Pride in our Health System and Academic Accomplishments: Leading into a new decade in 2020

By Peter Buckley,

 

Something which we think is impossible now is not impossible in another decade.

 - Constance Baker Motley

Dear Colleagues-Friends 

Thank you for all your remarkable care and academic accomplishments during 2019. And, in advance, for the further accomplishments that you will undoubtedly attain during 2020. It is an immense privilege and pleasure to serve you in 2020 and to work alongside so many skilled and gifted colleagues during a time of great opportunities, with new buildings under construction and growth across our system. The VCU enterprise — our university and health system — is built on legendary excellence in all domains of its mission: research, education and service. On the heels of a decade in which we have so much to be proud, we are more than prepared to excel together in 2020.

The beginning of a new decade is also a time for reflection — so please let’s take this moment together here to pause and consider the tremendous achievements and events of the past 10 years and to anticipate the possibilities of the next decade. Our story from 2010 to 2020 is one of unprecedented growth and success. Across the commonwealth and beyond we forged new partnerships, erected beautiful buildings, attracted top talent, educated a pioneering health care workforce, and researched and discovered solutions to some of medicine’s toughest challenges. Most importantly, you all improved and saved countless lives. While it is certainly not an exhaustive list, please do to take a moment to view the timeline which offers a snapshot of just some of our key moments from the last 10 years.

So, we certainly start this new decade on a high note.

We can all be proud of significant achievements in our clinical mission with a focus on providing the highest quality care and the goal of being the safest health system in the country for our patients. We are grateful to our colleague and friend, Dr. Ron Clark, now so ably serving as our interim CEO of VCU Hospitals and Clinics, for highlighting team accomplishments in this recent post. Your clinical accomplishments are awesome and inspirational.

We are also constantly reminded that our noble and compelling mission is broader than patient care. As a testimony to your efforts in 2019, our academic mission is stronger than ever with a unified focus on research and education by our four health sciences schools and college. Indeed, at $310 Million in research funding, we had our best year ever in our research portfolio.

Some compelling highlights from our academic units of this banner year in 2019 include:

• The School of Nursing celebrated its 125th anniversary and was ranked in the top 50 of the nations’ graduate schools of nursing by U.S. News & World Report in 2019. VCU also is the first university in the state to offer a Doctor of Nursing Practice degree focused on quality and safety in health care.
• The School of Dentistry is using technology and innovation to shape education with a new digital dentistry lab.
• A new collaboration between the School of Pharmacy and the College of Engineering, the Center for Pharmaceutical Engineering and Sciences is one of only a few interdisciplinary centers in the country to concentrate on researching, creating and patenting drug products and pharmaceutical processes that can address future health needs of society. And, this week we welcome back to campus our remarkable VCU pharmacy student Camille Schrier who was recently crowned Miss America!
• The College of Health Professions marked its 50th anniversary by cutting the ribbon on its new 154,000-square-foot building, bringing together 11 disciplines under one roof, including five programs ranked in the top 20 in the nation by U.S. News & World Report.
• In the School of Medicine researchers published very high visibility papers in many top-tier journals, including Nature, Cell, Lancet, JAMA and the New England Journal of Medicine. Research funding in both basic health science and clinical SOM departments contributed to VCU’s unprecedented $310 million research portfolio. This also includes the LIMBIC $50 million grant from the Department of Defense and VA, the second largest grant in university history.

This communication simply cannot do ample justice to the many accomplishments, clinical successes, and stories of great triumphs — large and small, collectively and individually — that have defined us over the past decade. Nevertheless, please know that your past successes underpin our present and now provide us the essential foundation to face our future with confidence and with high expectations for continued success. We are grateful to all of you who have contributed to this journey. We welcome - and are further inspired by - the talented colleagues that have and will continue to join us on this remarkable journey that is making a profound difference for our community and for our great nation, as President Michael Rao proudly reminds us.

We look forward to more regularly ‘singing your praises’ of your work and to providing you with timely updates of events to come through a new weekly communication - the CEO’s Corner. And, good news, it will be brief!

I wish you every continued success and heartfelt thanks for all you do 

 

With all good wishes,

 

Peter F. Buckley, M.D.

Interim CEO, VCU Health System, and Senior Vice President, VCU Health Sciences

Dean, VCU School of Medicine

Executive Vice President for Medical Affairs, VCU Health System

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Message from Dr. Ron Clark

As we look forward to the new year, I wanted to take a minute and reflect on 2019 and some of the good work that we have accomplished as a team. So, at the risk of leaving out someone or something that also deserves, recognition, here is a sampling of highlights:

• Significant improvement over the last year in hospital-acquired infections including:
  • Catheter-associated UTIs: 3 of the last 3 quarters are best decile performance among our peers.
  • Central Line Associated Blood Stream Infections: the past 3 quarters are in the best decile of performance among our peers. North 9 remained CLABSI free for one year!
  • Colorectal Surgical Site Infection Rates: best decile performance in 3 of the last 4 quarters.
• Inpatient Hospice Unit opened in April. Since July 1, 60 patients admitted for hospice care
• Launched the CHoR at VCU Pediatric Antibiotics Guide
• Achieved over 180 days of no ambulance diversion
• Received approval from the Board to proceed with final diligence and planning to replace our EMR
• DCOPN staff recommended approval for our NOW operating rooms
• Motivate Clinic celebrated two years of providing life-saving and life-restoring services to patients with addictions and obtained National Health Service Corps approved site status from HRSA
• CCH7 received a Beacon designation from the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses for the third time!
• Our Peripartum Clinic was one of two national winners in the Clinical programs category for the 2019 Maternal Mental Health Innovation Award
• The Bariatric Surgery program earned a Center of Excellence designation from Optum
• Our Cardiac program earned the Blue Distinction Center for Cardiac Care designation from Blue Cross Blue Shield
• Our Orthopedics program again met the Blue Distinction Center criteria for quality for Hip and Knee replacement
• Our Palliative Care program successfully completed its certification survey by The Joint Commission
• Our Transplant program successfully completed a UNOS transplant survey
• Our Stroke program achieved Gold Plus and Target: Stroke Elite Honor Role recognition from the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association  Get with the Guidelines-Stroke program
• Our Stroke program was also re-certified by The Joint Commission as an Advanced Comprehensive Stroke Center
• We were re-verified as an American College of Surgeons Level 1 Pediatric Trauma Center
• Ob/Gyn received Best Practice recognition from the American College of Nurse Midwives 2018 Benchmarking Project for their breast feeding program
• Transfusion Medicine successfully completed an FDA inspection with zero deficiencies
• We maintained Center of Excellence designation for Heart Transplantation from Optum
• Our Ventricular Assist Device program was re-certified by The Joint Commission
• We received approval as a Center for the care and treatment of pancreatitis from the National Pancreatitis Foundation
• We re-launched our living donor liver transplant program
• We received a certificate from the FDA recognizing outstanding contributions to patient safety with medical devices
• Broke ground on a new inpatient children’s hospital and a free-standing emergency center in New Kent
• Exceeded our $150M Vision by Design Value and Efficiency target
• 180 VCU Clinicians were recognized in the Richmond Magazine annual Top Docs publication

 

Thanks for all that you do to help us create an environment in which patient care, learning and discovery can thrive. Best wishes to all for 2020!