Dive Brief:
- Vanderbilt University has decided to restructure its relationship with the Vanderbilt University Medical Center, in an effort to give the Medical Center more flexibility to respond to healthcare industry changes.
- The restructuring will reconfigure the Medical Center as a not-for-profit academic medical center that operates on a financially distinct basis from the University.
- According to university leaders, the medical center will continue to be integrated the University across all of its present and future academic missions, programs and initiatives, but will enjoy increased access to capital due to its financially independent status.
Dive Insight:
As things stand, the medical center is part of the university's administrative structure, with the same governing board, legal, financial and other shared services. After a year of study by the Vanderbilt University Board of Trust, the university concluded that the medical center just wouldn't be agile enough unless it adopted an independent management structure. This makes perfect sense, as it's hard to imagine healthcare institutions succeeding in an innovation-dependent environment if it's forced to work at the traditionally slow pace of academic life. The medical center will be able to create its own programs for medical innovation and entrepreneurship which might have floundered otherwise.
Not only will the new structure help the medical center innovate, it will help the two institutions cooperate. For example, the university expects to play a greater role in supporting the MD and PhD-granting programs of the School of Medicine, its basic science programs and academic programs in the School of Nursing.