Strategic Plan of the Faculty of Medicine2009 - 2014

Creating

the FutureoF health

Medicine | Page 2

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Message from the Dean

The University of Calgary Faculty of Medicine has come a long way since 1967 when

Dr. Bill Cochrane was hired as the first dean to plan a new medical school. We are now

a major Faculty in Canada, with outstanding educational and clinical programs, and

strong research, which in some areas is of international stature. Our home is Calgary, an

ambitious world-class city, and we aspire to be just as ambitious and successful.

There is much to be proud of here at the Faculty of Medicine.

We have a dedicated and accomplished cadre of researchers,

educators and clinicians. Our medical education programs have

repeatedly received laudatory accreditation results. We’ve made

significant progress in improving our internal budgeting and priority

setting mechanisms, and we have a strong commitment to financial

sustainability. Our Faculty is dedicated to pursuing innovation and

creativity and our research priorities, as embodied in our institutes,

have resonated with Albertans and received strong support from

Calgary’s philanthropic community.

Add to this our undiminished determination to succeed and I’d say

we have a winning combination. The design and implementation

of an ambitious, yet achievable strategic plan for the Faculty is

a key piece of the puzzle. I believe that with this document now

guiding us, we will move forward with confidence and assurance

that we have the “big picture” clearly in mind. We are resilient in

challenging times and goal-oriented in everything we do. And you have my promise

that we will report back on our progress towards achieving the objectives in this plan on

a regular basis. I look forward to sharing our accomplishments with you!

Tom Feasby, MD

Dean, Faculty of Medicine

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Embracing the Future

Our Faculty, students, clinicians, scientists, educators and partners share a passion for creativity, discovery, education and innovation.

We are collectively committed to making progress and creating ideas to improve health now and expand the possibilities for health into the future.

We are known for exceptional clinical outcomes in areas such as cardiovascular care, stroke, musculo-skeletal and joint disease, cancer care and neurosurgery, and are seen as willing to lead in developing new and innovative ways to treat and prevent disease in areas such as pediatrics, internal medicine and mental health.

We have outstanding research in many areas, including neuroscience, cardiac disease, immunology and child health.

Our ambitions match the vigour and prominence of our city and the vast potential of our province. The success of the recent $312M Reach! fundraising campaign is a notable example, and our aim is to be in the top rank of medical faculties in Canada.

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The Planning ProcessDeveloping a Strategic Plan is a major undertaking for a complex organization such as ours. The process to develop our Plan has been one of extensive consultation and participation, both internally and externally. It extends back to our engagement process in 2006-07, with involvement of the Faculty and its departments. It includes two leadership planning retreats. A major Faculty survey was done and extensive interviews were conducted with our partners.

During the planning process, we challenged ourselves to answer the following question:

“What do we have to do to go from being a good Faculty of Medicine to become a great Faculty of Medicine?”

• We must partner for success. • We must seize our opportunities.

• We must create and sustain a culture of excellence.

• We must expect more from ourselves.

• We must be socially responsive.

• What we do must have impact.

We are living in an age of energy, technology, and innovation, where the keys to success lie with the ability to create new knowledge and discover new ideas.

This is a young university, one which has grown quickly from a few pioneering faculty to its present status as a thriving research university, striving to be amongst the top research universities in Canada.

Through the University of Calgary, students become vitally connected to the world they inhabit, a world of ideas, of challenges, of possibilities, of relationships.

University of Calgary Academic Foundations Plan

Medicine | Page 6

Creating our Conditions for SuccessTaking a cue from the University of Calgary’s motto, “I lift up mine eyes” (Mo shuile togam suas), the Faculty of Medicine from its inception dedicated itself to being an innovative medical school within the research-intensive environment created by the University.

Our Faculty has created a solid foundation for success. Our mission and vision statements remain anchors for our future endeavours. We reconfirmed our dedication to a vision and mission statement that challenges each of us to be dedicated to seeking ways to continually improve education, research and clinical practice.

The external stakeholder consultation conducted during the Spring of 2008 told us that our future success will depend on how well we:

• Encourage a disciplined approach to growth in areas of larger impact where we can attain sufficient critical mass to be world class.

