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State Health Official Lauds Miller School's "Cutting-Edge Research"

7/16/2009

Holly Benson, secretary of the state Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA), visited the Miller School on Wednesday, July 15, to tour the medical school’s research facilities and to gain an overall assessment of the Miller School’s research capabilities.

Benson’s day started at the Rosenstiel Medical Science Building with UM President Donna E. Shalala, Miller School Dean Pascal J. Goldschmidt, M.D., Michele Chulick, Miller School associate vice president and executive director of clinical operations, and Richard J. Bookman, Ph.D., Miller School executive dean for research and research training. That preceded a seven-stop tour for Benson that included visits to the Diabetes Research Institute, Interdisciplinary Stem Cell Institute, Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center and The Miami Project to Cure Paralysis.

“I’m very impressed with the fact that Secretary Benson is visiting top health systems and academic medical centers across the state, to gain a clear understanding of the opportunities that exist to provide Florida with the best possible health care,” Goldschmidt said after their meeting. “Both her background and her prior responsibilities have prepared her very well to contribute substantially to improving health care in the state.”

A former Republican state legislator from Pensacola, Benson was picked to head AHCA last year by Governor Charlie Crist. Prior to that, Benson had been secretary of the state Department of Business and Professional Regulation, after resigning from the Florida House of Representatives in 2006. She was voted into office in 2000.

Benson’s first opportunity to gauge the Miller School’s research prowess took place on the fourth floor of the Biomedical Research Building. That’s where the Miami Institute for Human Genomics has laboratories, and where Jeffery Vance, M.D., Ph.D., director of the institute’s Center for Genomic Medicine, served as Benson’s guide.  She also got to see the Miller School’s growing nanotechnology enterprise and the Center for Computational Science.

“I was impressed at every stop by the emphasis that was placed on testing things in the lab, and then getting those developments to patients as quickly as possible,” Benson said afterward. “There are partnerships all across the Miller School’s research buildings, as well as across the world, that are driving changes in health care research.

“It was an opportunity to see some of the cutting-edge research that will ultimately benefit the 2.6 million Medicaid beneficiaries for whom I am responsible,” Benson added, “as well as all of the patients of Florida, and their families, who are the concern of the Agency for Health Care Administration.”