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.

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.