Dear Colleagues,
After a period of reflection, and in consultation with the chairs of both the Board of Trustees and the UConn Health Board of Directors, I have decided to split the Executive
Vice President/Dean role at UConn Health into two separate positions, with the Executive Vice President reporting to me and the Dean reporting to Provost Mun Choi.
Given this situation, Dr. Frank Torti recently shared with me that he plans to step down as Executive Vice President for Health Affairs and Dean of the Medical School
early next year, and return to his research as a faculty member at UConn Health.
While I am sorry to lose a leader as valued as Dr. Torti, I understand his desire to return to the faculty, and his lab, after leading UConn Health for nearly three years
through one of the most significant periods of change and transformation in its history. We will not forget the simple message Dr. Torti delivered time and time again: “Our patients come first.”
Under his watch:
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Quality, service, and patient satisfaction improved: last year, the Joint Commission for the first time rated UConn Health in the top third of hospitals nationally on key quality metrics. Patient satisfaction has improved in almost all hospital and outpatient
areas, and key measures of service, such as Emergency Room wait times, improved dramatically.
•
Financial and operational performance has been transformed: under his leadership, UConn Health is on budget to realize over 50 million dollars in cost savings and operational improvements since 2012. Hospital admissions and Operating Room cases in FY15
are now at the highest levels they have been in four years. Although FY15 presented one of the toughest financial challenges in memory, the Health Center is ahead of its operating budget for the first four months of the fiscal year.
•
Our clinical footprint expanded: UConn Health is now located in seven sites across Connecticut in addition to the main campus at Farmington, and is growing.
•
The educational mission of the Medical School advanced: with his support, an innovative new medical student education curriculum is being developed by our faculty and educational leaders that will place UConn Health in the forefront of medical education
nationally.
•
Research funding increased, bucking national trends: total research funding for the UConn School of Medicine grew by more than five percent at a time when academic medical centers saw research funding drop on average over five percent. For the UConn
School of Medicine and the UConn School of Dental Medicine, research funding reached $91.4 million, approaching ARRA levels of funding. Research awards in the first quarter of FY15 exceeded FY14’s excellent performance.
•
An encompassing strategic plan for the Health Center, UConn Health 2020, was developed and implemented.
Dr. Torti also established a new Executive Diversity and Inclusion Council at the Health Center, and presided over an almost three-fold increase in underrepresented minority
enrollment in the School of Medicine. He introduced “SPARK” grants to foster entrepreneurship and spur early innovations of faculty in the areas of drug, device and software development along a path to commercialization. He spearheaded an effort, with other
Deans in Health Sciences, to develop a detailed plan for inter-professional education and care across the University. He established the Center for Quantitative Medicine at the Health Center, and together with the Deans of Dental Medicine and Engineering,
developed a cross-campus Department of Biomedical Engineering.
Those who had the chance to know Dr. Torti personally have come to appreciate his leadership guided by inclusiveness, fairness, and kindness.
And now, we look to the future that Dr. Torti helped make possible.
I’m pleased to report that Dr. Andrew Agwunobi, a director with the Berkeley Research Group (BRG) which has been actively engaged in vital work with UConn Health for more
than a year, has agreed to serve as interim Executive Vice President for Health Affairs.
As you know, Dr. Agwunobi is a leader of BRG's Hospital Performance Improvement practice.
Before joining BRG, Dr. Agwunobi served as chief executive of Providence Healthcare, a five-hospital region of Providence Health & Services in Spokane, Washington.
He previously held the positions of president and chief executive officer of Grady Health System in Atlanta; president and CEO of Tenet South Fulton Hospital in East Point,
Georgia; chief operating officer of 14-hospital St. Joseph Health System in California; and secretary of the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration.
Dr. Agwunobi has also served as chief of the Main Pediatric Urgent-Care Department for Harvard Vanguard Medical Associates in Boston.
A board-certified pediatrician, Dr. Agwunobi received a master of business administration from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
In addition, I’m pleased that Dr. Bruce Liang has agreed to serve as Dean of the School of Medicine on an interim basis as he did from 2011 – 2012. As you know, Dr. Liang
directs the Pat and Jim Calhoun Cardiology Center, is the Chief of the Division of Cardiology and is the Ray Neag Distinguished Professor of Vascular Biology at UConn Health.
He is a fellow of the American College of Cardiology, the American Heart Association and the Council on Clinical Cardiology and Basic Cardiovascular Sciences. Dr. Liang
is also an elected member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation, of the Association of University Cardiologists, and of the Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering.
After 13 years with the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine where he served as an associate professor both of medicine and pharmacology and was actively involved
with research, patient care and teaching, he joined the UConn Health Center in 2002.
He is widely published in the areas of cardiac myocyte and intact heart biology, as well as translational research in heart failure. In research, he has been continuously
funded since 1986 by the National Institutes of Health, the American Heart Association and the Department of Defense. Dr. Liang was the lead investigator of a clinical research study conducted at the UConn Health Center that identified a protein fragment that
when detected in the blood can be a predictor of heart attack. The study was published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.
Dr. Liang has been consistently named an America’s Top Doctor by Castle Connolly in cardiovascular disease since 2003, and has been recognized as a Best Doctor in America
by Best Doctor, Inc. Dr. Liang received his medical degree from Harvard Medical School. He completed his residency at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, and cardiology fellowship at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School.
Change is not easy, particularly during this time of transformation at UConn Health. Yet we must all be guided by what is best for the institution and UConn as a whole
– both immediately and well into the future.
Dr. Agwunobi and Dr. Liang will begin serving in their interim roles on January 2, 2015. Dr. Liang will serve through June 30. During the spring semester we will conduct
an internal search for a permanent dean.
Both know UConn Health very well and are deeply committed to its success, including when it comes to the implementation of Bioscience Connecticut and our continuing relationship
with Jackson Labs. They have my full confidence as well as that of Lawrence McHugh, the chair of our Board of Trustees, and Sanford Cloud, the chair of the UConn Health Board of Directors.
On Thursday, December 11, I will join Dr. Agwunobi and Dr. Liang for a series of open town hall-style meetings for faculty, staff and students on the UConn Health campus.
More information on these meetings will be shared with the community in advance of this date.
Please join me in wishing Dr. Liang and Dr. Agwunobi well, and in thanking Dr. Torti for his exceptional service.
Sincerely,
Susan Herbst
President
University of Connecticut