesses. Some other areas in which we have become clinical leaders include transplant medicine, trauma and rehabilitative medicine, and cardiovascular disease, diabetes and cancer treatment and prevention. We intend to continue our investments in these disciplines in order to maintain our leadership position.

We also are making extensive investments to eliminate health disparities, particularly in the treatment and prevention of HIV/AIDS and other pervasive and deadly infections. Such efforts extend beyond our borders to improving health globally, where the SOM is already internationally recognized for operating research programs and delivering life-saving care in 23 countries around the world. In the African nation of Malawi, for example, where an estimated 40 percent of the population is HIV positive and there are just two physicians per 9,000 patients, doctors and researchers from the SOM's Institute of Human Virology are providing technical assistance to their African counterparts in areas such as patient care, infection prevention and disease surveillance in the population.

In addition, we are investing in areas that extend life and improve the quality of life of our patients, including advancing our world-class expertise in areas such as minimally invasive surgery, genomic sciences, vaccine development and stem cell biology and therapy, to name just a few.

These latter types of investments are a significant step toward the development of personalized medicine, in which therapies are tailored to an individual patient rather than the one-size-fits-all approach. Recent advances in stem cell therapy, for example, will soon allow us to extract cells from a patient's own body, manipulate them, and then place them back in the patient to affect a cure.

Achieving the above goals will require your continued support and our continued and significant investment in research and contemporary clinical programs throughout the medical system and the School of Medicine. Just as important, we believe our commitment to working collaboratively and in a spirit of partnership with each other and with our key stakeholders, including the faculty and staff, the excellent and visionary new UMMS board of directors, and our alumni and friends, will ensure our sustained success.

Through these efforts, we believe UMMS and the SOM will continue to serve as a nexus for ever-increasing quality healthcare, while greatly advancing the practice of medicine. Furthermore, they will allow us to continue to maintain an exceptional environment for training the next generation of outstanding physicians, scientists and allied health professionals and create economic opportunities for the state, the region, and the nation.

Sincerely,

Robert A. Chrencik, MBA, CPA
Interim President and Chief Executive Officer
University of Maryland Medical System


E. Albert Reece, MD, PhD, MBA
Vice President for Medical Affairs, University of Maryland
John Z. and Akiko K. Bowers Distinguished Professor and Dean, School of Medicine

Printer friendly    Email this page