What's Next?
UVA Health System embarks on its bridge campaign for future growth
Posted April 29, 2010
The Barry and Bill Battle Building will provide a bridge between the acute care children receive in the hospital and routine care they manage at home with their families.
Rendering from the Office of the Architect
The end of a highly successful capital campaign for the University of Virginia Health System might seem the perfect time to sit back and celebrate success, but, for the leaders of the Health System, it’s the perfect time to ask an important question — what’s next?
In this time of steep budget cuts, continuing our fundraising efforts is now even more urgent and important. These efforts allow UVA to follow through on promising translational research projects and clinical care initiatives started during the campaign. They also help us continue revolutionizing the way we teach medical and nursing students, and provide more resources for students with unmet needs. The UVA Health Foundation is working closely with Deans Dorrie Fontaine, RN, PhD, FAAN; Steven T. DeKosky, MD, FACP; and Medical Center CEO R. Edward Howell to outline their strategic vision and identify future priorities and core needs of the Health System.
“Now we have the chance to refine and follow through with unmet priorities, and introduce new, critical opportunities for growth,” says Vice President and School of Medicine Dean DeKosky. “We can create powerful synergies between areas, and build capacity for potentially lifesaving translational research in areas such as cancer, the neurosciences, and other clinical programs. It’s an exciting time to be at UVA.”
The Schools of Medicine and Nursing depend upon merit and need-based scholarships to attract the best and brightest students.
The UVA Health System Bridge Campaign will advance support in several key areas:
- New strategic directions, fostering translational research, clinical performance education, and contemplative end-of-life care programs.
- Core needs, including endowment and programmatic funding that supports fellowships, scholarships, and professorships.
- Capital projects, including completing fundraising for the Emily Couric Clinical Cancer Center, the Barry and Bill Battle Building at UVA Children’s Hospital, and the renovations of McLeod Hall; begin plans for an education resource center and a transitional care hospital.
“We are embarking on a series of discussions across the Health System with our faculty and staff to help us chart this future of healthcare at UVA,” explains Vice President and Medical Center CEO R. Edward Howell. “For example, the Cancer Center wants to achieve National Cancer Institute Comprehensive Cancer Center status — what do we need to do to get there? These are the plans we’re making now. This groundwork will directly benefit our patients and change the way we deliver care in the future.”
Private support of translational research helps us speed the pace of discovery and innovation — the best hope for our patients and their families.
School of Nursing Dean Dorrie Fontaine agrees. “We’ve built a great foundation with the Campaign for Health — now we need to build up and out. In Nursing, we have the opportunity to increase fellowship support for graduate nurses and advanced practice nurses. We can expand our outreach, especially in rural, underserved areas. We can foster partnerships with the School of Medicine and the Medical Center to build innovative programs to educate and deliver care.”
“It’s not going to be just business as usual around the UVA Health System,” Fontaine continues. “Now we’re going to see just how far we can go.”
