Additional Information on Report Card Metrics

SUNY and a Healthier New York

Producing More Well-Trained Health Professionals

The health of New Yorkers is essential to our economic success. Having an educated workforce able to take care of New Yorkers is an essential component to keeping New Yorkers healthy. SUNY is uniquely positioned to educate and train our future healthcare workforce. Using data from the Center for Health Workforce Studies on shortages, we will determine which professionals are most critical to New York State healthcare and create capacity in our programs that train students for these areas. We will:

• Pursue workforce development

• Improve access to care

• Create new public/private partnerships

Reinforce pathways – including those with health care industry and private colleges–to draw students, and to keep graduates and health care providers in NY.

SUNY Institute for Health Policy and Practice

Center for Health Workforce Studies

NYS Department of Health

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services; Health Resources and Service Administration

Needs Analysis

Analyzing specific needs both geographically and by the type of professional required.  Conducting this type of analysis allows for the proper allocation of resources to different parts of the state in order to fulfill various workforce and health needs.

Identify Wellness Issues by Executing a Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System

With a network of campuses that span the state — and a student body enrollment that tops 467,000, and a workforce that encompasses 42,000 full and part-time employees — SUNY is positioned to create an integrated plan to produce healthier students, healthier SUNY employees, and a healthier workforce for New York State.

Health challenges within New York State are also reflected within SUNY. Thanks to SUNY’s size and scope, the SUNY Health Policy and Practice Institute is poised to use its own populations to collect epidemiologic data, disseminate and test best practices, and to launch technology-based approaches. The Wellness Network would also have the advantage of using existing Human Resources and Student Affairs networks to advance its initiatives.

The Wellness Network will include a special focus on the 18-25 year-old demographic in its founding initiatives. These will not only improve the health and lives of students, but establish SUNY both a leader in promoting student health and as an even more attractive destination for education.

SUNY Institute for Health Policy and Practice

New York State Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System

Center for Disease Control; Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System

Number of Tobacco Free Campuses

The adverse health effects of tobacco use have been well-documented by scientific research. The following statement from the National Institutes of Health underscores the major impact tobacco use has on the health of our citizens:

Tobacco use is the leading preventable cause of disease, disability, and death in the United States. Between 1964 and 2004, cigarette smoking caused an estimated 12 million deaths, including 4.1 million deaths from cancer, 5.5 million deaths from cardiovascular diseases, 1.1 million deaths from respiratory diseases, and 94,000 infant deaths related to mothers smoking during pregnancy.According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), cigarette smoking results in more than 443,000 premature deaths in the United States each year—about 1 in every 5 U.S. deaths—and an additional 8.6 million people suffer with a serious illness caused by smoking. Thus, for every one person who dies from smoking, 20 more suffer from at least one serious tobacco-related illness.

The harmful effects of smoking extend far beyond the smoker. Exposure to secondhand smoke can cause serious diseases and death. Each year, an estimated 126 million Americans are regularly exposed to secondhand smoke and almost 50 thousand nonsmokers die from diseases caused by secondhand smoke exposure.

As part of the SUNY Wellness Plan, we proposed a plan to establish a “Tobacco-Free SUNY System,” that will positively impact the health of our students, faculty, and entire workforce within the SUNY system.

SUNY Board of Trustee's call for a "Tobacco-Free SUNY"

Tobacco Free New York State

American Cancer Society, Tobacco-Free U

Smoke-Free Campuses Nationwide

External Funding for the Four SUNY Reach Pillars

SUNY REACH (Research Excellence in Academic Health) is a SUNY program to encourage collaboration among SUNY’s four Academic Health Centers at Buffalo, Downstate, Stony Brook and Upstate, along with the College of Optometry and other SUNY institutions performing major biomedical research by investing strategically in four specific research areas or pillars: cancer; infectious disease/emerging pathogens; nervous system disorders; and diabetes/cardiovascular disease.

By combining the biomedical research capacities of SUNY’s Academic Health institutions into one integrated research collaborative through SUNY REACH, SUNY will provide New York State with a research “whole” much greater than the sum of its parts – with the ability to impact every corner of the State.

SUNY REACH Synopsis

SUNY REACH, A Research Vision to Meet a Public Mission

SUNY REACH is a Model for Collaborative Research Success

External Funding to Expand SUNY's Health Policy Impact

The SUNY Institute of Health Policy and Practice (IHPP) will bring together the full spectrum of health care expertise from across the entire SUNY enterprise, under a single, virtual, umbrella. Governed by SUNY’s Academic Health Centers, Schools of Public Health and the SUNY Chancellor’s Office, the IHPP seeks to combine SUNY’s intellectual capital into one integrated health policy and practice collaborative to provide evidence based guidance on a variety of health care topics that look to inform public policy, and improve the health and well being of the citizens of New York State.

With major academic health institutions performing policy and clinical research throughout the State (Buffalo, Syracuse, Albany, New York City and Stony Brook), and faculty members interested in health policy across SUNY’s 64 campus system, SUNY has a unique ability to bring about pragmatic, fundamental reform through large scale collaboration that no other institutions in New York State have the capacity to do. Further, by virtue of SUNY’s public mission, the Institute is uniquely positioned to work with the State to integrate recommendations on issues such as chronic disease management from both a policy and health care delivery perspective.

This report card item will track the amount of funding received under the umbrella of the Institute to perform policy research, in one of the following major programmatic areas: evidence-based clinical care; quality and patient safety; and public health and wellness.

SUNY Institute for Health Policy and Practice

New York State Health Foundation

Federal Funds Allocated to SUNY Campuses for Health Research (ARRA, 2009)