Leadership team to visit 6 Nebraska communities this week

Chancellor Harold M. Maurer M.D., and other medical center leaders will visit six east-central and eastern Nebraska communities today and Tuesday during the seventh annual UNMC leadership trip across Nebraska.

From Aurora, Grand Island and Kearney today to Hastings, Columbus and Blair on Tuesday, the group will meet with community members during community receptions hosted by local businesses, colleges and hospitals. They also will visit with various community and business leaders and health professionals.

Dr. Maurer said the trip is always one of the highlights of his year.

“It’s a chance to visit with the people of the state and let them know what is happening at UNMC,” he said. “We make new friends and always learn a lot. We are interested in building healthier communities. Our educational, research and patient care efforts, everything we do, is done on behalf of Nebraskans.”

The purpose of the trip is to:

• Thank communities for their support;
  
• Listen to the health care needs of the community;
  
• Introduce members of the UNMC leadership team; and
  
• Let people know UNMC leaders are accessible.

Host communities will provide overviews about their communities and UNMC leaders will provide brief updates about the medical center’s progress in being a world-class academic health sciences center.

The leaders will talk about milestones from the past year, which include:

• The recent opening of the Durham Research Center II on the Omaha campus;
  
• UNMC’s external research funds exceeding $82 million annually, which resulted in the creation of more than 2,600 highly skilled jobs in the state; and
  
• Gov. Heineman’s May signing of a bill that provides operating funds for a soon-to-be constructed UNMC College of Nursing Northern Division in Norfolk. It will be the college’s fifth location in Nebraska and will help ensure that communities in northeast Nebraska have enough nurses to care for their residents.

Road trippers Besides Drs. Maurer, other UNMC leaders on the trip include: John Reinhardt, D.D.S., dean of the College of Dentistry; John Gollan, M.D., Ph.D., dean of the College of Medicine; Virginia Tilden, D.N.Sc., dean of the College of Nursing; Courtney Fletcher, Pharm.D., dean of the College of Pharmacy; Keith Mueller, Ph.D., interim dean of the College of Public Health; Kyle Meyer, Ph.D., associate dean of the School of Allied Health Professions; Ken Cowan, M.D., Ph.D, director of the UNMC Eppley Cancer Center; and Mike Leibowitz, Ph.D., director of the Munroe-Meyer Institute.

Trip discussions also will touch on two current campus construction projects — the Home Instead Center for Successful Aging and the Harold M. and Beverly Maurer Center for Public Health — and UNMC’s international efforts. In the past year, UNMC has established and collaborated with international partners in countries such as China, Russia and India.

A frequent topic during UNMC leadership tours, the state’s health care workforce shortage will again be addressed this year as well. Later this summer, a final report about Nebraska’s health workforce shortages will be available. The report will serve as a guide for state policy makers to predict the need and develop programs for future for health care professionals and to stay abreast of innovations in training.

Keith Mueller, Ph.D., director of the Nebraska Center for Rural Health Research, spearheaded the report.

“Among the challenges are looming aging issues,” said Dr. Mueller, who also is interim dean of the UNMC College of Public Health and a member of the leadership team. “If we act now, we can successfully deal with these issues.”