Representatives from the University of Houston and Louisville, Kentucky-based Humana Inc. (NYSE: HUM) gathered to launch the Humana Integrated Health System Sciences Institute on Dec. 6.
In September, Humana announced that it would donate $15 million to the university over 10 years in order to unite the UH College of Medicine and the existing colleges of nursing, pharmacy, social work and optometry. Renu Khator, president of the University of Houston, said that the launching of the new partnership with Humana would greatly benefit the local Houston community.
"There is so much compatibility between our missions," Khator said at the Dec. 6 event at the Hilton University of Houston located at 4800 Calhoun Rd.
The event featured a panel discussion with Khator, Dr. Roy Beveridge, chief medical officer of Humana and Dr. Stephen Spann, founding dean of the UH College of Medicine. Much of the conversation centered around the social determinants of adverse health — such as poverty impacting a person's ability to afford healthy food choices — and how the partnership can work to address these social issues.
In November, a building site for the new medical school was chosen, and tuition rates for the university's new Doctor of Medicine degree were established. An anonymous donation announced in July will cover full four-year tuition for the entire inaugural class of doctoral candidates, and a gift from the John M. O’Quinn Foundation will cover tuition for one-third of the second class. Slated to begin in fall 2020, the med school’s inaugural class is expected to be 30 students, growing to full enrollment of 480 students over the next eight years.
The UH College of Medicine aims to address the shortage of primary care physicians in Texas, which ranks 47th out of 50 states in primary care physician-to-population ratio. UH’s goal is for at least 50 percent of each graduating class to specialize in primary care, compared to the national average of about 20 percent.
