Dear Colleagues,
One of my priorities as Chair is to manage the Department of Medicine’s financial wellbeing—and that means having both a short and a long view. Our department’s finances are delineated by our clinical revenue, research grants, philanthropy, SOM and state support, and hospital support commitments. The strength of our department, including our financial and operational performance, is the result of our people – your stellar hard work and dedication.
Around this time every year, we begin negotiations with UCH on our annual contract and support commitment for the coming year. Many of you may wonder what goes into these types of conversations. I can assure you that it’s not a “going into the lion’s den” approach, but rather meaningful discussions that are centered on mutual principles:
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Sound accounting practices: we have a phenomenal team in our divisions and department who not only track how we spend our dollars, but can also project where opportunities for growth and additional support are necessary.
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Justification for our ongoing needs: this is where we have the opportunity share our program priorities and the ongoing support needed to remain on the cutting edge of clinical care. Sometimes this requires asking for more, sometimes this requires making adjustments on our end. But my approach to this is always to do what is best for our combined academic missions keeping patients at the center of what we do.
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Opportunities for new programs: in our ever-changing academic medicine landscape, we’re able to work with UCH to propose and implement new programmatic opportunities. Many of our now well-established clinical offerings came out of such initial discussions.
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Return on investment: this value proposition is agreed on by both sides and informs our overall work. As I think about ROI, I don’t just think about dollars and cents. Rather, I focus on strategy (where can we be leaders in the field), opportunities (where is there a win-win for us and the hospital) and give-and-take (where does taking a loss make sense in the context of the bigger picture).
I want to tell you that I am feeling good about our discussions so far. While I understand past year negotiations could be characterized as challenging, my discussions thus far suggest strongly that UCH values the DOM as an integral partner. In fact, we’re actually ahead of schedule in terms of our discussions. This should give us all a renewed sense of commitment, knowing that we are working in collaboration to strengthen our mutual goals of growth and support of our people.
Overall, I’m pleased to say that our financial wellbeing is sound and our future outlook is positive. We have a solid foundation and it’s evident how important our overall mission is—not only to UCH but also throughout the Colorado health care system. This reflects on each and every one of you and all the hard work you do each day, every day. Your department, division, UCH and your patients are grateful for this, as am I.
Onwards,
Vineet
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Vineet Chopra, MD, MSc
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