More than two years since officials at Old Dominion University and Eastern Virginia Medical School signed an agreement to work toward an eventual merger, the integration of these influential Hampton Roads institutions is closer than ever — a growing certainty rather than a fleeting dream.
The resulting entity promises to be a game-changer for the region and the commonwealth, with the potential to prepare future generations of medical professions and bring its intellectual heft to bear on the chronic and persistent health issues here.
The General Assembly can advance that process this month by accepting Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s request of $10 million in the state budget designated for the merger. While there are plenty of items that may divide the region’s legislative delegation, this is one that should have the full-throated support of local lawmakers given its importance to Hampton Roads’ future.
EVMS’ mission to improve health care in southeast Virginia has been clear since its founding in the late 1960s. So many aspects of the school’s development were rooted in this cause, from its focus on educating family practitioners due to a shortage of local physicians to the work of researchers studying the health trends and acute problems faced by residents here.
The value of EVMS is unquestioned. But it occupies strange terrain in the commonwealth’s higher education landscape by nature of its independence from other state schools, and is an outlier among medical schools in that it does not own or operate its own hospital.
Instead, EVMS relies heavily on funding from Sentara Healthcare, which increased its annual support of the school in 2018 from $9 million annually to $26 million through this year. That relationship served both institutions well, but made securing state and federal funding a challenge. The pandemic made those issues more glaring.
So the question for all involved, from school administrators to state officials to students and the larger community, was how to ensure the long-term viability of EVMS and its critical work in Hampton Roads.
In 2020, the entities — ODU. EVMS and Sentara — along with state officials and organizations such as Reinvent Hampton Roads wrestled with how best to meet those goals in a way that bolsters the mission to raise the level of health care across the region and demonstrate responsible stewardship of public funding. There was friction in that process, as to be expected, but it helped move things forward.
Two major milestones come in the following year.
In August 2021, officials from ODU, EVMS and Norfolk State University reached an agreement to create a School of Public Health, the commonwealth’s first, to address health inequities, improve care for underserved populations, and offer post-graduate degrees for the next generation of medical leaders. The inclusion of NSU was an important show of regional cooperation that will strengthen the initiative.
And in December 2021, ODU, EVMS and Sentara signed a memorandum of understanding that pledged work toward greater integration and alignment of their efforts. The agreement proposed a new health sciences center that would offer the largest number of health degree programs in Virginia.
The governor provided the next piece of the puzzle in December when he requested $10 million in the state budget to facilitate the EVMS-ODU merger. Youngkin included a timeline that would see the revamped Eastern Virginia Health Sciences Center at Old Dominion University formally launched next year.
His support is greatly appreciated. Not only will a streamlined EVMS-ODU institution help address Hampton Roads’ woeful health statistics in areas such as infant mortality and heart disease more than justify the expense, but it would be a benefit to the larger commonwealth and a powerful economic development tool for this region.
Now it’s up to lawmakers, who can dramatically improve the health care outlook in Hampton Roads. This is an initiative with tremendous promise, and an opportunity Virginia must not squander.
