Contact: Monty Jones, (512) 499-4363

Date: November 11, 1998

Comments on the Lower Rio Grande Valley Regional Academic Health Center

Following Regent Sanchez' Motion
by Donald L. Evans, Chairman, U.T. System Board of Regents

Regent Sanchez, I would like to express the thanks of the Board for the excellent plan that you have brought before us. And allow me to extend to you my deep personal gratitude for the outstanding manner in which you have carried out the mission of gathering information and communicating with all relevant parties regarding the Regional Academic Health Center. Through those activities, as well as your hard work in helping to craft this excellent plan for RAHC, you have provided an extraordinary service to the Board.

I am also deeply grateful for the hard work and insightful contributions of the U.T. System staff and for the continued valuable input of Kaludis Consulting Group as they have dealt with the critically important issues of how best to organize and locate the RAHC so that it is able to meet the needs of the people of the Lower Rio Grande Valley

I believe the plan that Regent Sanchez has presented in his motion offers many advantages. This plan is grounded on four broad principles, each of which I believe is essential in order to establish the RAHC on the strongest of foundations. Those principles are:

First, that the RAHC must be a collaborative effort involving the entire Lower Rio Grande Valley and benefiting all the people of the region;

Second, that the RAHC must build on the strengths of the region's major population centers of Hidalgo and Cameron counties;

Third, that the RAHC must be based on a realistic assessment of the existing capabilities and resources of (1) higher education institutions in the region, including those institutions in the U.T. System, and (2) hospitals and clinics now present in the targeted communities;

And fourth, that the RAHC must satisfy all accreditation requirements for undergraduate and graduate medical education.

Each of these principles if of fundamental importance so that the RAHC will be able to fulfill its legislative mandate and adhere to the standards of excellence that are the hallmark of The University of Texas System.

As outlined in the motion before us, the three divisions of the Regional Academic Health Center will bring to the Lower Rio Grande Valley a broad range of enhanced health and education services. The success of the RAHC is, of course, dependent on the continued growth of strong partnerships with communities throughout the Lower Rio Grande Valley, and particularly with the four communities where facilities for the RAHC would be located. I wish to make clear that the U.T. System is firmly committed to the development of these collaborative relationships for the benefit of all the people of the region.

There could be no greater evidence of that commitment than the plan to use resources from the Permanent University Fund to supplement the legislative appropriations for capital expenditures for the RAHC. The Legislature appropriated $30 million for this purpose, and the plan before us would commit an additional $20 million in capital resources from the PUF. With approval of this plan by the Board of Regents, we will be increasing the capital resources available to the RAHC by 67 percent.

I support this action. The resources of the Permanent University Fund are precious, and the demands on it are extensive. Among the most serious decisions that the Board of Regents ever faces are questions of how best to allocate scarce PUF resources to achieve the greatest good for the greatest number of Texans. It is my view that this special allocation of $20 million for the RAHC, when supplemented with a variety of local matching funds and gifts of land, will help provide the leverage needed to make the RAHC a complete success.

The decisions that we make today regarding locations for the Lower Rio Grande Valley Regional Academic Health Center constitute the beginning of a dramatic new era in health education, research, and other services in this critically important region of Texas.

We are tremendously excited about the immense opportunities for the advancement of health education and research as we move forward in partnership with the communities of the Lower Rio Grande Valley to fulfill the mandate of the Legislature.

It is important to underscore the fact that, as Regent Sanchez has stated, all aspects of the comprehensive plan contained in his motion are contingent on the final approval of definitive legal agreements with all relevant parties. From the beginning of this process, we have been mindful of the need to establish a Regional Academic Health Center that is able to meet the 21st-century challenges of health education and research in the Lower Rio Grande Valley. In order to truly achieve this ambitious objective, the RAHC must have a broad and energetic base of support throughout the region. That is why all the planning for the RAHC has been based on the premise that people will support what they help create.

In partnership with the people of the Lower Rio Grande Valley, the U.T. System, including in particular the U.T. Health Science Centers in San Antonio and Houston with the special responsibilities assigned to them, is prepared to move forward today to accomplish the creation of the Regional Academic Health Center for the benefit of the generations of the new millennium.