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Michael M. E. Johns,
Chancellor, Emory University
Executive Vice President for Health Affairs, Emeritus
The Woodruff Health Sciences Center (WHSC) began the most extensive facilities improvement in the center's history, investing almost $580 million to create 2.1 million square feet of new space for nursing education, cancer, pediatrics, biomedical research, vaccine research, a hospital complex at the Emory Crawford Long campus, and more. More space will come online with the opening of a new medical education building and a new joint-venture hospital in 2007. Still more is planned for the coming decade, for public health, primate research, and outpatient/inpatient facilities.
As part of a strategy to broaden community access to Emory care, the WHSC consolidated its clinics and hospitals into Emory Healthcare, now the largest, most comprehensive health care system in Georgia, with 4.2 million patient visits a year. The WHSC also formed a partnership with Hospital Corporation of America.
Research dollars awarded to WHSC faculty more than doubled since 1996, climbing to $331 million in 2006, with these funds supporting initiatives in cancer, nanotechnology, genomics, heart and lung disease, vaccine and drug development, transplantation, neuroscience, neuroimaging of nonhuman primates, biomedical and tissue engineering, translational medicine, symptoms management, AIDS prevention, health policy, epidemiology, biostatistics, and global and predictive health.
Student enrollment doubled in nursing and public health, and capacity in medicine will grow after the opening of a new education building in 2007. The medical school totally revamped its curriculum and added new departments, including a joint department of biomedical engineering with Georgia Tech, one of the top programs of its kind in the country. The nursing school inaugurated its first doctoral program, and public health expanded its PhD programs to five.
Faculty membership in the influential Institute of Medicine has grown from one to 21 since 1996. Leaders of WHSC components hold key positions with the Association of Academic Health Centers, the Association of American Medical Colleges, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Association of Schools of Public Health, the National Center for Research Resources, and the Atlanta Health Services CEO Forum, to name a few. The WHSC also has trained almost 100 leaders internally through the Woodruff Leadership Academy, which makes the center a leadership model for other academic health centers.
Emory and the WHSC have become major players in technology transfer, with eight licensed therapeutic products in the marketplace and 23 under development. Emory has launched 37 start-up companies to develop vaccines, drugs, and other products to improve health care. Support from the Georgia Research Alliance and the Georgia Cancer Coalition and partnerships with Georgia Tech, CDC, CARE, and the American Cancer Society focus resources and expertise to achieve shared goals in improving health, both at home and far away. The WHSC is a lead partner in a regional consortium to thwart emerging biologic threats.
Charity care provided by Emory physicians has grown steadily to almost $71 million in 2006, a 7% increase over totals for the previous year. That's in addition to almost $25 million in uncompensated care provided to patients at Grady Hospital in 2006. Globally, WHSC faculty and students are tackling problems such as the nursing shortage and infectious disease in low-resource countries, working to help both individuals and whole populations. They assisted Hurricane Katrina evacuees in Atlanta, provided safe water for tsunami victims in Indonesia, cared for migrant farm workers in rural Georgia, and established the first pediatric emergency room and first university-level nursing curriculum in a post-Soviet nation.
Over the past 10 years, the impact of the WHSC on the local economy has doubled to $4.6 billion annually. The number of people employed by the WHSC has grown to 15,000, enabling Emory University to become one of Atlanta's largest private employers and Georgia's fifth largest employer.
Gifts and pledges to the WHSC have increased tenfold, from $15.5 million in 1997 to $157 million in 2006.
The vision for the WHSC is to transform health and healing for the 21st century, to make Emory the destination of choice for those seeking, practicing, learning, and pioneering health care at its best. To implement this vision, the following is emphasized: constant conversation between care-giving and research to translate discoveries rapidly into patient care, prediction and prevention of disease before it happens, customizing therapies to individuals' needs through genomics and proteomics, and continuous-feedback programs that enable real-time evaluation and improvement of all service efforts. Key areas of investment include cancer, transplant, neurosciences, cardiovascular disease, lung disease, predictive health, global health, quality and safety programs, and new facilities.
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