Department of Medicine Strategic Plan

The Department of Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine is the professional home of more than 1,200 faculty (including 617 full-time faculty), 471 trainees, and approximately 430 staff and students distributed across 14 sections.

The breadth and depth of our department is considerable: We have campus sites at Baylor St Luke’s Medical Center (BSLMC), Michael E DeBakey VA Medical Center, Harris Health, Texas Children’s Hospital, and Pavilion for Women, as well as close associations with a number of interdisciplinary centers, programs and organized research units.

We appreciate our achievements in discovery, patient care, and medical education and training. The Department of Medicine has been engaged in a strategic planning process. Our ambitious goal is to make the DOM a recognized leader in the following areas: scientific discovery and research, patient clinical care, and medical education and training.

With this plan, we are challenging ourselves to do more, go farther, and be better. We plan to achieve more scientific breakthroughs and create more knowledge; to provide more excellent clinical services in new and better ways, including patient-centered care, population health and precision medicine; to educate, train and recruit high-quality talent more effectively; and to contribute more to the many communities we serve.

This plan—to grow our scientific discovery and research, clinical care programs, and medical education and training, but also to focus on quality, nurture and develop our people—is going to be the focus for the next five years. We will measure our progress in each of the outlined initiatives as we move toward the achievement of our goals. The plan will form the framework for subsequent section-specific strategic plans.

The Department of Medicine has prioritized our operations so that we remain focused on certain aspects that drive our vision.

Our people are our primary assets; without dedicated faculty and staff, we are just another organization. To that end, our processes and procedures always ensure the following aspects are considered:

• Improve communication within the Department of Medicine across leadership, management, faculty, trainees and staff
• Improve communication between Department of Medicine Baylor leadership and administration as well as other departments and centers
• Invest in and reward professional development, mentoring and career advancement of DOM’s people
• Create a culture in which diversity, inclusion, civility, collegiality, and professionalism are valued and exhibited through actions, incentives and accountability
• Ensure that fair and easily understood rewards are implemented, particularly compensation that reflects the scope and quality of work
• Recruit, engage, and invest in an innovative workforce that promotes development of interdisciplinary teams across all the Department of Medicine and Baylor
• Create pathways to recruit, advance and reward excellent scholarly clinicians throughout Baylor College of Medicine - Department of Medicine
• Develop a robust faculty and staff development and feedback program

We are nothing without a robust science and research program. Given the breadth and depth of the Department of Medicine, our ability to invest in groundbreaking science is considerable. To that end, we have designated the following priorities to further expand and improve our research capabilities:

• Increase department extramural research funding and elevate its national rank in the Blue Ridge Institute for Medical Research ranking to better than number 30 in the next five years
• Create a new research ecosystem that uses resources across the department and the larger Baylor to accelerate collaboration, innovation, quality and impact of all research from curiosity-driven basic discovery to population and implementation sciences

Research means little if we are unable to translate improvements in treatments to the population of our community. We will continuously strive to accomplish this with the following steps:

• Achieve recognition by designing and implementing innovative models of care delivery and financing aimed at improving the health of individuals and populations, enhancing quality and reducing costs
• Serve as the tertiary and quaternary provider of choice for patients in Houston, the Gulf Coast region and Texas
• Enhance academic advancement by aligning clinical expectations with academic priorities including quality improvement
• Embrace the diversity of our patient populations and strive to eliminate disparities in the process, delivery and outcomes of care across Department of Medicine practice pavilions

We believe that improving the quality of our processes, actions, and intentions will allow us to meet all our goals more effectively and more efficiently. We will accomplish this with the following steps:

• Ensure the department is at the forefront of innovative and effective healthcare delivery and proactive when demonstrating the performance and value of our healthcare services
• Develop a healthcare improvement and innovations training curriculum for department clinical faculty and trainees
• Establish a department Quality Academy that will provide opportunities for faculty to receive QI training, conduct mentored-QI projects, and improve the quality of healthcare delivered within the department and Baylor

We are a teaching medical institution with one of the nation's leading medical schools. We are committed to nurturing the next generation of physicians, scientists and researchers. We are doing this by instituting – and ensuring – the following actions:

• Enhance the culture and competencies of teaching and learning across the Department of Medicine
• Develop a robust system to monitor the progress and accomplishments of those enrolled in or graduating from our medical school, residency and postdoctoral programs to ensure that they are among the most creative and outstanding leaders in medicine
• Enhance the quality and reputation of the internal medicine residency program with the goal of becoming a top-15-ranked program in the next five years
• Enhance the quality and reputation of all the specialty fellowship programs by incorporating special tracks in research and or focused clinical disciplines within the specialty

Finally, as with any great organization, we cannot function, nor perform the noble objectives we have set for ourselves without funding and supporting our invaluable administrative faculty, staff and trainees. We will strive to enhance the experience of all our staff so as to ensure we recruit and retain the best employees, with the following policies:

• Create suitable physical and virtual spaces to facilitate the implementation of the strategic plan of the Department of Medicine
• Emphasize the continual purposeful improvement of the image of the department, faculty, staff, and trainees throughout Baylor College of Medicine and beyond
• Develop succession planning within the department with the goal of developing the next generation of leaders and ensuring expanded governance
• Ensure that department financial operations, performance indicators and results support the strategic priorities
• Identify new, and expand existing, sources of revenue and implement operating efficiencies consistent with the strategic goal with a commitment to reducing health care costs
• Establish a transparent financial reporting system available to and understood by all Baylor-Department of Medicine constituencies to create the most transparency possible
• Strengthen the department's administrative team to optimize financial performance and operations
• Determine and provide proper data, IT, and resources for the implementation of the department's strategic plan
• Develop bundled payment program features germane to the Department of Medicine