Today the UMDNJ Advisory Committee released its final recommendations on the restructuring of higher education in New Jersey.  First, we thank the Advisory Committee members for their hard work and diligence in striving to recommend changes designed to  strengthen higher education in the State.  We acknowledge and appreciate the significant commitment of time and energy volunteered by the members of the Committee. 

With the issuance of this final report, we close a decade of uncertainty at UMDNJ.  As noted in the Advisory Committee Report, this extended period of structural uncertainty has impeded the recruitment and retention of students, faculty and staff.  We are focused on the future and will continue the complex financial and operational work of realigning all of our assets across the State into a highly focused and integrated new university of the health sciences.  This final series of recommendations allows all of our students, faculty and staff to become fully engaged in planning and implementing the future success of our institution.
 
The Advisory Committee’s recommendation to change the name of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey to the New Jersey Health Sciences University (NJHSU) is welcome.   UMDNJ is a fundamentally improved institution that highly values accountability and ethical behavior.  We hope that, moving forward, discussion and comments about the institution will reflect this reality.  We thank the Committee for recognizing that the challenges of the past no longer define or constrain the future of this vital State institution.  A re-branding at this time in our history symbolizes the successful emergence and transformation of the new UMDNJ.  Equally important, we welcome the opportunity to have a name that reflects the broad spectrum of all the health professionals we educate.  The University expanded beyond medicine and dentistry in 1976, and with the proposed change we will now have a more inclusive name.  The wide variety of programs offered in our schools, from Stratford to Newark, lays an ideal foundation for us to become national leaders in inter-professional education, research and patient care.  We have also begun to expand our effective partnerships with the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries.  These will prove to be competitive advantages as we anticipate the future of health care delivery and the need for job creation and economic development. 

Recognizing that each of our schools and clinical units possesses different strengths and potentials, we respectfully disagree with any unintended implication that any of our units should be more valued or given a greater degree of autonomy.  We recognize our obligation to streamline administrative processes in order to facilitate the achievement of excellence and creativity in all of the schools and clinical units that make up the University.  We must foster entrepreneurship and flexibility while forging a cohesive strategic plan and direction for the University as a whole.  Therefore, we commit to systematically evaluating our processes and developing more effective, efficient, and timely business practices.  We will look to decentralize administrative functions throughout the University where appropriate.  Of course, we will continue to foster a culture of compliance.  The deans of all our schools, the President and CEO of University Behavioral HealthCare and the President and CEO of University Hospital (UH) fully support this approach.  Indeed this process has already begun.

We welcome the opportunity to explore the potential of a public/private partnership with a not-for-profit health system.   Throughout the United States, there has been a significant increase in the number of hospitals affiliating with health systems in response to fundamental changes in the economy and health care delivery system.  A carefully structured strategic alignment that results in the co-management of certain critical services or a broader incorporation of University Hospital as a whole into a hospital system must prove to be mutually beneficial to the university, the hospital, the strategic partner and the communities we serve.  The ultimate goal of any strategic partnership for UH must be to further strengthen the educational, research, community health and clinical missions of the Newark-based schools.  

Over the past two years, University Hospital has made improvements in quality while simultaneously becoming somewhat more financially stable.  We appreciate the Advisory Committee’s acknowledgment of these facts.  The hospital’s financial challenges will continue as it is an academic health center that serves as a safety net provider.  University Hospital provides more care to patients with Charity Care and Medicaid than any other hospital in the State of New Jersey.  Approximately 75 percent of UH patients provide reimbursement that is below the actual cost of delivering that care.   What is often under- appreciated about University Hospital is the array of high quality tertiary and quaternary services provided to a wide range of patients. UH, in collaboration with New Jersey Medical School faculty, has developed nationally recognized programs in infectious disease, neurosurgery, orthopedic surgery, otolaryngology (ENT), cardiology, ophthalmology, liver transplantation and trauma care, among others.   With adequate funding, capital investment and a supportive strategic partnership, we are confident that UH can fulfill its potential to be one of the great academic hospitals of the region.

Finally, as New Jersey undertakes this systemic transformation of higher education, we wholeheartedly agree with the Advisory Committee's acknowledgement of the obligation to provide sustained financial support from the State and elsewhere to achieve excellence.  For this realignment to succeed and positively contribute to the State’s economic growth and development, additional financial resources must be invested in UMDNJ.   

We are grateful for a final set of recommendations that lays the foundation for a newly reconfigured and revitalized UMDNJ that may soon be known as the New Jersey Health Sciences University.  With New Jersey Medical School, New Jersey Dental School, the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, the School of Health Related Professions, the School of Nursing, the School of Osteopathic Medicine, University Behavioral HealthCare, and University Hospital, New Jersey’s only health sciences university will soon become an institution that everyone can be proud of as a state asset with national and global significance.

Kevin Barry, MD Chair, Board of Trustees	Denise V. Rodgers, MD President (Interim)