Robert M. Califf, MD

Eric Peterson as DCRI Leader

We “passed the torch” at the American College of Cardiology meetings this past week.  At the reception for current and former “Dukies” in Chicago, we had brief speeches by Chris O’Connor as head of the Heart Center, Bob Harrington as current DCRI Director and Eric Peterson as the new DCRI Director.  This was an important gesture for the cardiovascular world, and we will need to be attuned to the many other disciplines who also want to hear more.

As I said at the reception, once it became clear that Bob was headed to Stanford, I met with institutional leadership to consider external searches and internal candidates.  There was a unanimous view that Eric was poised to take the job and that a smooth transition was important in this time in the life cycle of the DCRI and DTMI as its parent organization.   We will soon be setting the date for the formal transition, as Bob will be working with us through May.

The DCRI under Bob’s leadership has been an amazing success in every element of the “balanced scorecard”.  Academic productivity has increased at an amazing rate, the organization has been a financial juggernaut, and professional advancement of faculty and staff is evident in every dimension.

From this strong base, I will be working with Bob, Eric, and the leadership teams of the DTMI family to chart a course for the next 5 years.  The main challenges ahead include:

1.  The financial pressure in the environment: healthcare reform is bringing about dire predictions for reimbursement to providers.  Like all academic health and science systems, our academic enterprise depends on margins from clinical care to support the research and teaching missions.  At the same time, the NIH budget has flattened, causing major concern about the traditional source of research funding and indirect costs that float the infrastructure we all depend on.  While recognizing this pressure, we need to leverage the great position of DTMI/DCRI to continue to develop a mixed portfolio of research from NIH and industry and across the international expanse.

2.  Integration across DTMI.  One of my great pleasures has been the freedom to create DTRI, develop a new concept for proof concept research in the DCRU, work with Dean Gilliss and friends to develop the DTNI and to pioneer new methods of community-engaged research with DCCR, Durham Health Innovations and the MURDOCK Study.  Furthermore, we have strengthened the institutional infrastructure with DCHI to provide a common home for health informatics, biostatistical consultation, the research management group (providing data management and study organization capabilities for site based research), and a world class regulatory group.  All of these efforts have capable leaders and room for further growth and impact.  The stability and preeminence of the DCRI has enabled these efforts to develop.  Now we need to bring them into a more coherent whole so that we have the best impact on improving health and healthcare.

3.  Continued diversification and integration with Duke Medicine and the university.  Much of the most exciting work will involve collaboration with multiple clinical specialties, international partners (Duke-NUS, Kunshan, Medanta, BCRI, etc) and entirely different disciplines (Business, Environment, Engineering, etc.).  We are poised to go to the next level and need to have a strategy to make this happen.

4.  Moving the enterprise towards a learning health system.  This has been a dream since my early days of learning from Eugene Stead.  It is now possible to make it happen.

I look forward to this next several months of thinking through these great possibilities.

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