The University of Toledo Medical Center must find a way to provide accessible, quality care while controlling cost in response to national health-care reform, said Michele Wheatly, a candidate for UT president.
Ms. Wheatly addressed about 75 health-education staff, clinicians, and others Friday at the Health Science Campus during the second of two public forums to take place during her multiday visit to Toledo.
The first of three finalists seeking the university’s presidency to visit, she concluded her trip with a closed-door interview with the board of trustees.
After that meeting, Ms. Wheatly said she remains “very interested” in the position.
PHOTO GALLERY: See more photos from the second day of Wheatly’s visit
Her visit impressed Joseph H. Zerbey IV, chairman of UT’s board of trustees and The Blade’s president and general manager.
“I thought she hit it out of the park,” he said. “She did a magnificent job and with the assumption that the other two candidates will be as good, it’s a wonderful position for UT to be in, to be able to choose from three outstanding candidates.”
Trustees spoke with her about a range of topics, including how she would work with the board, he said.
She tailored some of her public remarks earlier Friday to correspond with the challenges and opportunities at the former Medical College of Ohio, which merged with UT in 2006. UTMC must focus on access, quality care, and cost amid a new health-care climate ushered in by the Affordable Care Act.
“We are going to have a real change in how reimbursements are made in the clinical enterprise,” she said, referencing a shift away from patient volume and a growing emphasis on patient satisfaction and reducing hospital readmissions.
As a result, Ms. Wheatly said, it makes sense to pursue joint partnerships with larger providers.
With Medicaid expansion, the hospital can expect to treat more needy patients with complicated problems, making it more difficult to stretch resources.
“A lot of the people that come to an academic health center have the more involved situations. They are often people living in poverty, and poverty is associated with a certain category and groupings of diseases,” she said.
Ms. Wheatly, a former West Virginia University provost whose academic background is in biology and physiology, underscored her understanding of medical colleges and clinical operations.
She said some expected her, as a young student, to go to medical school, but watching her mother battle and then succumb to breast cancer when Ms. Wheatly was 16 made it too “emotionally raw” to pursue the profession.
Asked by neurosciences professor Marthe Howard about improving research, Ms. Wheatly said universities should give faculty the time and equipment needed to be successful. Because of the rising cost of conducting research, an institution UT’s size should concentrate those efforts in niche programs.
Questions about diversity arose Friday, echoing themes from the day before. Patricia Hogue, chairman of the department of physician assistant studies and assistant dean of diversity, student recruitment, and retention for the College of Medicine and Life Sciences, inquired about what she’s done to boost diversity and hold on to underrepresented minorities.
Ms. Wheatly touted her work to bring more women and minorities into science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields and said she is mindful of her own implicit biases.
“I realized that my whiteness had conferred so much privilege on me every time I walked into a room,” she said.
The other two presidential candidates, Christopher Howard, president of the private Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia, and Sharon Gaber, University of Arkansas provost, will visit Toledo next week.
First up is Mr. Howard, who will participate in a 1:30 p.m. forum Monday at University Hall on the main campus.
Contact Vanessa McCray at: vmccray@theblade.com or 419-724-6065, or on Twitter @vanmccray.
First Published February 21, 2015, 5:00 a.m.
