Countdown to Centennial Celebration: Week of March 29th

Students, Faculty, Residents, Staff, Alumni, Board Members and Friends,

It’s been a busy week at Salus as plans for the Centennial Celebration continue to move along at lightning speed. We’re just a month away from the Gala and I hope you have been having fun reading through the exciting history of the Pennsylvania College of Optometry (PCO) and have purchased your tickets to attend. Here’s another - more colorful - story: salus.edu/mural-Monday

On Monday, I spent the day in Harrisburg, along with Dr. Trego and other members of the PCO faculty and students, educating our State Representatives about the upcoming optometry scope of practice and children’s vision bills. From what I could tell, most of the representatives were very receptive and understood why both of these bills needed to pass. As I’ve said previously, one of our missions at Salus is to advocate for all of our professions. Monday was a great example of this in action. Our students, in particular, hit it out of the park!

This week Dr. Aravamudhan and the Institutional Advancement office hosted Osborne College of Audiology's (OCA) Alumni and Friends Open House at American Academy of Audiology (AAA) Convention in Columbus, Ohio, which Dr. Barry Eckert, Dennis Washington and I had the opportunity to attend. The event was exceptionally well attended by faculty, staff, advisory board members as well as many alumni. We recognized our Alumni of the Year, Dr. George Lindley at the event. He’ll be receiving all of his “bling” during the Presidential Awards ceremony the day prior to our Gala. 

Salus OCA was also well represented at the AAA meeting with presentations and posters by our OCA faculty.  It was great to see so many of our faculty presenting on the national stage!

Lions Club Members are invited to attend our Spring Vision Screening at Philadelphia Fight Community Health Center 1207 Chestnut Street, 3rd floor Philadelphia, PA 19107 on Saturday from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.

We have entered the conference season. This week, our students, faculty, and staff have attended the following conferences: Vision Expo East, American Academy of Audiology and the Northeast Association of Advisers for the Health Professions.

Before I close, I want to once again mention the importance of a $10 donation to the University. I was disappointed that only one person took me up on my suggestion to donate $10 towards scholarships last week. Actually, that one person donated $20, which we really appreciate! So, if anyone is inclined to invest in our student's future, please click here and have at it! Thanks in advance for your consideration and generosity! 

As I mentioned earlier, we’re less than a month away from our Centennial Gala in celebration of PCO’s 100 years.  If you haven’t had a chance to purchase your tickets yet, you can do so by clicking here to get to the website.  

Have a great weekend - enjoy the sunshine and moderate temperatures and have some fun.

Mike

The Importance of Any Size Donation: Week of March 22nd

Students, Faculty, Residents, Staff, Alumni, Board Members and Friends,

I happened to wake up in the middle of the night thinking about how $10 can really help improve your day. Think about it. For $10, you can get a fancy Starbucks coffee and a snack, you can go to Wawa and get a coffee and a sandwich, you can go to the movies (unless it’s a Friday or Saturday night), you could go on Amazon and buy the Zeefo Retro LED night light you’ve always wanted or if you happen to be in Taiwan, you can buy a box of dumplings at a street side shop, a loaf of bread, 1 kg tomatoes and a dozen eggs in a supermarket. You can also contribute to the Salus Alumni fund – many $10 donations really add up quickly and if we’re going to try and establish meaningful scholarships to help offset the cost of education, this is a great way to start.  So, for $10 you can do many things – the one that might have the longest lasting impact would be an investment in our institution’s future. Just click here to see how you can make that happen.

I spent the earlier part of the week attending Thomas Jefferson University College of Population Health’s 19^th Population Health Colloquium, which featured speakers from all over the country who addressed issues involving public health, the social determinants of health, how to improve the American healthcare system (many ideas on that one) as well as discussions on compassionate leadership and what our future might hold. Every year, Dr. David Nash, the Dean of the college and a recipient of a Salus honorary degree a couple of years ago, shares what he believes are the top 12 issues that will affect our healthcare system. He calls them the, “Dirty Dozen” and I thought I’d share them with you as they touch on many of the issues we confront at Salus and many of you are confronting every day in your practices.  

