How Will Nevadans Benefit from the Health Sciences Center?

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A health sciences center is an integrated set of health professional education and biomedical research programs, aligned with supportive patient care programs and facilities. A health sciences center works to foster development of and facilitate collaboration among a wide array of higher education programs to better meet patient and community health improvement needs.

Mission synergy is part of the DNA of a health sciences center. The optimal education for health professionals occurs through faculty who are both creating and teaching new knowledge. The best faculty wants to work with other faculty with shared intellectual passion for investigating new dimensions in medicine. In healthcare, particularly medicine, learning occurs best through hands-on patient care. Quality patient care is essential to the success of a health sciences center. The most advanced research-evidence based disease prevention and treatment is delivered in these environments, helping students to learn, advancing knowledge, improving health outcomes for patients and improving the health status of Nevada.

There is a great opportunity and critical need for the University of Nevada Health Sciences Center to collaborate with other resources in Nevada in order to most effectively meet the state’s needs. The center has a physical presence in many places, including the University of Nevada, Reno, University of Nevada Las Vegas and state and community colleges. The ‘center’ of a health sciences center is not a place; the ‘center’ is the mission and the people.

In the most simple sense, the University Of Nevada Health Sciences Center is a linkage and integration of the health professional schools, i.e., nursing; medicine; pharmacy; and public health. There are many alternatives to how that linkage is structured and the planning process is examining the pros and cons of each alternative. Once that clarity is achieved—whatever the outcome—it must be consistently supported if the vision for the University Of Nevada Health Sciences Center is to be effectively executed.

What Will the University Of Nevada Health Sciences Center Vision Be? The University Of Nevada Health Sciences Center will be a great place to receive a health professional education in a multi-professional learning environment and a major producer of Nevada’s future health professionals. In addition, the center will serve as an important tool for creating targeted approaches to Nevada’s community health issues—through education, research and service. As a respected research enterprise, the center will be a major contributor to Nevada’s economic development and an effective collaborator known for working with community resources in the interest of Nevada’s health.

In summation, the University of Nevada Health Sciences Center will be the catalyst for health system change in Nevada, helping students to learn, advancing knowledge, improving health outcomes for patients and improving the health status of Nevada.

The Need
All Nevadans share a common goal with regard to their family’s healthcare needs—access to quality, state-of-the-art health care that is provided by compassionate, high-skilled and knowledgeable practitioners.

But our state has a problem. We are suffering greatly from an acute shortage of physicians, dentists, nurses, physical therapists, pharmacists, audiologists, dermatologists and speech pathologists. Indeed, across the board, virtually every category of healthcare professional, our state’s current and projected needs cannot be met by graduates from existing training programs. This leaves us vulnerable at a time when our state’s population is increasing and aging much more rapidly than most.

These shortages have real consequences. For example, Nevada ranks near the bottom in vital public health measures such as prenatal care, immunizations, and mental health. The most recent data reported by the Agency for Healthcare Research Quality ranks Nevada:

• 41st in colorectal cancer deaths per 100,000;
• 30th in percent of adults who have had their blood cholesterol checked in the last five years;
• 49th in percent of women receiving prenatal care in first three months of pregnancy;
• 46th in percent of adults 65 and older receiving flu vaccine last year;
• 40th in percent of Medicare patients who received recommended treatment after hospitalization for heart failure.

As we stand at the forefront of the new frontier of medicine we need to create a health sciences center. In creating the center, we will provide greater patient access to research driven, evidence-based care and disease prevention. The center will be a university-based, integrated set of health professional and biomedical research programs aligned with supportive patient care programs and provide an umbrella for the existing medical and health professional education programs. (Refer to organizational chart.)

Clearly this is a high priority need for our state. Consider these facts:

• Nevada ranks 46th in the nation in physicians per 100,000 population, severely limiting access to care;
• Every licenses physician must have additional residency training following the four years of medical school;
• Unlike our neighbors in New Mexico, Arizona and Utah, we lack residency training programs in critical specialties such as anesthesiology, dermatology, radiation oncology, emergency medicine, neurology, neurosurgery, radiology, ophthalmology, orthopedics, cardiothoracic surgery and urology;
• Nevada has the lowest number of physicians in residency training per population among all states with medical schools.

Shortages in healthcare providers affect the most vulnerable members of society: the poor, mentally ill, young and old. Care is sought late, or not at all, leading to higher prices, emergency room care and worse outcomes at higher cost to society.

Why Now
A health sciences center will accelerate the economic benefits and provide a common home for existing medical and health professional education programs currently based on different campuses. It creates efficient models of education and patient care and a coordinated vision for serving the health needs of our citizens. The center will fill the pipeline of non-physician health care providers including nurses, pharmacists, dentists and physical therapists.

The center will be the catalyst to spur cutting-edge discoveries by providing increased opportunities for the next generation of physicians to study, train and remain in Nevada to practice medicine.

More about the Health Sciences Center