AAMC releases strategic plan for a healthier future
The Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) released its new strategic plan, “A Healthier Future for All.” The plan provides a path forward to rethink the nation’s approach to health; make healthcare more equitable, affordable, and available to all; strengthen the nation’s medical education system and commitment to medical research; and increase the diversity of the physician and medical research workforce.
Developed in partnership by the AAMC Board of Directors and Leadership Team with extensive input from the broad community of academic medicine and AAMC staff, the plan lays out a new mission statement in which the AAMC “leads and serves the academic medicine community to improve the health of people everywhere” and 10 plans of action to achieve the association’s vision of “a healthier future through learning, discovery, health care, and community collaborations.” Begun in September 2019, the plan was informed by lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic and public health crisis.
In a message to AAMC members, President and CEO David J. Skorton, MD, said, “I am so proud of the academic medicine community and the way you have responded to the novel coronavirus pandemic and defined the front lines of the response. You have truly shown the nation and the world our very best. And yet, as heroic and exceptional as the response has been, the pandemic also exposed the fault lines in our health care system — tremendous health inequities and disparities, too many people who still lack access to health care, and the continuing epidemic of mental health challenges, to name but a few. Fundamentally, for too many, our nation’s approach to health is broken. More than ever before, it is clear we must do better.”
The new AAMC plan focuses on evolving the nation’s system of medical education; supporting students in their journeys to become medical professionals; helping the nation’s medical schools, teaching hospitals, and health systems become more inclusive and equitable; increasing significantly the number of diverse medical students and matriculants; strengthening the nation’s commitment to medical research and the research workforce; improving access to health care; enhancing the skills and capacity of the people of academic medicine; and helping the AAMC adapt to change.
In addition, the plan creates two new entities within the AAMC:
· the AAMC Research and Action Institute, which will elevate the association’s role in policy research and analysis, and
· the AAMC Center for Health Justice, to amplify the association’s critically important efforts to address health inequities and advance health justice as part of its new mission area of community collaborations.
“The nation faces many seemingly intractable challenges in healthcare. As the only association dedicated to transforming health through medical education, healthcare, medical research, and community collaborations, the AAMC is prepared to tackle these challenges and lead the way to a healthier future,” Skorton said.
