Transcription:
Advancing Health Care For All – Today And Tomorrow

Caitlyn Whyte: VCU's academic health system and its health sciences schools have been serving the Richmond community and the commonwealth for a long time. But today's challenges are unprecedented, even for a flagship institution like VCU Health. The COVID-19 pandemic has disproportionally affected minority communities. Health care professionals and researchers have been working tirelessly to care for patients and work on effective treatments.

Dr. Art Kellermann, the new senior vice president for VCU Health Sciences and CEO of VCU Health System, has witnessed one thing in particular since entering his role in October 2020 in the midst of a global pandemic. Resiliency. He firmly believes that the academic health sciences enterprise that is VCU Health has the talent, energy and ability to collaborate with Virginians and people from all over the world to improve health, advance knowledge and educate high achievers.

In this episode, Dr. Kellermann discusses today's challenges and opportunities for health care and how VCU is uniquely positioned to respond.

Welcome to “Healthy with VCU Health.” I'm your host, Caitlin Whyte.

So Dr. Kellermann, you joined this organization not too long ago. What attracted you to VCU and VCU Health?

Dr. Art Kellermann: The fact that this institution has been here for over 180 years and has never wavered from its commitment to the community and to the commonwealth and to taking care of everybody. Before I went to serve as dean of the military's Leadership Academy for Military Medicine, I had spent my whole career working in public hospitals, level one trauma centers, inner city ERs. And so that mission has always attracted me. But I'm also a research scientist and a medical educator. 

And in VCU and VCU Health, what I found was an institution that was at the cutting edge of advances in science, critical care, cancer, neuroscience, cardiovascular, but also had the beating heart of an institution that has never forgotten the community that it is in and the state that it serves. And that just was a calling that was too hard to turn down. And it was a hard decision for me to leave the position I had before, because I was working with such dedicated, exceptional people, but there are a lot of dedicated exceptional people here, as well. 

Caitlyn Whyte: Now, what do you see as today's biggest challenges and opportunities for health care in general? 

Dr. Art Kellermann: Well, first and foremost for all of us right now, the immediate challenge before us is dealing with COVID and the coronavirus. This is the most serious pandemic our nation and the world has faced in over a hundred years. And while some people seem determined to not take it seriously, that's a deadly mistake. We really have to pull together first and foremost in prevention, but then also in rapidly advancing care and countermeasures, like the vaccines that are now on the horizon to push back on this disease. 

So this is an enormous challenge for American medicine and really for world health. Once we get past it, and we will get past it, then I think for American health care, the biggest challenges are access, affordability and equity. And by that meaning, we need to assure that everyone in this country can get the basic care they need, and that we have a strong and robust public health system. We need to make sure that people can actually afford health care and not face medical bankruptcy for an unavoidable problem or condition. And we need to make sure that everybody's health is looked after, not just those who are in the right zip codes or have the right connections. And all three of those are fundamental priorities for VCU Health.

Caitlyn Whyte: Well, that leads me into my next question. How are VCU and VCU Health uniquely positioned to respond to some of these challenges?

Dr. Art Kellermann: Well, VCU Health and this hospital provide currently the most advanced, the most complex, the most sophisticated and the most skilled care in the commonwealth for many life-threatening conditions. VCU's trauma center is the only trauma center in Virginia for level one adult, level one pediatric and burn,s for example. Massey Cancer Center is one of the top cancer centers on the East Coast, and we're aiming to be one of the top cancer centers in the world. The cardiovascular program here, everything from heart transplant and even artificial hearts to opening up blocked coronary arteries as quickly as possible, unparalleled. So that's always been VCU's core strength, these kinds of services that when your life is on the line or you have a problem that nobody else can fix, this is where you want to go. 

But beyond that, what we also have now is the capability to reinvent primary care and reinvent community health in partnership with neighborhoods, in partnership with counties, in partnership with the commonwealth, so that the health of all Virginians is raised and sustained. And that's going to be one of our key priorities going forward. 

So that the virtue of any academic medical center, but especially one with a heart like VCU's, is that you have the intellectual horsepower to invent, design, improve and constantly drive to do better, at the same time that you're educating future health professionals for the commonwealth, but also with a heart connected to the community, committed to the Commonwealth, committed to the common good. 

And that's one of the things I love about VCU. There are plenty of "elite academic institutions" in this country and especially in the East Coast. VCU is the people's university. We give everybody a chance. We've got one of the most diverse student bodies anywhere. We are taking folks who really want a shot at getting their lives better and families getting that first kid to college. And we're also open and accessible and caring for anybody who needs help and not doing a “wallet biopsy” at the front door. And those twin virtues of cutting edge ability to think, design, improve, invent, coupled with the compassion and the commitment to the community, are what I think makes this such a unique resource to Richmond, to the metro area, to the commonwealth of Virginia and to our country. 

Caitlyn Whyte: You're so passionate, Dr. Kellermann. Tell us more about some of the other priorities you're excited about.

