Mike Friend, county commissioner representing District 7 in north and northwest Douglas County, visited UNMC earlier this month.
He toured the McGoogan Health Sciences Library, Wigton Heritage Center and iEXCEL facilities within the Davis Global Center. He also met with UNMC Chancellor Jeffrey P. Gold, MD.
Friend said he hoped to explore ways the county and the medical center could collaborate, especially in terms of public health. "The nursing shortage scares me," he said. He would like to see Douglas County reach out not just to UNMC, but to all the county’s health and medical entities to explore synergy and gather information to make the best decisions.
"That’s not our expertise," he said. "From a county standpoint, those relationships need to bloom."
The commissioner said he had not visited the medical center in a long time and wanted to see for himself a few of the advances he’d heard so much about.
"There have been a lot of changes, mostly good," he said. "I wanted to get my hands wrapped around it."
He added: "I think we want to be aware of the types of ways we could help UNMC, and the ways they could help us" as a county and those who serve it.