Digestive Health Selected as a Center of Excellence

From the Link, 2000. 

The remarkable success of the Digestive Health Center after only four years of existence has earned it the designation of Center of Excellence by the UVA Health System.

This new designation is based upon criteria established to identify multidisciplinary, multidepartment groupings that provide coherent research and treatment programs for specific diseases having strategic importance to the Health System, says Thomas A. Massaro, MD, PhD, chief of staff. Centers of Excellence also should be funded by substantial umbrella grants, provide exceptional teaching and have physicians who are nationally known in their field of expertise, he adds. 

Massaro says that he and Robert M. Carey, MD, dean of the School of Medicine, made the decision to award the designation to Digestive Health late last year. "Digestive Health convinced us that it deserves the designation," Massaro says.  Among the reasons he cites are its basic and clinical research, including a $5.1 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to study Crohn's disease, and its bringing together of medical professionals in various departments, including surgery, medicine, pediatrics, radiology, pathology and basic sciences. 

Under the leadership of director Fabio Cominelli, MD, PhD, the Digestive Health Center of Excellence has built a solid team and a growing practice.  Its outpatient facility on the first floor of University Hospital has been renovated, and a Women's Clinic was opened last year.

"This is a very strong group," says Massaro,  "It is one of the most successful in the institution.  In four years, Digestive Health has turned around its clinical reputation in the region, and is growing ten to fifteen percent a year.  Also, patient satisfaction remains high," he adds. 

The service center has vastly improved its national reputation as well, currently ranking 22nd among the nation's hospitals specializing in digestive disorders (gastroenterology), according to U.S. News & World Report.  In 1997 UVA was not even on the list in this specialty. 

At the time of Cominelli's arrival at UVA in 1995, UVA was conducting no clinical trials on inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).  Now, at any given time, UVA has 40 to 50 active clinical trials on a range of digestive disorders, including IBD, h. pylori, hepatitis and hepatic failure.

Cominelli's goal is to take his center into the nation's top 10 within five years.  He plans to double research space and the number of faculty investigators. 

Massaro says the Center of Excellence program will be reviewed before any other centers are added. "Digestive Health will have this designation for one year, and we'll see what we learn about it before making any other decisions," he says. 

He says there are several other areas in the Health System that could meet the criteria, including Endocrinology and the Cancer Center.  "The idea is to eventually have four or five centers of excellence within the institution." 

Massaro adds that the center of excellence designation is not permanent. "If a center no longer meets the criteria, such as losing a big grant, the designation would be removed."