• Encourage more team-based interdisciplinary research that has practical application to the improvement of health or the delivery of health services.

• Develop a set of medium and long term strategic objectives and priorities that the University, Government and our many other partners can use to plan.

• Align ourselves with the priorities and goals of the University of Calgary.

• Collaborate with our external partners to advance their understanding of the science underway in the Faculty and how it might help them achieve their objectives.

• Work within the Campus Alberta model to maximize the advantage of provincial investments in health, education and research.

• Communicate consistently with funders about what we are doing well today and what we want to do well in the future.

• Factor our partners’ priorities and challenges into Faculty planning for new education and research initiatives.

We also developed a set of critical success factors which helped guide our planning and will guide our future. (see below)

Our Faculty possesses several key strengths: an innovative and entrepreneurial spirit; a research-intensive culture; excellent education programs; new space; strong partnerships across our service continuum; clinical excellence; and a very supportive community.

We are now poised to move forward to use the creativity, commitment and energy of our Faculty to create the future of health.

PEOPLE Recruit, develop, and retain highly qualified and dedicated people in alignment with the goals of the Faculty

EDUCATIONDeliver innovative educational programs led by scholars committed to quality education in an experiential environment

RESEARCHProduce innovative, high-impact research and apply it to the improvement of health and health care delivery

SERVICEFulfill our social responsibility through leadership to improve the health of our community

Critical Success Factors:

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Vision: Creating the future of health.

Mission: An innovative medical school committed to excellence and leadership in education, research and service to society.

We have adopted a set of core values to guide our actions with each other and with our external partners and stakeholders. These values commit our organization to the following behaviours:

Values: Integrity: Act with integrity where our actions are consistent with our words. We honour commitments and are accountable to one another.

Respectful and caring communication: We solicit opinions. People feel heard and understood.

Pursuit of excellence: Pursue excellence and reward and build on success.

Value each person: Recognize and value each person’s contributions.

Transparent and consistent decisions: Make open and transparent decisions that are consistent and balance the needs of the organization and individuals.

Collaboration and mentorship: Collaborate, support and mentor each other and work toward shared multi-disciplinary goals.

PARTNERSHIPS Develop and maintain external and internal relationships that provide mutual and sustainable benefits and align with the vision, mission and values of the Faculty

INFRASTRUCTURE Ensure that optimum people, facilities, systems, and processes are in place to enable research, education and service

FUNDING Acquire and allocate sufficient funds to lever opportunities and provide long-term sustainability

LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT Focus energy on ambitious and achievable goals, promote innovation and accountability and communicate effectively

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1.0 Raising Our Performance Bar

2.0 Excellence Through Broader Accountability

3.0 Sharpening Our Research Focus

4.0 Sharpening our Education Focus

5.0 Exceptional Patient Care Integrated with Education and Research

Current Environment

“A crisis is a terrible thing to waste.”Stanford economist Paul Romer

The Faculty of Medicine’s strategic plan is moving forward at a time when several of our major partners are facing deep and significant challenges of their own. These changes will alter in fundamental ways the delivery and organization of academic medicine in Alberta. While it is too early to speculate on the full impact of these changes, from a planning perspective it reminds us that our plans need to be flexible and our general approach should emphasize nimbleness and a willingness to embrace the unknown as we move forward.

Global factors also affect us, especially the worldwide recession. This has potentially serious implications for us in terms of funding from Government, the University, Alberta Health Services and philanthropy. Our operating budget is already feeling the brunt of serious cutbacks.

Over the past year, the Government of Alberta has made two significant changes to our environment:

June 2008 - The Government abolished the existing health regions and replaced them with a single new provincial entity – Alberta Health Services. The health system redesign includes a strong focus on using evidence to inform service delivery choices and creating a more patient-focused system. There will be an evolving demand for health care practitioners to be trained in Alberta. Our Faculty’s education mission will need to evolve in response to societal needs.

March 2009 - The Government announced plans to revamp the provincial science and innovation framework. Alberta will continue to support research into the biomedical basis of disease but there will be an increased emphasis on health research conceived broadly and on research related to health system practices, the determinants of health and population health, and team-based approaches. Research enterprises will thrive if they include the commercialization of research and the translation of research findings into practical outcomes. The government will also develop health research priorities with which we must be aligned.

