UTMB Faculty Senate

July 9, 2012

4:30 – 6:00 pm

MINUTES

 

Present:  Drs. S. Croisant, Chair, S. Al-Arabi, B. Ameredes, J. Badalamenti,  K. Beal, L. Cain, P. Crane, S. Elsaid, J. Graham, J. LeDuc,  J. McBride, N. Mendias, H. Pine,  C. St. John, C. Utsey, H. West, C. Wiggs, D. Wild and D. Young

 

Absent:  Drs. B. Bryant, J. C. Davis, R. Ellis, L. Farmer, C. Houston, A. Jones, T. Riall, S. Sarna and C. Utsey

 

 

I.              The meeting was called to order at 4:32 pm by Dr. Sharon Croisant, Faculty Senate Chair.

 

II.           The Approval of the June 11, 2012 minutes.  The minutes of June 11, 2012 were voted and approved by email on June 22, 2012.

 

III.         Provost, VP and Dean’s Report

 

      Interim Executive Vice President, Provost and Dean, Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences – report provided by Dr. Cooper.

      VP and Dean, School of Health Professions – report provided by Dr. Protas.

      VP and Dean, School of Nursing – report provided by Dr. Watson.

      Interim Dean, School of Medicine – report submitted by Dr. Prough, presented by Mr. Slocum.

 

IV.        Changes in FY12 Impacting Faculty – Cameron Slocum, MBA, VP and COO, Academic Enterprise

Mr. Slocum presented the Senate with a presentation.  Following conversations with Dr. Callender, they are planning to propose to the UT System an Incentive Retirement Program for their approval.  The UT System has utilized this type of program before.  The purpose is to explore strategic resource management options while providing an incentive for eligible faculty who choose to voluntarily separate from the University.  Requirements for this proposed program are to be:  a UTMB tenured faculty member; retirement eligible; and have not held a Department Chair, Dean (all levels), Vice President or above position.  The Benefit for this faculty member is: receive a one-time (lump sum) payment of his/her Institutional Base Salary (as of July 1, 2012) pro-rated to compensate for the remaining 11 months of FY13; and payments to be processed no later than October 1, 2012.  156 tenured faculty meet this criteria and the Department Chairs support this initiative. 

A concern that was mentioned was:  how will this affect an area/small department whose faculty already support a heavy teaching load now, and with the loss of teaching faculty may have to shoulder even more of a burden in the absence of additional FTE’s to share the workload.  A question was asked how many are they expecting to take this plan and the response was 5-10 tenured faculty.

 

Faculty Compensation Plan Review.  The plan has not been reviewed from 2006 and Dr. Callender has asked for an outside firm to review.  The Huron Consulting Services, LLC, have been hired to work with the Faculty Compensation Committee for reviewing the fundamentals of the Faculty Compensation Plan against the best practices in the industry. Changes to be effective FY14 will be recommended to the Executive Vice President and Provost.

FY13 Faculty Compensation Plan Updates: 

      Minimum Expectations by mission defined to be included on departmental plans.

            Review and Approval – Any revisions or updates of departmental compensation plans must be submitted on or before July 15 annually for review and approval by the Dean.

                       

V.           Reports by Faculty Senate Chair

      Dr. Croisant inquired if anyone else has read Governor Perry’s letter to HHS today?  The Executive Board members met with Dr. Callender on June 15th and they discussed the questions brought up in the Executive Session after the June Faculty Senate meeting.  Dr. Croisant was asked by Dr. Callender to serve on the Compensation Committee.     

 

VI.        Patient Centered Communication for the Limited English Proficiency Patient – Martha Livanec, Director of Patient Services. Ms. Livanec presented the Senate with a PowerPoint Presentation.  Some highlights from the presentation were: The policy related to translation was made effective July 1, 2012 and will be sent to IHOP next week.  This was sent out by the Joint Commission for all of the US.  Some questions and concerns of this new policy came from Senators Pine, West, Cain, Mendias, Wild and the Senate Chair, Dr. Croisant.  How will this affect the Bilingual Health Track (BHT), which is under the guidance of Dr. Norma Perez?  BHT is designed to graduate culturally and ethically competent bilingual in Spanish physicians.   Also what about RMCHP clinics and PA’s?  The general assessment was that the policy is so broad and may not fit well in certain health areas.  Dr. Pine, who speaks Spanish in his ENT practice provided the example that upon being assessed, he was asked to translate “gallbladders” in a sentence; a term which he does not use or work with and the assessment thus would rule him as “not proficient” with this question.  Dr. Wild mentioned that the phone translation does not work well.  She had difficulty accessing the service and had to call back repeatedly.  What happens if you have a hearing impaired patient?  Martha took note of these questions and will look into the concerns.  She did mentioned that video interpreting is triple the cost.  To take the assessment, you can find it under the HR/OWD website:  http://hr.utmb.edu/classregistration.

 

A motion was made to extend the Faculty Senate meeting by 10 minutes and was seconded and unanimously approved.  Dr. Mendias commented that the students are in the same boat and Dr. Wiggs agreed and said this is a big issue.

 

The Limited English Proficiency (LEP) committee includes representatives from the following areas:  faculty, nursing, ancillary services, ambulatory and RMCHP.  The LEP committee has worked for several months writing the policy and procedures to meet this new regulation.   The committee also decided that a consistent/uniform assessment was in the best interest of UTMB and our patients.  We understand this is a big change, but we feel it ultimately is in the best interest of the patients and their families.  Based on some of the results from the assessments, we have found that in some cases, the assessment process will help ensure one standard of care and a higher level of interpretation.   The presentation highlights some of these concerns.  Additionally, Language Assistance has implemented a new phone system which addresses some of the concerns raised in the meeting.  The average length of time to be connected with a Medical Language interpreter is less than 30 seconds.

 

Language Assistance office will work with the four schools to determine the best method to not hinder student’s learning Spanish while complying with Joint Commission regulations. 

Ambulatory is working on processes in each of the clinics to expedite the interpretation process.  Inpatient units are also working on processes.

 

Dr. Mark Kirschbaum and Martha Livanec encourage continuous feedback from faculty, staff and students, so we can continue to make improvements to this process. 

 

VII.   Reports by the Executive Committee and Committee Chairs

Dr. Wiggs announced the results of the Chair-Elect voting.  The 2012-13 Chair-Elect is Dr. Lisa Cain. 

 

The meeting was adjourned at 6:15 pm.