Dr. Art Kellermann: Well, the issue — and I think this should be true for anybody who's involved in working with or leading a healthcare system — is that we have to make sure that everybody who comes here, whether they're coming in for a routine clinic visit or health checkup or they're coming in here for their third recurrence of cancer, that the care that they get is going to be safe, unfailingly safe, and consistently and always kind. So we've always been known for skilled care, but we want to make sure that no matter what the issue is, that the care is safe and that the care is kind. That's what anybody has every reason to expect in any health care system. 

Also, as I said earlier, we want to make sure that we deliver an outstanding level of service to everybody. And so we're working on getting VCU Health out more into the community and into people's neighborhoods — because historically VCU was absolutely grounded downtown, and that is where our main hospital is and many of our clinics. But it's kind of hard, and as the metro area grows for Richmond and for others. It can be tough to get downtown. And right now, because we're constructing an amazing children's hospital and an outpatient pavilion, it's even tougher because of all the construction. So we're looking to develop VCU facilities in neighborhoods and in the broader community where the kind of expertise we have is more accessible to patients.

And we're also partnering, allies with health systems that on one day might be a competitor, but most days are cooperating. So that we're putting outstanding VCU medical talent in hospitals that have another institution's name on the front door, but it's VCU docs that are looking after your children or looking after you for your condition. And we will increasingly align with systems in the state that from time to time really have those tough cases. Your uncle, your grandparents, your child, who they need to get to us. And we will say yes, and we'll take great care of them.

So those are additional priorities — reaching out and connecting, not buying practices, not necessarily opening brand new freestanding ERs, although we've put a couple where nobody else was willing to, because it was the right thing to do, but also making allies so that the health systems, plural, of Virginia, and most importantly of all the health of Virginians, is optimized, and that's the middle to long-term goal. So first we've got to get through coronavirus, but then we can go about doing some really amazing things here for the commonwealth that I think will make us the envy of the country, and folks will be coming here to see how it's done. 

Caitlyn Whyte: Now we of course have to touch on the COVID-19 pandemic and, heading into this year's flu season, talk about VCU Health pandemic response, and what we can do as a community to stay safe and healthy.

Dr. Art Kellermann: The absolute most important thing every one of us can do and that our families could do is to take this pandemic seriously and to follow basic preventative countermeasures. The thing you have to consider is this is a disease that attacks silently, particularly among young people. It can infect quickly one person after another, and they won't even know they're sick for days, sometimes even for a week or two. And if you're a young adult, you may never feel ill. And yet you have the ability to pass that virus onto your grandmother or your parents or your next-door neighbor. 

And so mask wearing, social distancing or physical distancing, maintaining at least six feet of separation from the person next to you as much as possible, unless they're your immediate family or a very close person that you're living with and regular hand-washing. Those three things, as simple as they are, are incredibly effective and the best way to deal with this disease, which could be life-threatening. It kills or it can put people in an intensive care unit for weeks and leave them weakened and struggling to function for months. That can be prevented by the most basic, simple things.

And so the problem is there's been too many fragmented messages out there, too many people saying, "Well, nobody can tell me what to do." Well, you know, we have speed limits. That's telling people what to do. We have seatbelts in cars. That's telling people what to do. We enforce laws about seatbelts. We expect people to wear a motorcycle helmet. You know, we don't let people drive 150 miles an hour in a 30-mile an hour zone. That's telling people what to do. And that's because society recognizes sometimes a very minor accommodation for the good of all of us not only will save your life and the lives of people you care about, but it will keep the community healthy.

So while VCU is also on the cutting edge of COVID research, we're partnering on major research, trials, improvement in diagnostics, improvements in how to treat patients with coronavirus, and we will be one of the first health care facilities in the state to get the vaccine. We're also absolutely focused on encouraging everybody, Black, white, Hispanic, Asian, Native American, young, old, focus on prevention because that's the most inexpensive. And frankly, at this point, the one thing that we know is effective, but it requires everybody to buy in. And I hope and I pray anybody listening to this podcast will listen to those words and buy into it.

Caitlyn Whyte: Well, doctor, wrapping up here, is there anything else you'd like to add to this conversation that we didn't touch on today?

Dr. Art Kellermann: Well, all I can say to folks are that you live in an amazing community and an amazing state. I was born and raised in East Tennessee, grew up in a small town. The doctor that inspired me to go into medicine was the town's only African-American physician. I trained at Emory University and came back and was on the faculty there for 17 years and worked in Atlanta at Grady Hospital, which is Atlanta's public hospital and dealt with the state legislature. I then went to Washington D.C. And the last seven years, I was dean of the Leadership Academy of Military Health, but I got to Virginia as soon as I could. And I'm happy to be here. And I'm looking forward to working with the amazing doctors and nurses at VCU, but also getting to know the community, my neighbors, this state. I'm here for the long haul, and we are going to make Virginia the healthiest state in the country. 

Caitlyn Whyte: Well, thank you so much for your time today and your commitment to the craft, Dr. Kellermann. And thank you for listening to “Healthy with VCU Health.” To learn more, head over to VCUHealth.org. I'm Caitlyn Whyte. We'll see you next time.