Despite the uncertainty, times of change are also times of opportunity. We have no doubt of our capability to meet these challenges and take advantage of the opportunities presented.

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Strategies for Success1.0 Raising Our Performance BarOur Faculty is young but has significant accomplishments in our missions of service, education and research. In order to excel, we cannot be content with past levels of success. Our challenge is to find ways to be and do better. In short, we need to raise our performance bar and leverage our history of competitive success for the future.

Success in the future will be achieved to the extent that the Faculty sets higher expectations based on clear goals/outcomes, measuring our path to success and managing on the basis of measurement.

Objective 1.1 • Develop and implement a Faculty-wide performance

measurement and management system as a tool for monitoring our performance and promoting improvement.

Objective 1.2• Review and improve the guidelines for promotion, tenure

and merit and thereby raise the performance bar for all activities in the Faculty.

Objective 1.3• Promote and recognize success in internal and external

awards to our Faculty members.

Objective 1.4• It is important that the Faculty of Medicine lead by

example and test itself against suitable internal and external comparators. The Faculty will lead the University of Calgary in research, education and service, and will benchmark its performance against other faculties of medicine. Examples of key performance indicators are:

i) ResearchA) Research funding and external salary awards

per full time faculty member

B) Percentage of full time faculty members who hold external research funding

ii) EducationA) Undergraduate and Professional

a. student satisfactionb. entrance and exit average grade point

average (GPA) in the BHSc programc. entrance GPA amongst professional

disciplines (Medicine)d. diversity in our student population

and faculty

B) Graduate Sciencea. percentage of PhD students who graduateb. mean time to graduate PhD studentsc. percentage of PhD students holding

external awardsd. number of PhD students per full time

faculty member (GFT)e. total graduate students (including residents)

per GFTf. student satisfaction

iii) Service to SocietyA) Quantitative and qualitative measures will

be developed.

“We must commit ourselves to excellence and we

must expect more from ourselves, reward success and identify and eliminate

underperformance.”

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2.0 Excellence Through Broader AccountabilityIf we consider the context within which the provincial government has altered the governance of the health system, and the way in which it proposes to change the governance and organization of the research environment, a strong message emerges. The Government of Alberta wants public institutions to be more accountable for results and for adding value. There is a growing need to increase not just academic and financial accountability, but also social accountability across the spectrum of public spending.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has defined the “social accountability” of medical schools as, “the obligation to direct education, research and service activities towards addressing the priority health concerns of the community, region and/or nation they have a mandate to serve. The priority health concerns are to be identified jointly by governments, health care organizations, health professionals and the public.”

Our Faculty established a social accountability working group with broad membership that included community representatives from the Dean’s Advisory Board. The group met with students and Faculty and developed the following strategies designed to increase our Faculty’s social accountability profile.

Our social accountabilities are broad and include not just those in the WHO definition but beyond, including our obligation to produce not just physicians, but scientists and other professionals. Social responsibility encompasses not just local commitments but now must recognize that we all live in a “flat” world of global responsibility.

Objective 2.1• Establish a Social Accountability Committee to address

the renewal of social accountability within education, research and clinical service at the Faculty of Medicine.

Objective 2.2• Work with our community to create a social accountability

framework to track and improve social accountability initiatives in the Faculty of Medicine and highlight ‘best practices’ with respect to community engagement and communication with the public.

Objective 2.3• Establish Social Accountability Awards in research,

education, and service to society for faculty, students and members of the public.

Objective 2.4• Renew our fund development program post-Reach!, with

new priorities guided by our strategic plan and our social accountability framework.

Objective 2.5• Create a socially responsible internationalization and

global health program to ensure that the activities of the Faculty have a positive net impact on international development while also enhancing our international profile and benefitting our students and faculty members.

Objective 2.6• Engage our community through improved communication

and shared planning and activities.

“We have been entrusted with great resources and

opportunity and this requires that we be a socially accountable medical school.”

