Augustine M.K. Choi, M.D., Stephen and Suzanne Weiss Dean of Weill Cornell Medicine, said the effort will support the organization's missions to improve "research, clinical care, and education."
Weill Cornell Medicine launched a $1.5 billion campaign to change medicine Thursday.
The New York-based academic medical center announced the launch of the "We're Changing Medicine" campaign, with more than half of the fundraising amount already raised.
Among the $750 million raised, the campaign has received $215 million in foundational gifts from longstanding benefactors and a $55 million gift from Jeffrey Feil, vice-chair of the Board of Fellows, which will be used to support the "construction of a new student residence hall four blocks from the institution’s main campus."
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Augustine M.K. Choi, M.D., Stephen and Suzanne Weiss Dean of Weill Cornell Medicine, told HealthLeaders that the effort will support the organization's missions to improve "research, clinical care, and education."
"We are focusing on all three missions and we are going to leverage what we have now to make sure that we follow the trends in our community," Choi said. "At the end of the day, to have a positive and beneficial impact on our patients, we need to research the best way to provide care and state-of-the-art treatment."
Choi said that a cornerstone of Weill Cornell's new campaign will focus on boosting diversity within the organization and healthcare in general.
He noted that the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the effects of widening healthcare disparities on vulnerable patient populations. He added that having diverse clinical staff can improve the experience of handling diverse patient populations.
"New York City is arguably the most diverse city in the country, so diversity is important in terms of not only the highest quality care but access to make sure that all of our patients have equal access," Choi said. "For education and training, we are proud of the diversity in our education office. We launched debt-free medical education financial needs assistance about two years ago, and it's moving the needle in providing equity for all students who want to be a doctor if they come to Weill Cornell and have financial needs. We feel that diversity is a common denominator in all three major missions that we're focusing on in this campaign."
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In evaluating the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the academic medical center sector, Choi said that these providers had to leverage strengths to meet the critical clinical demands of the moment.
He said that Weill Cornell was "well-suited" to handle the rush of patients during the start of the coronavirus outbreak, mentioning that the hospital established new ICU pop-up spaces to handle 250 patients.
Additionally, having the research capabilities of the organization allowed for a more data-driven response to a virus that was still relatively unknown at the time, according to Choi.
The research efforts and clinical infrastructure that were crucial to responding to the pandemic can also be applied to non-COVID diseases, Choi said, such as cancer, diabetes, and heart disease, among others.
"This is why the 'We Are Changing Medicine' campaign is so timely and important, as we are touching upon all these areas," Choi said. "We're focusing not only on just the pandemic issues, but on heart health, brain health, children's health, women's health, and so forth. So, this is how academic medical centers like Weill Cornell are well-suited and prepared not only for this pandemic but for the future."
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Jack O'Brien is the Content Team Lead and Finance Editor at HealthLeaders, an HCPro brand.