1. Healthcare will be affected by a rise in consumerism to include home health, wearables and consumables. Much is already happening.
2. Medicare Advantage & Managed Medicaid will continue to be front-lines as they begin to deliver value. Outcome data will drive reimbursements. “No outcomes - No Income”.
3. Tax Reform has already created the largest deficit in American history. This will force a decrease in Federal spending, specifically in healthcare and other social programs.
4.  Precision Medicine and Population Health will become prominent practices to help save money and lives.
5. Deal making (such as mergers of systems) will continue.
6. Healthcare delivery systems will continue to consolidate.
7. Health information technology will continue to create the necessary information to improve care.
8. There will be an increase in the use of predictive analytics and artificial intelligence in the management of population health. This will lead to a rise in Population Health Intelligence.
9. Pharmaceutical industry will be disrupted with price becoming the most important aspect from a national perspective.
10. More venture capital dollars will be moving into healthcare – we’re already seeing this as private practices around the nation are being bought.
11. Workforce development in the areas of artificial intelligence, quality measurement and management through data analytics.
12. The Phillies will win the Pennant (this might be the most debatable of the 12)

Many of these will directly affect every one of our professions as time marches on. It behooves all of us to be aware of these changes and proactively move to be part of the change rather than the recipient of the changes. This is where our scenario planning exercise has provided invaluable insights that are consistent with these “Dirty Dozen” predictions. 

If you have chance, I encourage you to stop by the D’Arrigo Family Gallery in the Hafter Student Community Center to see curator Elynne Rosenfeld’s newest art display, courtesy of the Montgomery County Guild of Professional Artists. It’s really very unique and wonderfully done. 

Congratulations to Anna Grasso, assistant professor in the College of Education and Rehabilitation, who has completed all graduation requirements and is now a Certified Aging-In-Place Specialist (CAPS). She teaches Occupational Therapy's geriatric practice course and volunteers her time making home safety recommendations for the under-served in Philadelphia.

Help support our physician assistant (PA) students and their involvement in the PAOlympics. There is a joint fundraiser tonight from 5-10pm at Frankford Hall, a restaurant in the Fishtown neighborhood in Philadelphia. Ten percent of all proceeds for the night will be donated to PA Olympics.

Thanks to Dr. Stanley Hatch for presenting a great lecture on, “The Powerful Placebo” at this morning’s Clinical Grand Rounds at The EyeInstitute.   

PCO sponsored Dr. Ken Sorkin, immediate past president of the New York State Optometric Association (NYSOA) and Dr. Mark Parsons were on campus to host a meeting with optometry students. They talked about how to expand the scope of practice in New York, the benefits of NYSOA membership, and updates on current legislation. 

We’re almost a month away from the Centennial Gala – have you bought your tickets yet or are you a student interested in going to the after party? You can find all the information and buy tickets here! 

Just a note that Drs. Maria Parisi, Jeffrey Nyman, Richard Brilliant and Georgia Crozier and I will be speaking at Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine this Sunday as part of the Advances in Interdisciplinary Eye Care interdisciplinary CE program, presented by the Moore Eye Institute.  I’ll be addressing what I believe integrated care should look like and my predictions for the future of vison care in the U.S. over the next 10 – 15 years.  I’m hoping to raise some eyebrows!

If you have a chance, get out and enjoy the early Spring weather.  Have fun, recharge and look out for one another.

Mike

Feels Like Spring at Salus: Week of March 15th

Students, Faculty, Residents, Staff, Alumni, Board Members and Friends,

Good morning from Elkins Park, where Spring is flirting with us, just a little.  It’s the Ides of March and today marks the end of another busy week at Salus with many students taking mid-terms while other are busily working on special projects and getting ready to go on clinical rotations.

These last couple of days, we’ve been hosting the accreditation team from the Council on Academic Accreditation (CAA) in Audiology and Speech-Language Pathology. They are here to review our SLP program. Their work should be completed later today with results to follow.

In our College of Education and Rehabilitation, Emily R. Vasile, MAT, TVI, MS, CLVT, has been invited to serve as a member of the Advisory Council of the Pennsylvania Deaf-Blind Project. The Advisory Council and its members serve a critical role to the Project by assisting in the identification of needs and areas for improvement as well as by providing feedback on materials, resources, and professional development. The members of the Council work in partnership with the Project to improve the lives of students with deaf-blindness and their families by building the capacity of intermediate units, school districts, and approved private schools through evidence-based practices and staff-driven collaboration. Congratulations!