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Research PrioritiesThe Faculty has designated four areas as the leading research priorities of the Faculty of Medicine. These are, in order of priority:

• brain and mental health;

• infection and immunity;

• heart health; and

• child health.

In addition, the University’s priority program in biomedical engineering is recognized as an important crosscutting strategic initiative for the Faculty.

Neuroscience is the greatest research strength of the Faculty of Medicine. We believe it should also be a top research priority of the University, to provide the support necessary

for Calgary to play a leadership role on the provincial and national stage.

Three additional research areas, each at a different stage in development, are identified as emerging research strengths:

• cancer;

• population, health policy and health services research; and

• bone and joint health.

The growth and maturation of these themes is an important secondary priority.

The Faculty’s strategic research priorities will be reviewed annually on the basis of performance metrics which will be developed.

3.0 Sharpening Our Research FocusIn 2004, the Faculty of Medicine created six research institutes to focus and promote its priority research efforts. A new institute is being created in 2009. These institutes are partnerships between the Faculty, the University, Alberta Health Services and in some cases, philanthropic organizations. Each institute has the mandate to impact the community in a positive way and provide a focus for the growth and refreshment of the Faculty’s research mission. The Faculty will further develop focused research excellence in each of its institutes, will reward success and encourage each institute to achieve national prominence within five years.

To date, the Hotchkiss Brain Institute has achieved this level and neuroscience has been our most successful research area. It will be further strengthened and supported. Other institutes are developing at various rates and each will be encouraged and their performance assessed on a regular basis. Institutes need to perform well to merit continued Faculty support. The Faculty will enhance its research performance through its institutes, through an ambitious strategic plan and through performance management.

The Faculty has developed a Research Strategic Plan that delivers a “roadmap” to leverage our human resources and organizational strengths and sharpen our focus in research. This plan will determine how we invest in people, technology and facilities in the years ahead. Careful choices are required to reflect the full range of needs and economic imperatives that face academic medicine, and also to capitalize on our strengths and opportunities. The Research Strategic Plan identifies goals and objectives for each institute and is the document that will enable the following broad strategic directions for our research enterprise:

Objective 3.1• The Faculty Leadership Group will examine the design

of institutes and recommend options for increasing their performance.

Objective 3.2• Each institute and department will develop a strategic

research plan and priorities, in partnership with other institutes, departments and potentially other external stakeholders/partners.

Objective 3.3• The Faculty will develop a strategic research recruitment

plan that will emphasize renewal and growth in areas where we can and choose to be strong.

Objective 3.4• The Faculty will develop a program that will encourage and

initiate funding for the development of multi-disciplinary research teams within the Faculty and University.

Objective 3.5• The Faculty will help lead the University’s initiative in

biomedical engineering.

Objective 3.6• The Faculty will establish an Institute for Population and

Public Health in collaboration with our strategic partners.

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“We have heard from both external and internal

stakeholders that to improve we must focus our research

and educational enterprises.”

4.0 Sharpening our Education FocusOur Faculty’s future will be characterized by overall educational excellence and a desire from our students and stakeholders for greater inter-professional collaboration in education, research and service.

Academic health systems are complex and fragile webs of interdependent people, space and ideas. Our success requires that we build and nurture superb relationships with our key partners in the world of academic health and maximize the investments which our various partners make in academic health for the greater good. With these factors in mind, the Faculty commissioned its education leaders to develop a strategic plan for education that capitalizes on our strengths and the opportunities presented by society’s need for more and better-trained health professionals. The overall goal is a Faculty of Medicine that leads by anticipating and fulfilling societal needs for highly trained personnel in medicine, the biomedical sciences and health-related social sciences.

• We will have a documented reputation as the national leader for impact, innovation and excellence in our educational programs.

• We will have measured and consistently improved in our key performance indicators year over year.

• We will have set the international standard for the successful integration of educational research with clinical goals and priorities.

• We will have built an international reputation as a socially accountable and responsible medical school at the local, provincial, national and international levels.

To achieve these longer-term goals, the Education Leadership Team will encourage the Faculty to focus on the following shorter-term strategic goals for the next three years. These goals fall into two categories that reflect our split mission to fulfill society’s needs and to achieve excellence within our mandate.

