Messages
Chancellor's Message
11/1/2010
The HSC Executive Committee has unanimously approved the new Code of Conduct regarding Conflicts of Interest with the pharmaceutical and medical device industry, effective Oct. 1. We are committed to an uncompromising adherence to our public trust, and to transparency and accountability in our actions as educators, scientists and clinicians.
The full code is linked at the end of this post. Please review it and share it with those you supervise as employees or students.
This Code in no way prevents active collaboration with industry representatives or programs. The Code of Conduct is intended to establish best practices on how to deal with potential and real conflicts of interests with industry and industry representatives. It applies across the HSC, including external campuses and offices.Specific procedures, recordkeeping and monitoring guidelines will remain the responsibility of the individual Schools and their deans.
I’d like to express my appreciation to the HSC Conflict of Interest Committee, led by Dr. Alvin Moss, and the members of our HSC community who reviewed the draft and made valuable suggestions during the discussions leading to this change.
View the Code of Conduct - PDF | Web
Christopher C. Colenda, MD, MPH
Chancellor
Chancellor's Message
5/7/2010
Significant challenges confront us in the non-clinical operating budgets as we move toward the new budget year beginning July 1. While I do not want to create unnecessary worry or alarm, I believe it is important for each of you to understand our current situation, and how we will approach the budgetary process for the next fiscal year and thereafter.
State funds will be constant while our expenses will continue to increase. While the Board of Governors of WVU approved a 4 percent tuition and fees increase for professional student programs, and a 3 percent non-resident undergraduate tuition increase, undergraduate in-state tuition was held constant for the next academic year. Other major sources of support (extramural research, service contracts and philanthropy) are not growing fast enough to make up the difference.
WVU has largely escaped the drastic financial crisis felt elsewhere in academia. That notwithstanding, we must exercise continued financial discipline to continue to meet our missions. By getting our house in order now, we will be in a better situation to address future challenges and opportunities.
To this end, we have initiated a budget allocation process for non-clinical budgets based upon the following set of priorities, agreed upon by the Executive Committee of the HSC, including deans, vice-presidents, and directors:
- Fund salaries and fringe benefits that are encumbered on state funds
- Fund institutional overhead costs, including utilities and deferred maintenance
- Preserve funding for student support services and scholarships
- Maintain commitments to recruitment packages, to the degree possible
We are implementing the following HSC-wide budgetary actions:
Position Control: All new or vacant staff and faculty positions will be subject to review and approval at the department, school, and HSC level, with appropriate business and financial plans required before approval.
Budget Planning: Deans and unit leaders have been tasked to submit budget plans that are balanced and include revenue enhancement and cost reductions.
Eliminating Waste: For the next two months, a Cost Savings and Revenue Enhancement Idea Squad will tap the knowledge of everyone at the HSC to seek out savings and new revenue in the area of purchased supplies and services. You can send suggestions to costsavings@hsc.wvu.edu. (A website is coming soon.)
This process will require some difficult choices. Our responsibility is clear: we must both balance our budgets and meet our obligations to our faculty, staff and students and to the citizens of our state. I encourage you to take part in this process with an open mind and a renewed focus on our missions.
Thank you for all that you do.
Christopher C. Colenda, MD, MPH
Chancellor
Chancellor's Message
4/6/2010
Dear Colleagues:
I’d like to report to you on several important developments that will have an impact on our work for our students, our patients, and our state.
Single Clinical Enterprise in Morgantown
After speaking with many faculty and staff, and learning much about the previous efforts at aligning our hospitals and our medical practices, I have come to the following conclusion: there is widespread agreement on the urgency of moving toward managing our healthcare operations as one enterprise, and we can achieve this alignment without combining the governance of our hospitals and practice plans into a single corporate entity.
With the above in mind, leaders from the School of Medicine, WVU Hospitals and University Health Associates have begun the process of creating a Joint Operating Agreement (JOA) that will allow us to move quickly to manage WVUH and UHA as a single unit. The existing governing structures for both entities will remain in place.
During the month of April, I will be meeting with departmental faculty and with UHA and Hospital leadership to continue to seek input on this issue; more information will be posted on the Chancellor’s Office website as it develops. The proposal will be available for all to review before it is placed on the agendas of the governing boards of WVUH and UHA for approval.
Strategic Planning
President Clements has asked me to work in cooperation with Provost Michelle Wheatley to organize the University-wide strategic planning process. It is clear that our colleagues across the University recognize the key role that the health schools must play in achieving our goals as a land-grant university.
At the same time, we are launching a parallel process to consider our statewide health mission, and to achieve common goals across all three of our Health Sciences campuses and throughout the health system allied with WVU.
I’d like to extend my personal thanks to the more than 175 faculty, staff, and students who have stepped forward to participate in this important effort.
Tobacco-Free Campus
The University has placed a policy proposal before the Board of Governors to designate the entire Morgantown Health Sciences campus as a tobacco-free area. The BOG posted the proposed policy on its web page for public comment for 30 days, ending April 5. Dr. Fred Butcher and Deputy General Counsel Bev Kerr will review and summarize the comments, and the final proposal should be presented to the BOG for a decision in June.
