Delaware is a place where many great things are achieved through collaborations among organizations and individuals, including public-private partnerships. In that spirit, the Delaware Health Sciences Alliance seeks to enhance the development of health sciences clinical care, education, and research as a way to improve the health of all Delawareans, while also improving economic development in the State. Focus areas such as health and medical services and technologies, life sciences research and development, and biotechnology innovations and applications could prove to be an economic engine during these challenging times for Delaware.

The members of the Alliance, Nemours, Christiana Care Health System, the University of Delaware, and Thomas Jefferson University, will expand historical working relationships in health and health care, research, and education. Nemours/Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children houses the Department of Pediatrics of Thomas Jefferson University and works with Christiana Care in several programs serving Delaware's youngest citizens and adults.

Collaborations between the clinical centers at Nemours and Christiana and the educational programs of the University of Delaware and Jefferson provide training for health care providers and scientists. Research at all four institutions, especially cancer research, works to improve the health care provided. Nemours and Christiana work together and with dozens of community partners on health improvement and disease prevention programs.

The Delaware Health Science Alliance will build on the historical strengths and commitments in health and science of these leadership institutions. In particular, health care and health promotion will be enhanced by this new synergy to serve the residents of Delaware even better.

The Alliance will seek additional NIH funding support for additional research programs that will emphasize translational investigations in order to bring cutting edge discoveries to the bedside. Clinicians will be more closely connected to science that improves their care. New models of care based on these findings will result in better quality and improved health outcomes.

The Alliance will also seek to enhance the care provided to Delawareans by increasing the supply of health manpower in needed areas, both in terms of geography and professional discipline. Further, increased emphasis on disease prevention, healthy promotion, and population health will benefit children and adults throughout the State.

Collaborative health care professional education programs between the University of Delaware and Thomas Jefferson University with training experiences in Delaware, especially in underserved areas, will help fill manpower gaps and thus assure that services are available when needed in such areas as cardiovascular disease, women's and children's health, cancer care, and neuroscience. The collaborations will also enhance the recruitment of top quality clinicians and scientists. Perhaps most effective on ultimate long-term health for Delawareans will be expanded and improved prevention and promotion programs.

Nemours Health and Prevention Services efforts to help make Delaware's children the healthiest in the nation and Christiana Care's community-based programs seek similar population health achievement for adults. All the prevention programs will collaborate with clinical programs at other hospitals and educational institutions throughout the State.

Robert L. Barchi, MD, PhD
President, Thomas Jefferson University
Thomas Jefferson University Campus for Healthcare Education:
Vital Support for Delaware's Healthcare and Business Interests

In the next two decades our nation will face a growing shortage of healthcare personnel, particularly in rural areas like southern Delaware. At the same time, the healthcare sector will be a major engine for growth as our economy recovers. However, Delaware, like the rest of the country, is facing a recession that will limit the state's resources available for the costly task of educating healthcare personnel.

For more than 30 years, Thomas Jefferson University has helped Delaware address its healthcare needs by serving as the state's official school of medicine. We plan to build on this relationship by creating a new Campus for Healthcare Education in Delaware that will arm the first state against a shortfall of health professionals and position the state to participate fully in the growing healthcare economy.

Jefferson will establish the new Campus in partnership with the Delaware Institute of Medical Education and Research (DIMER) and the University of Delaware. Located on or near the University of Delaware in Newark, the Campus will house classrooms equipped with video conferencing technology, study halls, and a new residential facility. This campus will accommodate students from Jefferson Medical College and the Jefferson Schools of Pharmacy, Population Health, Nursing and Health Professions who wish to carry out all or part of their clinical training in Delaware. The campus will strengthen the relationship between Jefferson and the First State, support Delaware's existing superb clinical care entities and provide further leverage for Delaware's precious healthcare education dollars.

The new Campus will benefit Delaware residents by:

Meeting the increasing need for healthcare practitioners - Statistics show that more than half of all physicians practice in the state where they complete their medical training. The new campus will allow Jefferson to increase the total number of medical students who receive training in Delaware well beyond the number currently accepted into the medical college through DIMER, and to expand this training to pharmacists, nurses and other health professionals.

Creating opportunities for advanced educational programs between the University of Delaware and Jefferson - New joint programs such as the MD-MBA and MPH-MBA located at the new campus will further attract the best and brightest students working at critical interfaces in healthcare to the Delaware experience.

Supporting Delaware's economy by creating jobs and increasing traffic to local retail establishments - Even after construction, the new campus will continue to provide jobs by requiring the hire of support and administrative personnel. In addition, the added student population will positively impact local businesses.

Stimulating the influx of young professionals who will establish roots in Delaware, raise families, and contribute to the economy.

An increasing demand for quality healthcare services, combined with an aging population and projected shortages of healthcare workers, makes it imperative to expand healthcare education in Delaware. Working in partnership with leading Delaware institutions, Jefferson is uniquely positioned to fill this critical need.

Robert J. Laskowski, MBA, M.D.
President and CEO
Christiana Care Health System

In the coming weeks you will learn more about the Delaware Health Science Alliance. This Alliance is an historic collaboration that will transform Delaware's already pace-setting cancer care and reposition our state as an internationally recognized hub for cancer biology research.

