From the Dean
Richard H. Streiffer, MD, Dean of the College of Community Health Sciences
I am very pleased to be in Tuscaloosa as the Dean of the College of Community Health Sciences. Thirty-something years ago, as a new graduate of the Tuscaloosa Family Medicine Residency and ready to enter rural practice in Collins, Miss., I could never have predicted that my career would take the academic course that it has, nor that one day I might come full circle into this leadership role at the College.
There is simultaneous excitement and guarded optimism overlaid with continued angst about the future of the U.S. health care system, as the transformation of practice and initial implementation of certain health care reforms appear to be getting underway. Our health care system and country face many challenges – continued concerns over patient safety, unchecked growth in the cost of health care, poor performance in implementation of evidence-based practice, the increasing diversity of our society, transition to a new alphabet soup of programs from EHRs to ACOs to the PCMH. There are many opportunities in these challenges for innovation, problem solving and practice improvement and as a medical education institution, we must respond. Academic institutions are obliged to anticipate these coming changes by adapting their models of training; embracing electronic and telehealth technology; focusing on safety, systems improvement and patient-centeredness; and proactively preparing physicians of all disciplines to be effective clinicians and team members in the Medical Home environment.