Rural Health Education
The West Virginia Higher Education Policy Commission is reviewing the West Virginia Rural Health Education Partnership and its effectiveness in meeting the rural health needs of the state. I am pleased to announce that Dr. Larry Rhodes of the Department of Pediatrics in the School of Medicine has accepted my invitation to represent WVU on a work group being organized by Dr. Robert Walker of the HEPC. The group will make recommendations about how to maximize the impact of the state’s investment in rural health education.
Leadership Searches
As announced in late March, three candidates for School of Medicine dean will visit the campus this month. I invite your participation in the open forums that will be held for each of them, and your input after you have had a chance to consider their potential to be a leader on our campus. For more information and a schedule for the forums, please see: www.hsc.wvu.edu/som/deansearch/.
The search committee for the next dean of the School of Dentistry, led by Dr. Scot Remick, has also begun its work. More information will be available about that search later this spring.
I plan to post the position for Vice President for Research for the Health Science Center by the end of April.
Executive Committee Minutes Online
Just as a reminder, the HSC Executive Committee meets twice a month to coordinate activities among our four schools, our three campuses, our hospitals and our practice plans. You may review Executive Committee agendas and meeting notes online at: www.hsc.wvu.edu/Chancellor/Executive-Committee/.
Christopher C. Colenda, MD, MPH
Chancellor
Chancellor's Message
2/16/2010
Last year’s discussion of integrating West Virginia University’s healthcare operations into one management structure ended without a resolution – but we learned a lot in the process. We learned, importantly, that while we have a variety of institutions with separate responsibilities, we do share many common values and common missions. This is an organization of high purpose and accomplishment.
The outcome did not leave any doubt, however, that the status quo is unacceptable. In order to best serve our patients, to assure support for our other missions, and to be competitive in the changing health care environment, we must continue the process of aligning each of our operations with our educational, research, healthcare, and service missions.
In recent weeks, I’ve had the opportunity to hold substantive discussions with the University Health Associates (UHA) board, department chairs, and a cross-section of HSC faculty members to review our options, and lay a foundation for our next step. In the coming weeks I intend to propose a pathway to move forward.
Thankfully, the good people who make this organization such a success are determined to continue to improve the way we deliver services even as we discuss new structures. The recent joint UHA - School of Medicine - WVU Hospitals effort to establish the Heart Institute is an example of what we can do together.
We must do more, and to be successful we must overcome the organizational issues that sometimes stand in our way. We’re going to do this – and make other important decisions – in an open and inclusive way. As an example, the HSC Executive Committee notes are now posted on the HSC Intranet.
I look forward to your active participation.
Christopher C. Colenda, MD, MPH
Chancellor
Chancellor's Message
1/13/2010
Toward the end of last year, I asked the leaders of all of WVU’s health schools and campuses, affiliated hospitals, and healthcare providers to meet together in Morgantown.
We talked about how each organization operates, who it serves, and how it sees the future.
Despite the fact that many of the people in the room live and work far from one another and rarely interact, we found large areas of common purpose and values. There was widespread agreement that the identity we share as part of WVU strengthens each of us in achieving our missions.
Together, we represent the largest force for health in the State of West Virginia. We educate the most health professionals, deliver the most healthcare, employ the largest health workforce.
There was a consensus that we must move toward an “Academic Health Science System” model that integrates all of our functions to support teaching, research, healthcare and service. Achieving that goal is my highest priority.
We also identified areas where we need to do some serious work. Major items of discussion include better integration among all our clinical enterprises; enterprise-wide financial management; regionalization of healthcare and growth outside Morgantown; perennial faculty and staff concerns including governance, funding, and research resource; healthcare quality and patient satisfaction and community service.
If we are successful in moving forward in these areas, we – and our students, patients and communities – will all benefit. We can be regionally dominant and nationally recognized. We can be nimble in a rapidly-changing healthcare environment.
To move from talk to action we must accomplish several things. We must reach agreement on a vision that addresses all of our missions for the populations we serve. We must demand a commitment from everyone to think and act as a contributing member of a unified enterprise – not a collection of institutions, departments or clinics that happen to share a campus.
I know that the only way to achieve this is if faculty and staff are active participants in setting the agenda for our future. Once we have achieved a unified vision, we need to have a clear chain of command that can implement the new agenda and respond flexibly to the inevitable issues that will arise along the way.
I am launching a strategic planning process that will provide many opportunities for your participation in guiding our future. Each organization will continue to develop and implement its own strategic plans to meet its missions. The central task of the HSC-wide process will be to identify key common goals that should be addressed by each constituency.
Your help and participation will be crucial to our success.
Christopher C. Colenda, MD, MPH
Chancellor
Chancellor's Message
12/18/2009
Dear colleagues:
We are privileged to work in health professions of high purpose. After just a few weeks on the WVU campus – and brief visits to our Charleston and Eastern Divisions – I am impressed by the genuine enthusiasm so many of our students, faculty and staff bring to their work every day.