On Monday evening, Salus Board member Rebecca Delia, Salus Provost, Dr. Barry Eckert and I attended a very interesting program addressing, “The Future of Work and its Implications for Higher Education." The program, which was sponsored by Deloitte and hosted by The Chronicle of Higher Education, addressed many of the themes we’ve been discussing during our Scenario Planning. Deloitte believes that the future of work is being shaped by the growing adoption of artificial intelligence in the workplace and the expansion of the workforce includes both on and off balance sheet talent. These changes should be influencing higher education to ensure people have the right skills when they leave college or technical training. While most of the conversation focused on undergraduate educational programs and the importance of maintaining studies in the humanities and other liberal arts subjects, there was also an emphasis on stacked and competency based learning and hybrid/online courses. All this affects the way each of our professions will be trained and ultimately practice. Hence, the importance of embracing many of these disruptive technologies and looking at new educational models.

Somewhat related to that discussion, yesterday, I sent out an email to all students with a link to a survey that asks about your opinion concerning the four strategic imperatives our scenario planning developed. We really need your input if we’re going to get this right, so please take the time to fill out the survey.  

The Pennsylvania College of Optometry will be sponsoring an Alumni and Friends reception at Vision Expo East reception on next Saturday, March 23, 2019 from 5:00 to 6:30 p.m. So, if you’re up in New York for the meeting, please stop by.

Finally, do you want to know more about PCO’s founder? Check out this “tour” of Dr. Albert Fitch’s home.  It’s an interesting read!

Only a few weeks left until our PCO Centennial Celebration. Please click HERE to get your tickets!

As we approach the weekend, please take some time to get out and enjoy the nicer weather we have. Be safe, have fun and look out for one another!

Mike

Save Your Vision Month: Week of March 8th

Students, Faculty, Residents, Staff, Alumni, Board Members and Friends,

Greetings from a very chilly Chicago where John Gaal and I are attending the annual meeting of the American College of Healthcare Executives. This year’s meeting had what I consider the perfect theme, "Innovation." Almost every seminar I attended addressed some type of innovative process that improved the delivery of healthcare to include leveraging technology, distance learning and telemedicine, improving online presence and how to best gain market share using social media as a tool. Clearly, we are on the right path at Salus. These are all topics we discussed in detail during our Scenario Planning and are currently moving forward in several areas. For instance, we’re about to commence a major renovation of our Chestnut Hill satellite clinic that will include the addition of the latest auto-refraction and optometric telemedicine technology – making us the only optometry program in the country with such a clinic. Preparing our students to practice in both today’s and more importantly, tomorrow’s dynamic healthcare delivery environment is our top priority and these types of investments will help us to realize these goals.Closer to home, Victor Bray, PhD, associate professor in the Osborne College of Audiology (OCA), Jonette Owen, AuD, assistant dean of the OCA, Robert Serianni, MS, CCC-SLP, clinical director of the Speech-Language Institute were at Capitol Hill Thursday representing Pennsylvania for the National Academies of Practice (NAP), ahead of the NAP Annual Meeting, to advocate for affordable healthcare and interprofessional practice. During the NAP meeting, Satya Verma, OD, FAAO, FNAP, Diplomate and director of Salus Externship Programs for Optometry will receive the prestigious Cummings Award for his service to NAP as well as interprofessional education. Congratulations!

While I wasn't able to attend, I know today’s Grand Rounds included an exceptional presentations on "Thrombocytopenia: The Lowdown on Platelets" from Dr. Shruti Desai and "How Low Can You Go?: Ocular Manifestations of Blood Dyscrasias", presented by Dr. Ryan Kern.

March is Save Your Vision Month, which traces its founding to 1927 by members of the American Optometric Association. Initially, the celebration was reserved for only a week. President Lyndon B. Johnson raised its profile in 1963 by making it a national observance, thanks, I’m almost certain to the exposure President Johnson had to extraordinary optometric care his family received from Dr. Robert Kraskin, one of our distinguished alumni. Then, in 2005, the AOA House of Delegates voted to extend the campaign to a month. During March, we take time to remind Americans of the importance of eye health and comprehensive eye examinations, performed by doctors of optometry.

