Lovett Collins Associates

Situation: Multiple hospitals within an integrated health care delivery system practiced basic, applied, and clinical research; system leadership was concerned about compliance, oversight, leadership, and return on institutional investment.
What LC did: Assessed the leadership and management structures, theme and focus of the research programs, and systems of performance expectations and assessment; made recommendations for remediation and a new system wide management and leadership system for research and scholarly activity.
Outcome: Management hired an Executive Director of Research; centralized, restructured and brought the research enterprise into compliance; narrowed the focus; increased clinical research; terminated basic research; made the expectation for return on investment more explicit; and linked research to patient care and training programs.

Situation: Medical center with a robust basic, clinical, and outcomes research enterprise, in partnership with other biomedical research institutions, desired state funding as a regional economic development tool.
What LC did: Worked with governor and legislature to formulate and pass an R&D bond referendum; formulated and executed a public campaign to pass multiple bond referenda; and worked with eligible institutions to establish a formulaic distribution of bond funds.
Outcome: Brought $60 Million in state bond funds dedicated to biomedical research infrastructure, enabling a 7:1 return on investment by the institutions.

Situation: Research program, principally clinical research, was large but not integrated with clinical or training programs, and not aligned with institutional strategic goals.
What LC did: Assessed programmatic strengths and opportunities for improvement. Recommended a process to establish a relevant and aligned vision, mission, focus, scope, leadership and management structure, and a financial plan for research enterprise.
Outcome: Following a planning exercise to increase research and training opportunities, the institution formed a partnership with a state medical school and established a multimillion-dollar biomedical research institute funded with state, national, and industrial awards.

Situation: Research programs had grown from "bottom-up" without proper compliance, control, oversight, leadership, or management.
What LC did: Assessed a broad scope of research and scholarly activity programs; produced flowcharts of authority, approvals, monies, patients, and paperwork; identified institutional best practices within departments; recommended changes in policies, procedures, rules, regulations, leadership, management, faculty development, and practice partnerships.
Outcome: New leadership structure is in place and internal teams are restructuring policy and procedure base, making interventions into oversight mechanisms, and implementing a new grant and contract accounting system and a centralized administration system.