Everywhere I go, I am impressed: by the skill and caring displayed by the caregivers in our hospitals and clinics; by the ingenuity and perseverance applied by our researchers; by the careful mentorship and scholarship modeled by our teachers; by the willingness of our students to serve at the same time they learn.
As professionals with high purpose, we play a central role of raising the image of West Virginia University and serving the people of our state.
As always, challenges and opportunities lie before us. Together we can overcome obstacles both big and small to make our Health Sciences System better.
Let me be clear: we will continue to play the leading role in educating the next generation of health professionals, translating discovery into practice, and raising the health status of citizens of our state. We have a duty to stand at the forefront of every effort to advance the health of our people.
One of the thousands of people who have taken this mission to heart is Suresh Madhavan, chair of the WVU School of Pharmacy Department of Pharmaceutical Systems and Policy. Dr. Madhavan has organized a group of faculty members from all four of our schools to work collaboratively in the West Virginia CoHORTS Center to measure and address the health disparities that are responsible for so many of our state’s poor health statistics.
The success of their work since 2006 led the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality to award the group an additional $1.5 million in funding, extending the work for three additional years.
Suresh and his colleagues are truly exceptional people, doing vital work. But that is not unusual at WVU. Around every corner, you will find yet another example of people who love their work, are good at it, and serve the needs of our University and our state.
The evidence is everywhere:
It is a privilege for me to work for you and for WVU Health Sciences. Thank you for welcoming me so warmly to WVU. Together, we will do great things.
Christopher C. Colenda, MD, MPH
Chancellor
Faculty Advisory Committee Working Group
12/2/2009
I am pleased to announce that Robert K. Griffith, Ph.D., of the School of Pharmacy, has agreed to convene and chair a working group to establish the Faculty Advisory Committee for the Health Sciences Center. Dr. Griffith, who was elected by the WVU Faculty Senate last spring to serve as a faculty representative on the University’s Board of Governors, is an associate professor in Basic Pharmaceutical Sciences. He is also a former chair of the WVU Faculty Senate.
I selected Dr. Griffith in part because of his experience in shared governance at the University level. More importantly, he has communicated to me his willingness to organize a faculty group that can contribute to decision making in the Chancellor’s Office in an activist mode – providing not just advice, but participating in the information-gathering and agenda-setting functions that are crucial to any academic process.
Dr. Griffith will select faculty members from each school to serve as a Faculty Advisory Committee Working Group of ten to twelve individuals. The Working Group will establish initial procedures as to how the Faculty Advisory Committee should function, how often it will meet, what the terms of the members should be and how the members will be chosen in the future. Please contact Dr. Griffith by e-mail at rgriffith@hsc.wvu.edu directly if you would like to volunteer to be a part of the Working Group.
Video from the Chancellor's forum (11/5/2009)
National search to begin for new WVU School of Medicine dean
11/5/2009
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – The West Virginia University School of Medicine will conduct a national search for its new dean. WVU Chancellor for Health Sciences Christopher Colenda, M.D., made that announcement today at a forum for faculty and staff.
Dr. Colenda, in his fourth day on the job as chancellor, told a standing room only crowd that the search will begin soon for the next dean to lead the School of Medicine. The search effort will be chaired by the dean of the School of Pharmacy, Patricia Chase, Ph.D.
Jim Brick, M.D., has been serving as interim dean since the resignation of John Prescott, M.D., in April 2008. Colenda praised Brick for his service to the school.
Colenda held the forum to begin the dialogue about the academic health sciences center’s future and announced that a planning process will begin next week. He said he expects to have a “living document” by June of next year that creates a vision for 2015. The process will encourage free and expansive thinking and will seek to engage all faculty, staff and students, Colenda said.
“We will move forward as a team – a collective body for the citizens, students and patients we serve in this great state of West Virginia,” he said. “We will drive change, not react to it.”
Colenda also announced plans to create two new advisory committees – one composed of faculty members, the other of students.
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For More Information:
Amy Johns, HSC News Service, 304-293-7087
johnsa@wvuh.com
alj: 11-05-09
Chancellor's Forums
Thursday, Nov. 5, 2009
Patteson Auditorium
(Also available by teleconference at Charleston and Eastern Divisions)
Please join Dr. Christopher Colenda, WVU's new chancellor for health sciences, at a forum for HSC faculty, staff and students.
Dr. Colenda will make several important announcements, discuss his initial impressions of issues facing the HSC, and listen to your suggestions, hopes, and expectations.
Please plan to attend one of the Nov. 5 sessions.
12 noon - 1 p.m.
5:30 - 6:30 p.m.
Greetings
November 2, 2009
I am proud to be a Mountaineer, and to join the faculty of the Robert C. Byrd Health Sciences Center.
At my core, I consider myself a physician who has had the privilege of taking care of patients, educating the next generation of physicians and health professionals, and contributing to scientific discovery.
West Virginia University is full of people who share the value of service, and put that value into action every day in our classrooms, our hospitals and clinics, our laboratories -- and in more than 500 locations across West Virginia where our students participate in health care.
The faculty, staff and students of the Health Sciences Center make this place great. No single person can lead without the support of many; this is a team and we will build organizational partnerships and trust, and I will do my very best to make us all proud.