Dear Colleagues,
As we celebrate the holidays with friends and loved ones over the next few weeks, we also have an opportunity to reflect on what has been an extremely consequential year for our academic health system.
In January, we finalized our integration with Capital Region Medical Center and ushered in a new era of health care growth for the Jefferson City community.
We’ve added several new services, opened an expanded urgent care and performed surgeries at Capital Region that have never been performed before. This progress is the direct result of the hard work of our transition teams whose collaboration made this herculean integration effort a huge win for the region.
A hospital integration alone would make a successful year, but we also opened a new Children’s Hospital and Birthing Center in late spring. We moved our young and most fragile patients into the new building, shifted clinical departments in and out of the Hitt Street Medical Building and built new administrative offices for Pediatrics and Women’s Health.
And while MU Health Care spent the spring moving patients, clinics and departments, the MU School of Medicine was hosting representatives from the Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME) as they evaluated our program’s accreditation. It was a long six months of anticipation, but the November letter informing us of our eight-year LCME accreditation renewal was worth the wait.
2024 has also been a banner year for the NextGen Precision Health Initiative. We leveraged the state’s most powerful 7-Tesla MRI to better inform the way our physicians and scientists understand and treat brain disorders. The use of hyperpolarized gas for lung imaging, developed by NextGen researchers has helped pulmonologists at MU Health Care better treat patients with cystic fibrosis. And in October, NextGen hosted more than 100 researchers from across the globe to collaborate and gain a deeper understanding of motor neuron diseases like ALS.
I am so proud to lead this academic health system during a time when there is so much positive momentum behind our mission to save and improve lives throughout Missouri. We would not be in this position without your individual efforts.
From the bottom of my heart, I wish you a wonderful holiday season and I hope you are able to take some time to reflect on your outstanding work in 2024.
Happy Holidays,
Rick Barohn, MD
Executive Vice Chancellor for Health Affairs and Hugh E. and Sarah D. Stephenson Dean, School of Medicine
rbarohn@health.missouri.edu
