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| October 2017 |
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The future begins now
A look ahead at where and whom we’ll serve  By design, we have spent considerable time and energy over the last several years raising money toward our Vision 2020 philanthropic goal of $360 million for our new hospitals, projects, scholarships and research. With God’s blessing, we have now passed $267 million toward that goal, leaving less than $93 million to raise. Amazing! The last part will be the hardest, but it does feel like our goal is in sight! And the balance of our construction costs is also arranged and available.
But the real goal of Vision 2020 is not just buildings or fundraising. It is a transformation of Loma Linda University Health to prepare for the next 50 years and beyond. And transformation is primarily a function of people and organization. So this effort has been accompanied by an equally significant movement we have called One Loma Linda. As One Loma Linda has matured, I have been pleased and grateful for the steps this organization and its myriad parts have taken to gain greater efficiency and collaboration. Together we are stronger and more able to prepare for the changes rapidly coming into the Inland Empire, this country, and indeed the world. Our legal structures, financial alignment, shared services, and clinical integration are all moving together nicely. Now it is time to address the true purpose of One Loma Linda — making this 16,000-employee and 4,500-student enterprise maximally effective in its learning and service activities.
To get there, we are now launching a yearlong strategic planning process that will seek to encompass our geographic, functional, and people parameters. Regionally, we need a plan to stretch from our hospital in Murrieta to our Ambulatory Center in Beaumont, recently renamed Loma Linda University Health – Beaumont-Banning. This will include our new clinic in Indio and our expanding affiliation with SAC Health System as a Federally Qualified Health Center operating across the Inland Empire. It will place an emphasis on population health, value-based care, and the growing interest by consumers in their own health. It will include a national presence on a number of issues as well as our affiliation with Adventist Health International and its growing network of mission hospitals around the world, including our newest global campuses planned for Haiti and Nepal. If anything can define these plans, it is that we go where there is need — to serve, educate, develop and empower. It also means that we remain committed to a careful balance and integration of education and service, with a strong overlay of inquiry and research.
Several parts of this planning process have already begun. For our Western Association of Schools and Colleges accrediting self-study due in 2019, we have chosen the theme of One Loma Linda, with the intent to develop and demonstrate how our new integration can truly benefit our educational processes. We are also assessing the clinic marketplace to plan and locate our healthcare services. The Inland Empire is rapidly consolidating its healthcare organizations, and it is imperative that Loma Linda University Health stake out its own footprint to protect our educational and service commitments. Our new neonatal intensive care unit in Murrieta, along with plans for a Family Medicine residency there, and our new children’s clinic in Indio with SACHS, are specific examples of serving local needs. We will also need to establish new partnerships and affiliations. In addition, we need to more effectively link with our community doctors and hospitals, determining where the most cost-effective services can best be provided. Of course, all of this is in anticipation of our new medical complex on the main campus by 2020. This new building will be a welcome addition to our current plant, but ultimately it will be our people and services that make Loma Linda University Health what it has been and will continue to be. With this growth will come new questions and challenges. Who should we partner with and in what way? How big is big enough to maintain market share? How do we maintain our “Loma Linda experience” for patients, staff, faculty, and students? We have worked hard and long to walk the talk, creating something special for our people and the academic and clinical services they provide — can we maintain that as we expand into new relationships? Do we have the gravitas, the determination and the moxie to bend when we need to bend, but remain steadfast on our bedrock principles? Let us move forward with boldness and humility, ever mindful of the threats we must circumnavigate and the opportunities we must claim. At stake is the very mission to which we have dedicated ourselves and the place we all love and call Loma Linda University Health.
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October 5, 2017
Notes from the President — The future begins now
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