Monday, Sept. 12, 2005 | 10:54 a.m.
Do you buy it or grow it?
That's the question Nevada university officials will ultimately have to answer as they work to develop an academic medical center in downtown Las Vegas, Chancellor Jim Rogers said.
Does the University of Nevada School of Medicine partner with the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, which has the expertise and experience to get the job done quickly and be able to immediately offer Southern Nevadans specialty services such as heart transplants, or does the school partner with local doctors to slowly develop the infrastructure needed to build an academic medical center on its own?
"What you have here is a balancing act," Rogers said.
On one hand, he has Pittsburgh offering to re-create its world-renowned medical center in Las Vegas and assume the financial risk of operating it.
U.S. News and World Report ranked Pittsburgh as No. 13 on its honor role of exceptional hospitals, and the medical center also ranked in the top 50 in 14 of 17 listed specialty areas.
"The benefit is that they've gone through all this before, they'd been able to take a look at their mistakes and remedy them, and that cuts down on your time of development," Rogers said.
On the other hand, by giving Pittsburgh such a "big piece of the action," it may cost Nevadans more in the long run, Rogers said.
"Given time and enough money, we may be able to do it better, and then it's all ours," Rogers said. "And that has a lot of appeal."
Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman wants an academic medical center and said what he heard about the local proposal is "apples and oranges" from that. He said his understanding of the proposal is that it would mean more internships and residencies, but the not medical center he envisions.
"This community doesn't have time to waste," said Goodman, who has made a push to bring a medical center to city-owned land and is taking part in the discussions with the University of Pittsburgh. "I will continue on my path."
City and higher education officials have not identified a funding source for the center, which would cost at least $400 million.
The buy-it or grow-it question is one Rogers and other Nevada System of Higher Education leaders are mulling over as they await a formal site and business plan from Pittsburgh and as they begin to get some concrete details from local doctors on what they are willing to do to advance medical education in the state.
In a proposal to Rogers on Friday, the Nevada Hospital Association offered to increase its annual funding for the medical school to $45 million from the current $22 million to $25 million a year.
The money, paid out in a joint effort from the 39 hospitals in the state association and the larger health care community, would go primarily to expand and create residency, internship and fellowship opportunities, Bill Welch, president of the Nevada Hospital Association, said.
The hospitals already assume much of the cost associated with those programs. Each residency costs about $50,000.
The association plans to create 250 additional residency, intern and fellowship slots in the state in 15 areas deemed to be of critical need, including positions in obstetrics and emergency medicine as soon as June 2006.
That's nearly double the 130 slots available now. By training more doctors locally, the hope of the hospital association is that more qualified doctors will chose to continue to practice in Nevada and meed documented health care needs.
The increased residencies will also bring in more revenue to the medical school and create new teaching and research opportunities for faculty, according to the proposal.
The residency costs will also cover hiring new medical school faculty, advancing research and expanding clinical programs, Welch said. The association also wants to start a medical school foundation to help the school to raise additional money, pursue federal grants and recruit the best faculty, students and researchers.
The association's proposal suggests that UNR's and UNLV's current facilities across from each other at Shadow Lane and Charleston Boulevard could serve as the incubator for an academic medical center because it will be quicker and easier to develop an outpatient clinic and research program on those sites first.
On the south side of Charleston Boulevard is the medical school's Las Vegas location and on the north side is UNLV's 18.2 acre health sciences campus with the School of Dental Medicine and the Biotechnology Research Center.
The association's proposal, Rogers said, has him "very pleased," both at the money being offered and the enormous amount of collaboration he's seen from area hospitals. By investing in the program side of the medical school, local hospitals will make it easier for the state to develop its own medical center.
Welch declined to comment on how state officials should develop an academic medical center because he has not seen any other proposals, but he said the hospitals commitment to expand the medical school and health care in Nevada would stand no matter what else evolves.
"This is the only proposal that I know that is on the table that has put hard numbers and put specific vision to what we see that needs to be done to expand to meet the medical needs of our community," Welch said.
Meanwhile, Rogers and other leaders are still pursuing all available avenues.
"You have to start some place, and this is the start, but this doesn't stop anything else," Rogers said. "As I told them, I am going to continue to speak with Pittsburgh and anyone else who has any ideas."
Sun reporter Dan Kulin contributed to this story.
archive
