by Mike D’eramo, Chief Administrative Office of the Toledo Clinic
Note: this essay was published in the April 18, 2020 edition of the Toledo Blade.
Toledo is fortunate to have a large academic medical center; the University of Toledo College of Medicine and Life Sciences (COMLS). However, the Toledo area requires a physician practice model that better supports the growth of medical talent in Greater Toledo; including skilled practitioners of clinical medicine, clinical educators, and clinical researchers. And in light of recent events, with the pending change in disposition of the University’s Medical Center (UTMC), the sense of urgency to preserve highly-trained physician and research staff has become imperative.
To address this need, I recommend that the University allow for the creation and deployment of an expanded community faculty model. Having helped to develop multiple different health care models around the country, I believe that an expanded community faculty model is ideal for this region.
According to this construct, physicians belong to one or more independent physician groups. In a city with an academic medical center, members from each of these groups are then provided the opportunity to practice medicine, teach, write, and/or perform research, according to their interests, abilities, and community needs. In return, the academic medical center leadership is expected to coordinate with all available physician groups to recruit and provide faculty appointments for those members who are aligned with and support the academic initiatives and priorities; without facilitating a segregated, competing dynamic. Further, according to this model, members of each the independent physician groups will be welcome to practice in all University of Toledo COMLS teaching hospitals, including UTMC, St. Luke’s, Wood County, and ProMedica hospitals.
The Toledo Clinic is a strong, successful independent physician group that aggressively supports the preservation of physician talent in Greater Toledo. Many Toledo Clinic members are talented, enthusiastic teachers and clinical investigators and eager to support the UT COMLS academic mission, including training and retention of physicians in Toledo. Further, the Toledo Clinic independent physicians’ group is strongly committed to the success of UTMC as an essential part of its community support and its goal to create an effective market alternative for patients and employers.
There are a number of modern reasons to keep the UTMC vibrant, including the pressing need for health care access imposed by the current COVID-19 pandemic. Over the last 30 years the prevailing health care business model has been to reduce costs by caring for patients with chronic, long-term health problems such as congestive heart failure (CHF) and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) in a non-hospital setting. Fast forward to 2020. We have shrunk the number of available hospital beds, ICU beds, ventilators, and other resources that would make the surge of COVID-19 patients easier to manage. In this context, I can safely say, this would be no time to close a hospital.
Secondly, UTMC offers the opportunity for unbiased, academic, and research-based medicine to thrive and progressively improve. Active participation of The Toledo Clinic in the expanded community faculty model will allow COMLS to partner and conjoin with multiple facilities and numerous physicians, and thereby open the door to expanded opportunities for students and residents to stay in NW Ohio.
A medical school represents the pinnacle of higher learning as it shepherds the careers of numerous MD’s and Ph.D.’s. into the market-place. Patients, consumers, spiritual leaders and tax-collectors all gain from the presence of science and medicine in their midst.
A community with a medical school is exceptional, unique, and blessed to have an asset of this caliber in their backyard. The presence of an academic medical center is a major incentive to businesses considering relocation. Which begs the question, should we be doing more to protect and grow the University of Toledo College of Medicine and Life Sciences, and the physicians and scientists who are aligned with this institution?
MIKE D’ERAMO
Chief Administrative Officer, The Toledo Clinic