Dr. David Stephens, Director of the Division of Infectious Diseases and Chief of Medicine for Emory Healthcare, spoke about the work of Emory’s Ebola Advisory Task Force, which he co-chairs with S. Wright Caughman, CEO of the Robert W. Woodruff Health Sciences Center and chairman of Emory Healthcare. The task force was created to advise the University President on issues and policies rapidly unfolding around the ebola viral disease epidemic, including biosafety, infection control, preparedness and response; research, education, communication and ethics; and institutional policies on travel. Dr. Stephens said plans are being explored to host a forum about Ebola research opportunities. In the spring semester, an academic discussion group will be held for the Emory community to examine the ebola virus through a multidisciplinary lens, including its impact upon business, law, religion and ethics, said Dr. Debra Bruner, Robert W. Woodruff Chair in Nursing, who is on the Emory Ebola Advisory Task Force.
Category: Health Care
Sexual Assault Response Training
During a Title IX presentation, Associate Vice Provost Lynell Cadray, who leads Emory’s Office of Equity and Inclusion, recommended a plan to provide sexual assault training to all Emory faculty and staff, to be implemented over the next three years. The plan would offer guidance, for example, on when and why faculty and staff are required to report sexual misconduct, what steps to take if a student confides that they were a target of sexual assault, and when and how to refer a student for counseling or support services. Faculty council members voted to approve a motion to support mandatory university-wide sexual assault training for all Emory faculty and
staff. Training will be provided to all new faculty and staff hires starting January 2015. Current faculty will be provided an online training module, with classroom trainings to be made available to current staff.
Deans and Council Discuss Changes in Academic Medicine
In January, the Council welcomed a panel of the three deans of the schools in the health sciences at Emory—Chris Larsen from the School of Medicine, Linda McCauley from the School of Nursing, and James Curran from the School of Public Health—to discuss challenges in their fields in the face of cataclysmic change in healthcare in the U.S. Dean Larsen addressed the imperatives of patient safety, quality of care, and value, as well as rising threats to traditional revenue streams for academic healthcare. Dean McCauley discussed the impending shortage of nursing faculty, opportunities for the nursing school in the anticipated growth of employment of RN’s, and changes coming to nursing school programs and faculty as nursing education grows more competitive. Dean Curran talked about the rapid growth of public health schools in the U.S. in the past few decades and growth in the ranks of full-tuition master’s students to subsidize doctoral programs, as well as increasing challenges as federal research dollars dwindle. As talented investigators lose funding, he said, faculty retention will become a challenge.
Around Campus: Training Medical Residents
Associate Professor of Neurology Jaffar Khan spoke to the Council in January about efforts in the School of Medicine to prepare for training medical residents in a new, rapidly changing healthcare practice environment. The combination of rising healthcare costs and the passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act have resulted in transformations already beginning to occur. “In the future landscape of healthcare, the practice of medicine is going to change dramatically as we go forward in the next five years,” Khan said. He outlined a strategic planning initiative coordinated by Emory’s Graduate Medical Education office to address issues associated with traning new physicians. Task forces are probing a broad range of topics, including assuring Emory’s compliance with training requirements and guidelines regulating residency education, healthcare safety, and physician practices based on quality.
Employee Benefits Examined
Following an inquiry last fall about policies governing early withdrawal of funds from a retirement account, the Faculty Council heard a report from Vice President for Human Re- sources Peter Barnes at its March 20 meeting. Barnes said that Emory’s policy, which allows pre-retirement cash withdrawal only from employee contributions for employees who have reached 59 1⁄2 years of age, is consistent with “the purpose of the retirement plan,” which “isn’t intended as a future cash supplement” for current employees. Barnes also discussed a change to the medical benefits policy for dependents of employees who die while employed at Emory. Currently, if an employee who dies has at least 10 years of service and is at least 55 years old, the spouse, partner, or dependents may continue to participate in the medical plan at the active employee rate. For all others, spouses, partners, and dependents may con- tinue under COBRA. “The change we recommended to the cabinet, which was approved, was for Emory to subsidize the COBRA benefit for a surviving spouse, partner, or any dependent children for six months for all regular employees,” Barnes said.
Improved Faculty Access to Emory Clinic
At the January meeting, Emory Clinic direc- tor Doug Morris presented an overview of options available to Emory faculty for improved access to Emory Healthcare. He first described Emory Employee Health and Wellness and Occupational Medicine, located in the basement of Emory Hospital, room HB53. It is chiefly responsible for occupa- tional injury management but also serves as an employee clinic for minor ailments. Hours are Mon through Fri, by appointment only, but a nurse practitioner is on call 24 hours for work-related injuries at 686-8587. Morris also discussed the Emory Employee Line (8-EVIP), which provides appointment access within 14 days, and the new Patient- Centered Primary Care program, a pilot for a new model of coordinated care between providers, specialists, and other settings such as the ER. Morris urged faculty to enroll in this new program by contacting 8-2050 or visiting emoryhealthcare.org/pilot.