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Ashley River Tower joins excellence in patient care with innovative design by Heather Woolwine Public Relations A Chinese proverb says, “From our ancestors come our names, but from our virtues, our honors.” The name of the first facility in the Medical Center’s multi-phase hospital expansion plan comes from Lowcountry ancestors, and like the proverb, it will be the virtue of the health care professionals within its walls that will provide MUSC the honor in serving South Carolina.   The Ashley River Tower (ART) will focus on delivering quality heart, vascular and digestive disease services, and is scheduled to open in October. The first of its kind on many levels in the Southeast, ART will add 641,000 square feet of clinical space and feature a diagnostic and treatment building, a patient hospitality tower, and a conservatory designed to connect the two spaces while offering a comfortable gathering place for patients, families and employees.   “The consolidation of heart and vascular and digestive disease clinical services within the Ashley River Tower will foster better communication and collaboration, providing more thorough, efficient and integrated care for patients across South Carolina and throughout the Southeast,” said MUSC President Ray Greenberg, M.D., Ph.D.  “The new hospital design focuses on patient-centered care, allowing patients more convenience and easier access and an environment that promotes healing.”   By expanding its clinical service space with ART and future facilities, MUSC has continued to demonstrate its commitment to providing outstanding care in an atmosphere where advanced medical technology and current research combine to offer superior treatments for every patient. A new name, new direction ART will serve as a pilot facility for a new initiative developed to further enhance quality patient care at MUSC. By coordinating and locating services together via a service line process, medical center administration sees the future at MUSC as even more patient-centric.   MUSC Medical Center executive medical director Pat Cawley, M.D., said, “Our front line staff and clinicians will be empowered by clinical leadership to make decisions that will better serve their unique patient populations and will better align the accountability of hospital and physician clinicians for common goals and objectives.”   With the service line leadership model, an administrator is paired with a medical director for a particular area, just as the Children’s Hospital has operated for several years with John Sanders, Children’s Hospital administrator, and Phil Saul, M.D., Pediatric Cardiology director and Children’s Hospital medical director.   After a selection committee review, Cawley announced the following leadership appointments:  William Spring, Heart & Vascular administrator, and Eric Powers, M.D., will guide the MUSC Heart & Vascular Center through its transition to the new facility and set strategic priorities for cardiovascular services. Powers’ predecessor, Michael Gold, M.D., Cardiology, will assume a leadership role within the College of Medicine as associate dean for Clinical Integration. Mark DeLegge, M.D., was selected as the medical director for the MUSC Digestive Disease Center. Vicki Marsi will serve as the service line administrator. Both will be charged with the advancement of gastrointestinal services.  Recruitment for the medical director and administrator for the MUSC Transplant Center will be conducted during the coming months. The interim leadership consists of June Darby, R.N., Therapeutic Services director, as the service line administrator, and Prabhakar Baliga, M.D., Transplant director; David W. Ploth, M.D., Nephrology director; Kenneth D. Chavin, M.D., Ph.D., Surgery associate professor; and K. Mark Payne, M.D., Gastroenterology director as the interim physician leadership team.   Sanders and Saul will continue to guide the strategic direction for pediatric services. More to DeLegge than an interesting name DeLegge knows it’s not all about him. “What goes on in the DDC is about everyone else who’s been here, and who will come here to continue our journey to excellence and facilitate the idea that we are the best in digestive health, period,” he said. “I’ve been around the block a few times so I have no interest in leading by nepotism or standing in front and taking the credit from others. I’m happy at this point in my career just being part of the background and helping to continue the fantastic foundation started by Dr. [Peter] Cotton [former director]. Peter came in the early 90s with some radical ideas for changing the way that surgery, medicine and radiology interacted so patients could be seen in a more expedient fashion by locating those disciplines within the DDC together in one location.”   Building on Cotton’s work, DeLegge and his colleagues’ vision within the DDC is to continue on the path as world leaders in digestive health care by working hard to care for patients, with the added benefits of a spectacular new facility, advanced technology and innovative research. This way, DDC will continue to attract the top digestive health care professionals in the country and better position the MUSC DDC to become a National Institutes of Health Digestive Disease Research Core Center. “The guidelines are fairly strict, but we have set goals that will help us achieve that designation,” DeLegge said.   Within the same spirit of translational research that is sweeping all disciplines these days, DeLegge and the DDC are focused on more translational research and thus a plan to hire a new basic science researcher with significant experience in NIH funding who will integrate basic digestive health research with the already extensive clinical research center located within the DDC.   