Objective 4.1• Anticipate and fulfill our responsibilities to society by:

i. increasing our Undergraduate Medical Education (UME) program to 180 students per year and managing this and the related expansion of Postgraduate Medical Education (PGME);

ii. encouraging generalism through curricular and organizational change in UME and PGME;

iii. improving Graduate Science Education to meet the needs of the knowledge-based economy of Alberta and Canada, to enhance the success of our students and to attract the best graduate and post-doctoral students;

iv. enhancing and optimizing Undergraduate Science Education (BHSc) to provide the skills and broad perspective foundational for success and leadership in health sciences careers; and

v. enhancing the role of Continuing Medical Education (CME) in improving the quality of health care in Alberta (Personalized Learning Prescription and Mentorship programs).

Objective 4.2• Improve the quality of our educational programs through

innovation and performance management by:

i. enhancing and developing distributed learning models for all educational programs;

ii. investing in simulation and virtual reality based learning across the educational continuum;

iii. investing in faculty development and evaluation to improve the effectiveness of our teaching staff; and

iv. improving educational quality through faculty performance management.

Medicine | Page 14

“The global environment in which we live and work

requires that we continually find ways to attract the best

students and recruits by improving our programs and

marketing them well. ”

5.0 Exceptional Patient Care Integrated with Education and ResearchOne of the unique features of our Faculty of Medicine is that our full-time clinical faculty —those faculty physicians who teach and conduct research—provide many complex health services as physicians and are the medical leaders in Alberta. These physicians are adept at translating the results of basic science and clinical research into positive patient care outcomes. Calgary has a leadership opportunity with the South Health Campus capital project to design and deliver a model of inter-professional collaboration in education, service and research that could break new ground and be a tremendous incubator for further innovation and creativity.

Recognizing the opportunity presented by the creation of the South Health Campus and mindful of the new opportunities and challenges presented by the creation of Alberta Health Services, a strategic plan for the clinical affairs portfolio was developed. This plan, deals with the next five years —2009-2014—and articulates how the Faculty of Medicine’s clinical affairs portfolio must prepare and support health professionals to provide the best health services for Albertans now and in the future .

The strategy will enhance the integration of health care delivery with clinical research and education. This will optimize the patient experience and further our research and education missions in locations that support and reinforce excellence.

Objective 5.1 • Closely integrate scholarly practice into clinical services,

such that every patient seen in an academic clinical environment is part of a clinical trial, health research, quality or safety project or educational program.

• Develop and use quantitative and qualitative metrics to assess the effectiveness of clinical care and academic program productivity.

Objective 5.2 • In order to further develop the key clinical partnership

with Alberta Health Services, the Faculty will create—in conjunction with Alberta Health Services—a comprehensive and sustainable faculty physician recruitment, retention, and retirement plan that includes a faculty-wide academic alternate relationship plan, such that:

i. our staffing plan will be aligned with the strategic plan by Fall 2009; and

ii. our faculty-wide academic alternative relationship plan is in place by Fall 2010 allowing us to link physician recruitment with health and academic needs.

Objective 5.3 • Develop new space to deliver care in innovative, patient-

focused environments to enhance the integration of Faculty in efficient and effective clinical service models. This will be done in settings that focus on people and health, in partnership with Alberta Health Services, as follows:

i. over the next five years our Faculty will work with Alberta Health Services to support the development of South Health Campus ambulatory care facilities;

ii. we will advocate for and help to plan the relocation of current University of Calgary Medical Group (UCMG) clinics to an evidence-based multidisciplinary ambulatory care facility;

iii. we will advocate for and help to plan purpose-built Family Medicine ambulatory care centres; and

iv. we will develop and employ quantitative and qualitative metrics to assess clinical and academic program productivity at all sites.

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“The future will demand inter-professional collaboration in education, research and service to society, and we

have a major opportunity to pursue this at the new South

Health Campus.”

medicine.ucalgary.com

If we do all of these things, we will succeed— we will create the Future of Health.

This Strategic Plan is our collective roadmap to success. We will commit ourselves to excellence. We must expect more from ourselves, reward success, and measure and improve performance. Will renew and expand our commitment to social responsibility.

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