UNMC and its hospital partner, The Nebraska Medical Center, are working hand-in-hand to train future physicians, care for patients and advance medical research.
The clinical, research and educational benefits of the partnership are vast and invaluable, campus leaders say. And although UNMC and The Nebraska Medical Center are distinct organizations, they each share a common vision: to become a world-renowned, academic health sciences center.
That collaboration is outlined in the 2004 Partnership Strategy, which highlights joint commitment, as well as each organization’s critical success factors and strategies.
“Together, our goal is to provide patients with access to the highest quality, cost effective patient care, to continue commitment to community outreach and to provide expanded opportunities for UNMC to educate health professionals and conduct world-class research,” said UNMC College of Medicine Dean John Gollan, M.D., Ph.D. “In working together, everyone benefits.”
Symbolizing that working relationship will be the new Clinical Center for Excellence, which will connect University and Clarkson Towers. Currently under construction, the four-story center is scheduled to open in 2005.
The partnership was formed in 1997 when Clarkson Regional Health Services and UNMC merged their respective hospitals and clinical operations to form a non-profit corporation, The Nebraska Medical Center. Today, that partnership yields a number of clinical, research and educational benefits, which range from UNMC physicians practicing medicine at Clarkson and University Towers to clinical research trials which bring patients to campus for cutting-edge medical care.
One of the partnership benefits is the Clinical Trials Office, which offers support for services for investigators conducting industry-sponsored clinical trials. The office receives internal and external inquiries about clinical research studies and directs information and connects callers with the appropriate campus research resources. Other research resources include the Clinical Research Center, for investigator-initiated or National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded trials; the Minority Health Education and Research Office(MHERO) for minority-focused studies; as well as the Institutional Review board and Sponsored Programs Administration.
“There’s a real push to develop more clinical research on campus,” said Deb Romberger, M.D., interim chairwoman for internal medicine.
UNMC’s basic science departments have been successful in attaining NIH funding, but the campus now hopes to increase its NIH funding in translational and clinical research, Dr. Romberger said. Fostering clinical research also fosters growth in the hospital by bringing in new patients, she said.
Another aspect of the partnership is the formation of a new residency program in emergency medicine, which will benefit the emergency care of citizens across Nebraska and the region. The first six physicians will begin their three-year residencies in July.
“We’re very excited for the residency program to begin,” said Robert Muelleman, M.D., chief of the section of emergency medicine at UNMC and director of emergency services at UNMC’s hospital partner, The Nebraska Medical Center. “Only about one-third of the physicians practicing emergency medicine in Western Iowa and Nebraska are residency-trained and board-certified, and most of those physicians are in Lincoln and Omaha.”
Beginning in 2005, the residents will practice in one of the largest emergency departments in the region. The new emergency department, now under construction at The Nebraska Medical Center, will have 20,000 square feet, 16 exam rooms, 13 critical care rooms, eight observation rooms and four trauma beds.