On Aug. 4, John Morris, M.D., Vanderbilt’s first director of the Division of Trauma and Surgical Critical Care, took call in the Trauma Unit for the last time, after dedicating nearly 30 years to trauma service at Vanderbilt.

Over the next three years, Medicare will test a new payment arrangement that rewards participating hospitals when Medicare patients require fewer inpatient and post-discharge services, but extracts financial penalties when patients require more of these services.

Vanderbilt University Medical Center will undertake sweeping changes to ensure smoother, more tightly coordinated transitions from the hospital to each patient’s home or other post-acute care setting.