Fall(ing) Ahead

Good morning!

Last week’s Fall Faculty Meeting fell on Halloween, but it was a time for treats – no tricks – as I focused on our recent accomplishments, current financial picture and the contributions of those who are helping make this institution a success.

Before I share some of the points I covered, I’d like to highlight the first treat of that day: a visit from my boss and steadfast supporter of the Medical Center, Chancellor Glenn Boyce, who took the time to come down from Oxford and thank all of you for the work you’re doing.

I felt especially proud when he said this: “The reputation of the students who come out of this place is as good as the reputation of any student in any place in the country, I promise you. I hear it all the time.”

I cannot overstate how grateful I am, and how important it is for the work of the Medical Center, to have an advocate like Chancellor Boyce.

Now, on to more treats.

20-year citations

Early on, I was honored to recognize our 20-year faculty for 2024:

• Kenneth Butler, School of Medicine
• William Daley, School of Medicine
• Benjamin Dillard, School of Medicine
• Natalie Gaughf, School of Medicine
• Tina Martin, School of Nursing
• Kendall McKenzie, School of Medicine
• Bo Huang, School of Medicine
• Louis Puneky, School of Medicine
• Dorothy Scattone, School of Medicine
• Irma Welch, School of Medicine

We are lucky to have so many experienced faculty within all our schools who serve as beacons of light for junior faculty and residents.

The look of success

On some of the slides of my presentation was a puzzle piece with a word on it representing a focus area or institutional ideology essential to putting together what a successful medical center looks like.

As I said during the meeting, when you think about success, what does that really mean to us? No. 1: Our patients choose to be here for a variety of reasons – and we can get them in.

Also, our employees, faculty and staff are here because they want to be here; they believe in our mission. And faculty are the engine that runs the place.

Finally, there is positive financial standing: the ability to invest in our people, and our clinical, academic and research programs and facilities. We have the financial standing to make the investments so we can grow to meet this state’s needs.

For us to be successful, we cannot be complacent in our efforts. Do what we are supposed to and be prepared for the unknown, and we will fulfil our goals.

The best offense is success. The best defense is success.

UMMC 2030 Five-Year Strategic Plan

The next five-year institutional strategic plan will start on July 1, 2025, and while it is similar to our current plan, there is one new goal: Optimize institutional service areas.

We are looking at how we do our internal business. We’re going to have a totally revamped website, we’re going to focus on wayfinding, our contracts process and some of the measures of our workforce’s professionalism.

These are all things we’re going to flesh out over the next five years in addition to our four other strategies: maximize value in quality of care; promote clinical access, efficiency and growth; cultivate a vibrant academic community; and foster excellence in research.

Finances

We are doing well: Our actual net income right now is $34 million; we had a budget of just under $16 million. This is the result of a lot of the good work you all are doing. But there’s still much to do. I want to beat this budget by a lot at the end of our fiscal year.

When we look at our net income over the last 10 years or so, we see we’ve had some ups and downs. That includes the early years of COVID, but some of the changes we made during the pandemic have actually made us more streamlined and more focused on efficiencies, outcomes and accountability.

Now, what do we do with this money? We are investing it in the Medical Center. Since July 1, 2022, we have made nearly $80 million in investments in the workforce, impacting more than 8,000 people. We aren’t quite where we want to be yet with overall compensation; we’re still on a journey to get us closer to market.

We are also investing in our facilities. Our total capital budget for fiscal year 2025 is $80.06 million. This includes money for a number of projects we are able to invest in because of the positive financial performance we have seen these last couple of years and which we intend to see next year.

Cancer Center Campaign

One of the things I’m excited to talk about – but not too loudly yet – is our fundraising campaign toward a new facility for the Cancer Center and Research Institute. We’re in the quiet phase right now, talking about it some, but in the next year or so we will be talking much louder.

We aim to raise $125 million in private gifts, but we’ll need additional funds from other sources. Our goal is a state-of-the-art facility and National Cancer Institute designationas we work toward a future in which all Mississippians will have access to the highest level of cancer care without having to leave the state.

Education

The fall student enrollment numbers were officially released by the IHL a few days after the faculty meeting. There is good news here, too: The total, including residents and fellows is 3,143, compared to 3,114 for 2023.

In my presentation were slides giving updates on two academic buildings projects, one of which is well underway – a new home for the School of Nursing – and one planned to break ground this spring – a School of Dentistry expansion.

More learning and training space for our School of Nursing is becoming more of a need. SON added more than 30 students over last year, for a total of 893. There are actually more than 900 students in nursing education programs, but those in doctorate programs are included in the School of Graduate Studies in the Health Sciences count.

Research

Our research mission is thriving. Total grant funding for fiscal year 2024 was the second-highest figure since 2015, at close to $120 million, up from $96.8 million the previous year.

Researchers in the School of Medicine received the bulk of the grant funding, around $90 million, and within that school, the Department of Medicine had the highest total of all departments at around $25 million.

The 10-year extramural funding represents 368 new and continuing awards and 1,082 publications.

Patient care

To get an idea of how much our fellow Mississippians need us, look at our patient volume, including numbers for our hospitals in Grenada and Lexington. Every category of this metric increased over the previous fiscal year except visits to the Emergency Department.

Admissions: 31,230 – a 2.65% increase. Ambulatory clinic visits: up by nearly 21%. New patient visits: up more than 14%.

To make sure our patients are getting the best care we can give them, we are improving and adding to our facilities. Here are updates of some of the major projects:

• The Center for Cancer and Blood Disorders at Children’s of Mississippi held its ribbon-cutting in August.
• The 6th Floor Med-Surg and Critical Care Bed Expansion, a buildout of the sixth floor of Conerly and 6 South in the adult hospital, should have its first patient day in December.
• The Mississippi Burn Center at UMMC is projected to have its first patient day in April.
• The 20 beds of the Alyce G. Clarke Center for Medically Fragile Children is projected to accept its first patients in October of 2025.
• The hoped-planned first patient day for the 10-bed Adolescent Behavioral Inpatient Unit in the former Children’s Circle Tower is in January 2026.
• UMMC Colony Park South, featuring several ambulatory clinics, will open in early 2025 in Ridgeland directly across from UMMC Colony Park North, whose outpatient surgical center and specialty clinics are scheduled for a February 2026 opening.

Bringing the pieces together

I rounded out my slides with the image below that shows how the pieces of success come together. This is the goal. And it’s attainable if we all work hard and together.

Yes, we are still experiencing some challenges, but we are also experiencing success. I encourage you to think along that line. Think about what we can do in our work to promote and generate more success to keep that positive momentum going as we move forward toward A Healthier Mississippi.