Global Health Figures Prominently in New Duke Health Strategic Planning Framework

Last week, Duke Health (formerly “Duke Medicine”) launched “Advancing Health Together: 2016-2020 Strategic Planning Framework”—the product of a strategic planning initiative that collaboratively engaged the entire Duke Health community. Many of the goals and strategies outlined in this document align closely with the work of the Duke Global Health Institute (DGHI), and the framework specifically designates global health as one of the five core mission areas. 

“Advancing Health Together” is a comprehensive, integrated framework for guiding future initiatives based on academic, clinical and population health priorities. It outlines goals and strategies across five core mission areas:

• Patient care
• Research
• Education
• Community health improvement
• Global health

The plan also details Duke Health’s commitment to ensuring the quality of work life, professional fulfillment and well-being of its faculty, staff and trainees, noting their critical role in Duke Health’s success in each mission area. 

The framework also marks the adoption of “Advancing Health Together” as the Duke Health mission statement and puts forward a vision of delivering innovative health care, accelerating discovery and its translation into practice, creating transformative education and building healthy communities both locally and globally.

Framework Supports Enhanced Global Health and Community Health Efforts

The framework’s inclusion of global health as a core mission area for Duke Health signifies strong institutional support of DGHI and its many partners across Duke and beyond.

“Duke Health is uniquely positioned to facilitate the translation of solutions to global health challenges and to educate the next generation of health leaders,” the framework authors state. “Building upon our strong network of collaborators and partners, we will support programs and projects with the highest potential for impact on the health and lives of populations across the world.”

“Advancing Health Together” outlines five global health goals:

• Educate and train health leaders and care providers around the world 
• Measurably improve health outcomes for targeted global health problems 
• Develop, test and translate solutions to meet critical global health challenges
• Enhance support, infrastructure and resources for global health at Duke
• Encourage all components of Duke University to integrate a global health perspective

The core mission of “community health improvement” also reflects clear connections between the overarching Duke Health goals and those of DGHI, with a focus on community partnerships, reducing health disparities and promoting health equity in the community. DGHI’s “communities” are as close as Durham, North Carolina, and as far away as Mongolia.

“The framework’s focus on global and community health fits perfectly with DGHI’s initiatives to reduce health disparities locally and in many low- and middle-income countries,” said DGHI director Michael Merson. “We look forward to expanding our efforts in partnership with our Duke Health colleagues in the coming years.” 

Read “Advancing Health Together: 2016-2020 Strategic Planning Framework.”