In just seven years, Christiana Care's Helen F. Graham Cancer Center has become nationally recognized as a model program for cancer care and cancer research. The Graham Cancer Center is one of only 14 cancer centers in the country to be chosen as a pilot for the National Cancer Institute's new community cancer centers program. In 2008, the Graham Center was awarded a prestigious $4.6 Million National Cancer Institute grant to participate in the Cancer Genome Atlas project.

In collaboration with the University of Delaware, the Graham Center has also launched a full-scale Center for Translational Cancer Research , which is designed to identify and link on-going cancer research efforts within Delaware. The Center for Translational Cancer Research provides an unprecedented forum in which researchers can "translate" their discoveries into new tools for physicians to use for the benefit of patients.

Now, with this successful and robust research infrastructure in place, we advance to the next level of patient-focused cancer research by creating the Delaware Center for Cancer Biology. At its core the Delaware Center for Cancer Biology leverages the unique capabilities of Christiana Care's Center for Translational Cancer Research, the University of Delaware, the Kimmel Cancer Center at Thomas Jefferson University, and A.I. DuPont Children's Hospital at Nemours.

The DCCB will provide a unique educational setting for a new generation of cancer researchers and physician oncologists with the specific goal of attracting young scientists to health professions here in Delaware. It will enable us to apply for new multi-investigator, inter-institutional cancer research grants from both federal and private sources.

Building on each partner's strengths, this new alliance markedly enhances researchers' and clinicians' reputations and positions them to receive even further research funding for Delaware. The future of cancer care is the evolution of highly personalized medicine to treat cancer. We are uniquely positioned to help make personalized cancer care a reality.

Gone are the days when Delaware was noted for its high cancer mortality rates. In fact, Delaware has now the most rapid decline in cancer deaths in the country - twice the national average. While other states struggle to reduce smoking among their citizens, since 1997 the percentage of adult smokers in Delaware has lowered from 27% to 18.9% - again, twice the national average.

The Alliance and the Center for Cancer Biology makes Delaware a model for cancer care and cancer research. The economic impact of the Alliance is significant and will attract new clinical talent and create jobs right here in Delaware. Most importantly, this program will save lives by continuing to reduce the mortality and incidence of cancer here in Delaware.

Patrick T. Harker, President
University of Delaware

For many years, the University of Delaware (UD), Thomas Jefferson University, Christiana Care Health Systems, and Nemours have been close collaborators, working together on medical education and infrastructure, healthcare research, service delivery, and public wellness campaigns.

It's time that this informal collaboration - which has proved pivotal to offering Delawareans superior health care-benefit from a formal partnership that combines the assets and resources of each organization and applies them to shared priorities: providing the finest healthcare education for all health professionals; conducting interdisciplinary clinical and translational research that generates new knowledge to address our most pressing health concerns; and improving state and regional health and healthcare services.

This partnership, the Delaware Health Sciences Alliance, will help the State deliver accessible, affordable, high-quality health care to its citizens. Furthermore, in uniting its members' efforts and investments on behalf of cutting-edge health research and advanced technologies, the Alliance will help grow Delaware's life sciences, biotechnology, and health and medical services industries and will emerge as a prime driver of the state's economy. The Alliance builds on the commitment that UD and Thomas Jefferson University made last fall to extend their collaboration in health education and strengthen the provision of highly trained doctors, pharmacists, occupational therapists, and public health professionals.

The Alliance partners have already begun several initiatives; others will soon be launched. For instance, the Delaware Rehabilitation Institute (DRI) will be a premier research, training, and practice center in the area of physical rehabilitation. DRI will provide a place for clinicians, scientists, engineers, and policymakers to work side-by-side, creating state-of-the-art rehabilitation medicine. The Institute's focus will be on translational research-moving scientific findings into the clinic, safely but briskly, so that they benefit as many Delaware residents as possible.

Delaware is uniquely poised for leadership in rehabilitation services. Its population is older than that of most other states, and is aging at 1½ times the national rate. World-class rehabilitation expertise and technologies are critical for older residents, the primary users of rehabilitation therapies. Furthermore, Delaware is an international leader in rehabilitation research and training. The rehabilitation expertise among Alliance partners is unparalleled; they already operate renowned programs in orthopedic surgery, biotechnology and biomechanics, physical and occupational therapy, tissue engineering, speech, regenerative medicine, musculoskeletal diseases, neurogenetics, and neuroscience. These existing strengths, brought together through multi-disciplinary research, will secure DRI as an international hub for rehabilitation education, policy, and practice.

The Delaware Health Sciences Alliance will be a key topic under discussion at "Stronger Health-Based Partnerships," a conference to be held at UD on March 24. The conference highlights regional partnership and outreach efforts to improve health care in Delaware. Leaders from the University of Delaware, Thomas Jefferson University, Christiana Care Health Systems, and Nemours will talk about the Alliance's formation, goals, and implementation activities. Using the Alliance as a framework, Governor Jack Markell will share his priorities for strengthening healthcare education, research, and services. Also speaking will be Newt Gingrich, former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives and founder of the Center for Health Transformation, an organization dedicated to developing policies that generate better health care and more healthcare options at a lower cost.

"Stronger Health-Based Partnerships" is the fourth in a series of daylong conferences designed to engage government, community, and business leaders in partnerships that improve the quality of life in Delaware. It will be held at Clayton Hall on the University of Delaware's Newark campus. For more information about the conference, go to www.udel.edu/partnerships.