VUMC’s future shape served up at first Leadership Breakfast Club
Inaugural speaker Martin Sandler, M.B., Ch.B., talks with Beverley Coccia at last week’s Leadership Breakfast Club. (photo by Susan Urmy)
Ted Gilbert, left, Fred Easley and Fred DeWeese compare notes at last week’s Leadership Breakfast Club meeting. (photo by Susan Urmy)
Martin Sandler, M.B., Ch. B., associate vice chancellor for Hospital Affairs, projected the growth of VUMC 30 years into the future in remarks at the first meeting of the Leadership Breakfast Club last Friday.
“It's a tremendously exciting time to be at Vanderbilt,” he told the by-invitation-only group of about 40 Medical Center leaders. But, he noted, if the growth of programs proceeds at its planned pace, “this campus can't contain that kind of growth or that kind of traffic.”
Managing that growth in a strategic manner requires that certain specialties be emphasized, Sandler said. He named the Vanderbilt Heart & Vascular Institute, the Monroe Carell Jr. Children's Hospital at Vanderbilt, the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center, Neurosciences and Orthopaedics as areas of focused growth, acknowledging that some other areas may temporarily need to forego some expansion.
“We're asking [some areas] to do things that are helping us get where we need to go,” he said. Increasing revenue from operations is critical to funding growth, since the other two sources of funds — philanthropy and borrowing — have limitations.
He noted that with growth projects already under way, the main VUMC campus could within several years have more than 1,000 beds, and pointed to the proposed move of many specialty clinics and other services to a remodeled 100 Oaks Mall as a partial solution to the crowding problem.
During an audience comment and question period, Fred DeWeese, vice president for Facilities Planning, said that the 100 Oaks project, which is planned to contain not only outpatient facilities but also amenities such as a fitness center and a child care center for staff and faculty, will transform the aging mall.
“That mall will be completely transformed architecturally,” he said. “This is the biggest thing, from a facilities standpoint, since Vanderbilt built the hospital [in 1980].”
In response to a question from John Zic, M.D., assistant professor of Medicine and associate dean of Admissions for the School of Medicine, about clinical physician involvement in the process, both Sandler and DeWeese agreed that communication with faculty about the potential changes, as well as an effort to maintain the atmosphere of an academic center at the 100 Oaks site, are essential.
The Leadership Breakfast Club meetings are scheduled for every other month and are designed to provide an informal setting for information-sharing and conversation among several levels of management and leadership.
The series is hosted by VUMC's Office of News and Public Affairs.