Consistent and thorough communication is also important to DeLegge, thus his support for the service line initiative. “After visiting other institutions, I think the benefit of using this model was clear. It’s virtually the same thing as having all these centers of excellence throughout the campus, and it makes it easier to get things done. By bringing everything under one umbrella, you have one united voice that can speak for everyone and weigh in on decisions. We’ll look at how the clinics operate, who calls the shots- there’s no guesswork when everyone is working off the same menu because we all have the same options,” DeLegge said. “This model will help us to become even more efficient, increase our productivity and heighten our innovation and accountability to new levels.”   Accountability is important to DeLegge; in fact, it’s so important that the word in big letters adorns his office door. Along with accountability, respect for patients and team members, optimism, and goal-setting are DeLegge’s main priorities. Collaboration among colleagues and other departments is also important. “You have to know where you are going if you want to get there, so we have one year goals, three year goals, financial goals and patient satisfaction goals. We don’t want to be negative either, so no negative talk or gossiping. If someone has an issue, we need to bring it to the table and talk it out. It’s about transparency. Everyone should know what’s going on at all times, and that’s whether we’re doing well, bad or just so-so. Wherever we are, everyone should know it so everyone can move ahead together.”     With a leadership style sure to attract more top researchers and clinicians to the DDC, DeLegge seems poised to tackle future challenges in a new facility and with a model designed to better patient care and staff collaboration. DeLegge asked, “What better place to succeed than here, at MUSC and the DDC?”   DeLegge specializes in managing complex medical problems such as malabsorption and short bowel syndrome. His nutrition research focuses on nutritional assessment, parenteral nutrition and enteral nutrition, and he is very active in the development of new endoscopic techniques. He will continue to serve as Nutrition director and Nutrition Services medical director.  Powers to turn challenges into opportunities Since his arrival to MUSC two years ago as Acute Coronary Syndrome Center director, Powers has worked to help grow the Heart & Vascular Center to its current level. His expertise in coronary disease and interventional cardiology  is known throughout the world, and it’s his quest for innovation that prompted him to leave the University of Virginia and come to MUSC.   “I was looking for something new career-wise, something new to take on,” he said. “The Heart & Vascular Center has had some very strong leadership from Dr. Mike Gold [current HVC medical director] and it has achieved much in recent years. I hope to continue things that have been started, as well as develop innovative ways to advance areas within HVC. We want to continue moving forward with quality initiatives, patient satisfaction initiatives, continue to improve our relationships with area referring physicians, and develop innovative programs and research.”   Powers acknowledged the challenge before him in moving to ART and the complications that can come from occupying a new space, but it’s not hard for him to see around future obstacles. “It will be important for us to adapt what we have accomplished and grown in recent years in a new environment, and I look forward to that environment allowing us to do things we’ve never been able to do before. The Chest Pain Center will be very important for the development of various programs, and the new procedural areas will be spectacular places to practice medicine in.”   Powers echoed DeLegge’s comments about the service line initiative, citing the way it is designed to bring everyone together toward a common set of goals. He said that he sees it improving patient satisfaction and quality issues, as well as aiding in the development of new programs and ideas. “Greater collaboration and unity allow for more things to be accomplished,” he said. “It ties in perfectly with MUSC Excellence and the collaborative leadership style I employ. I’m not an autocratic person; it’s just not the way I work. We will continue to work hard to collaborate amongst the disciplines and divisions within heart and vascular, and when appropriate, collaborate with other disciplines and departments in terms of research and program development.”     As medical director of HVC in the new facility, Powers will continue to pursue his clinical and research interests in invasive, interventional, and general cardiology.   “The success and growth of our clinical services has been guided by a group of visionary leaders. Dr. Powers and Dr. DeLegge will no doubt continue that tradition within the new Ashley River Tower,” Greenberg said.     Friday, April 20, 2007 Catalyst Online is published weekly, updated as needed and improved from time to time by the MUSC Office of Public Relations for the faculty, employees and students of the Medical University of South Carolina. Catalyst Online editor, Kim Draughn, can be reached at 792-4107 or by email, catalyst@musc.edu. Editorial copy can be submitted to Catalyst Online and to The Catalyst in print by fax, 792-6723, or by email to catalyst@musc.edu. To place an ad in The Catalyst hardcopy, call Island Publications at 849-1778, ext. 201.