Just over a month to go until the Centennial Gala! Read some of these great stories as we continue to celebrate the centennial anniversary of PCO: salus.edu/robert-morrison and salus.edu/healthcare-move. If you haven’t already purchased tickets to the gala, you can do so by clicking here!

As we get ready to spring the clocks forward one hour this Saturday evening, I encourage all of you to try to get a little extra rest as we all lose that one hour of sleep! Have a great weekend. I look forward to returning back to campus Monday morning, as I hope many of you do as well!

Mike

Winter Still: Week of March 1st

Students, Faculty, Residents, Staff, Alumni, Board Members and Friends,

Greetings from Elkins Park, where winter has visited us, yet again! The groundhog lied to all of us!

It’s great to be back from our trip to China where we had the opportunity to visit several great institutions and meet with many of our international alumni. I’m most excited about the possibilities of expanding our international presence with new partners and innovative programs. Working with some of our partners in China, we may be able to “push the envelope” a bit in developing some distance optometric continuing education as well as explore other educational models. What excites me about this, is that it’s consistent with some of the ideas we developed during our recent scenario planning. I’ll keep everyone posted as we move forward with some of these ideas.

Closer to home, in matters that can directly affect the practice of Audiology, the American Speech-Language and Hearing Association (ASHA), the American Academy of Audiology (AAA), and the Academy of Doctors of Audiology (ADA) have agreed to join forces to develop legislation that expands access to and coverage of audiology services under Medicare. According to ASHA’s press release, "This legislation will include provisions that all three organizations have supported in the past, as well as a new provision to expand Medicare coverage to include both diagnostic and treatment services provided by an audiologist; align patient access to audiology services under Medicare with patient access to audiology services outside of Medicare; and reclassify audiologists from "suppliers" to "practitioners" under Medicare. This joint effort comes during a time when our nation's health care systems are focused on outcomes and evidence-based treatments. For Medicare beneficiaries who need hearing health care services, it is critical that audiology services be positioned in this new environment and that the full scope of practice for audiologists be appropriately recognized." We’ve had an active advocacy role in all of this and will continue to remain engaged.

Speaking of audiology, the Osborne College of Audiology on-campus students and faculty attended the American Balance Society conference in Arizona. Congratulations to Jenna Fenton, class of 2020 for her poster presentation, " Downward dog dizziness - A rare BPPV case".  It’s always great to see our students presenting at national meetings.

Congratulations to Dr. Aravamudhan for being selected as a candidate for the Vice President for Academic Affairs in Audiology in American Speech-Language and Hearing Association (ASHA) board of directors for the upcoming elections. Elections will be conducted electronically April 16 to May 29, 2019, and those elected will serve a 3-year term beginning January 1, 2020. 

The Salus Got Talent show is today from 6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. at the Hafter Student Community Center. The talent show is hosted by the National Optometric Student Association (NOSA) and is open to all students and faculty. 

Congratulations to all of our PCO faculty who actively participated in the Southern Educational Congress of Optometry (SECO) meeting, this year held in New Orleans.  We were well represented with Drs. Andy Gurwood and Rachel Brackley, presenting numerous lectures and many of our residents and other faculty members in attendance. SECO always provides a great forum for our folks to shine - which they do!

Also at SECO, Celeste Gomez, class of 2019, was awarded the Review of Optometry Rick Bay Excellence in Eyecare Education Scholarship. Celeste was selected based on qualities that embody Rick Bay, which include a commitment to optometry, integrity, compassion, partnership and dedication to the greater good.  Congratulations Celeste!

 

Preparations for the Centennial Celebration continue.  Tickets are now available online and most of you should already have received an invitation.  Please take the time to read all about our Presidential Medal of Honor Recipients here. These people all have been pivotal in both PCO and Salus’ success over the years.

Don’t forget today’s Salus Time where Mr. Paul Sloate will be speaking on the topic of financial goal setting. This is something everyone can benefit from and I strongly encourage all of you to attend. The session will be held in the Lombardi Classroom from 2 - 3PM.

Finally, as the weekend approaches and the Phillies celebrate the signing of Bryce Harper for a mere $330 million (over 13 years), take some time to relax and enjoy the city. 

Have fun, be safe and take care of one another.

Mike