Lifespan and Care New England, the hospital systems that run five of the Alpert Medical School's seven teaching hospitals, are partnering with the University to create a task force investigating ways to strengthen administrative and research collaboration between the institutions.
The task force, which was announced at a Nov. 19 panel hosted by the Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce, will seek to break down research barriers between hospitals when it begins meeting in January. The focus of its efforts will be "nuts-and-bolts issues," Dean of Medicine and Biological Sciences Ed Wing told The Herald.
The Med School's roughly 600 clinical faculty members are full-time faculty members at the University, but they work principally at the hospitals, where they conduct research and teach interns, residents and medical students.
The idea for the task force arose on an April research retreat for leaders from Brown and the two hospital systems, Wing said. Among the planned initiatives that came from that retreat were the formation of a joint steering committee to coordinate committees, an analysis of common research cores - like a center on transgenic mice - to maximize efficiency, transforming laboratory ideas into commercial pursuits and cooperating on investments in new technologies.
There had previously been minimal joint strategic planning among the institutions, Wing said. This is unusual among university-hospital systems, many of which have a central governance structure. "We're on our way to it," Wing said.
Much of the task force's work will focus on eliminating the barriers to cooperative research that exist among the competing hospitals, Wing said. One issue addressed might be coordinating institutional review boards, which are the bodies that must approve any research project involving human subjects. Each hospital currently has its own IRB, as does Brown, so projects that span multiple institutions must go through the procedure with each, sometimes receiving conflicting decisions, Wing said.
The task force will also look into bolstering research collaboration and emphasizing "other synergies," Wing said, like allowing researchers from different hospitals access to equipment only one owns.
The presidents and chief executive officers of the hospital systems, Timothy Babineau at Lifespan and Dennis Keefe at Care New England, are spearheading the task force effort. The leaders already meet regularly but realized a task force could address overarching issues, Wing said. Babineau declined to be interviewed because the task force has not yet begun meeting or laid out any goals. Keefe could not be reached for comment.
"It's a little vague," Wing said of the task force. "It's in its infancy."
Though the results of the task force's meetings are unlikely to affect students or most of the Brown campus directly, Wing said they could have an impact on clinical faculty members. "We're very supportive of our teaching hospitals," he said. "Anything that makes research easier across the system is an advantage to the Medical School."
Members of the task force have not yet been announced. Wing said its work would not be affected by his stepping down at the end of the academic year.
