The Delaware Health Sciences Alliance—a new partnership of Christiana Care Health System (Christiana Care), Nemours, Thomas Jefferson University (TJU) and the University of Delaware (UD)—combines the priorities and assets of these member institutions to provide leadership in the improvement of health and health services to all Delawareans, while also nurturing research and advanced technology development that will be key to Delaware’s economic future. The Alliance was formally announced March 24 by the presidents of the four partner institutions—Robert L. Barchi, M.D., Ph.D., of Thomas Jefferson University, Robert J. Laskowski, M.D., of Christiana Care, Tom Ferry of Nemours and Patrick T. Harker, Ph.D., of the University of Delaware—as part of a conference on “Stronger Health-Based Partnerships” held at UD.
Building on years of cooperative efforts among the four institutions, the Delaware Health Sciences Alliance is dedicated to:
providing the finest health-care education for all health professionals;
conducting interdisciplinary clinical and translational research that generates new knowledge to address today’s most pressing health concerns; and
improving state and regional health and health-care services.
Health-care education is one of the Alliance’s top priorities, and a key component of this initiative will be the development of a Campus for Healthcare Education in Delaware.
The campus will house classrooms, study halls and a new residential facility for up to 150 medical, pharmacy, nursing, occupational and physical therapy students. The new campus will expand offerings in family and community medicine, surgery and its subspecialties, obstetrics and gynecology, internal medicine and pediatrics. It will allow Jefferson to provide clinical rotations and professional experience to its students in the many health care delivery sites within the state of Delaware.
In the area of research, the partners will expand on their individual successes by establishing an infrastructure for enhanced cooperation that will stimulate more rapid and comprehensive growth of research.
Other Alliance initiatives already under way include:
Delaware Valley Institute for Clinical and Translational Science (DVICTS), which seeks to acquire new grants that could collectively fund greater research discoveries and ensure rapid movement of discoveries from the lab to clinical settings to the patient—from “bench to bedside”;
Delaware Center for Cancer Biology, which will build upon unique research capabilities of the Kimmel Cancer Center at Jefferson, the Helen F. Graham Cancer Center at Christiana Care, the Nemours Center for Childhood Cancer Research and the Center for Translational Cancer Research, along with researchers at UD, Christiana Care, Nemours and the Delaware Biotechnology Institute; and
Delaware Rehabilitation Institute, which will leverage partner strengths to become the premier research, training and practice center in the nation in the area of physical rehabilitation.
In addition, major centers are being considered in the areas of cardiovascular disease, women’s and children’s health, neuroscience and health policy.
The Delaware Health Science Alliance is also committed to growing the biosciences industry in the state through close working relationships with the business community, resulting in hundreds of professional and support jobs for the state of Delaware.
About Christiana Care Health System Christiana Care Health System, based in Wilmington, Del., is one of the largest health care providers in the mid-Atlantic region, serving all of Delaware and portions of seven counties bordering the state in Pennsylvania, Maryland and New Jersey.