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KU School of Medicine–Wichita

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Core Values

As we work to improve the health of Kansans and educate doctors for Kansas, we’re guided by five core values:

Excellence in Education | Social Responsibility & Community Orientation | Excellence in Leadership
Responsible Stewardship | Continuous Quality Improvement

Excellence in Education

As a community-focused medical school with dedicated educators, we have an opportunity to define a competency-based curriculum to educate and prepare health care professionals who will provide quality, evidence-based patient and population-centered health care.

In practice, we will:

  • Identify, respect, and care about patient differences, values, preferences, and expressed needs; relieve pain and suffering; listen to, clearly inform, communicate with, and educate patients; share decision making and management; and continuously advocate disease prevention, wellness, and promotion of healthy lifestyles, including a focus on population health.
  • Integrate best research and quality improvement techniques with clinical expertise and patient values for optimum care, and participate in learning and research activities to the extent feasible.
  • Communicate, manage knowledge, mitigate error, and support decision making using information technology.

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Social Responsibility and Community Orientation

The KU School of Medicine-Wichita serves as a safe harbor and neutral institution. We are able to participate in the discourse of our community by responsible stewardship of the intellectual and social capital of students, resident physicians, community volunteer teachers, and full-time faculty. We’re able to affect change and improvements in medicine and public health through partnerships that are local, regional, national, and international at both the individual and organization levels.

In practice, we will:

  • Offer direct patient care.
  • Develop community assessment and focused care to address unmet health care needs.
  • Provide un-reimbursed and under-reimbursed services.
  • Provide healthy workers to the business community.
  • Maintain the skills of volunteer faculty through interaction with learners and continuing professional development.
  • Increase access of care and services in rural and inner city populations.
  • Actively seek, value, integrate, and respond to input from community partners.
  • Provide a vehicle for mobilization of community physicians as well as medical school employees around issues of patient care, healthy communities, and social concern.
  • Encourage medical school staff, student, and physician involvement in community activities.

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Excellence in Leadership

Organizations that achieve high levels of success point to their strong leadership capabilities at all levels as a key driver of success. Staff and faculty at the KU School of Medicine-Wichita who assume leadership roles have an added responsibility to embrace their obligations to inspire and guide those who are members of their teams. They must be prepared and skilled in their ability to lead others who will look to them as setting the standard for performance and behavior.

In practice, we will:

  • Be intentional about leadership development at all levels of the organization and provide learning opportunities to enhance leadership knowledge and skills.
  • Identify our areas of expertise and extend that expertise into the community.
  • Recognize individuals who exemplify the behaviors associated with excellence in leadership.
  • Hold ourselves to the highest standards of performance and behavior.

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Responsible Stewardship

There are limited resources available to achieve our mission. External circumstances affect our overall growth potential and ability to achieve our mission. Efficient and effective use of our resources as well as the ability to recognize and adapt to both internal and external environmental changes are required to continue our mission of excellence in education.

In practice, we will:

  • Make decisions regarding resources based on our mission and strategic direction.
  • Communicate resource allocation decisions effectively to appropriate faculty and staff.
  • Accept accountability at all levels of the organization to effectively and efficiently use resources to promote the mission and strategic direction of the organization.
  • Adapt effective and efficient use of resources in response to changes in medical education and the health care environment.

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Continuous Quality Improvement

The only way we can live our vision is to look for ways to measure desired change over time. We work to make things better every day – whether by improving service, reducing costs, or enhancing our own skills. It is important to have continuous quality improvement as a natural component of the day-to-day activities within the institution in order to gauge organizational and system effectiveness.

In practice, we will:

  • Make continuous improvement a natural part of the way everyday work is done.
  • Educate faculty and staff about the benefits of a continuous quality improvement effort.
  • Provide resources, such as money, time, and tools, for implementation of continuous improvement ideas.
  • Recognize there are both “internal” and “external” customers.
  • Permeate the organization with science-based measurement methods and tools.
  • Foster a team atmosphere.
  • Incorporate continuous quality improvement into the curriculum and competencies for medical students and residents.
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