Let’s Look Into MD Anderson’s Future With Claude
By
Leonard Zwelling
I was trying to catch up with the news about two big MD Anderson projects. The first is the new free-standing MD Anderson hospital in downtown Austin. The second is the Kinder Children’s Cancer Center here in Houston. I thought I would ask my Anthropic AI pal Claude to give me an update since he can wander the whole internet faster than I can.
There have been some big changes to the MD Anderson project in Austin.
It is no longer going to be downtown at the site of the Frank Erwin Center. It will be built at the Domain in the north of the city.
Michael and Susan Dell have donated $750 million to the overall project, the building of the UT Dell Campus for Advanced Research. Within this 300 acres will be the 27-acre UT Dell Medical Center. This center will include a hospital of between 300 and 500 beds. There will not be a separate, free-standing cancer hospital, but rather the MD Anderson-provided cancer care, including clinical trials, will be within the greater medical center.
The center is to open in 2030 with expansion to go on for two more years.
The key differentiator for this new medical center will be the full integration of AI into all aspects of care delivery and operations.
The fact that there will be no MD Anderson-Austin hospital and that no planned care will be given downtown was news to me.
Naturally I asked Claude who is leading the project.
The answer was the Board of Regents chair Kevin Eltife, UT Austin President Jim Davis, and Dell Medical School Dean and UT Senior Vice President Claudia Lucchinetti. A Chief Strategy Office has been appointed. His name is Nilay Shah. President Peter Pisters is the MD Anderson lead on the project.
Then I asked Claude the obvious question. Do any of those named have experience building a medical center or hospital from the ground up?
UT President Jim Davis is a lawyer. He has no experience or credentials in medicine.
Peter Pisters has led large health care systems in Canada and Houston at MD Anderson. He’s never built anything like what is planned in Austin.
Claudia Lucchinetti is an academic investigator. While the Dell Medical School is the first new such school built in 50 years, she has no experience building a hospital.
Regent Eltife actually has built things given that he used to be in the real estate business. However, he was a state senator and mayor of Tyler more recently in his career. Like all the regents, he’s a political appointee by the Governor.
So, then I asked Claude who could lead the project and would there be a search for such a leader?
The answer seems to be that no CEO has been named yet. Shah was hired as the Chief Strategy Officer and Traci Nordberg is the Chief HR Officer. As a new development, Hongfang Liu of the Mayo Clinic has been named Chief Translational AI and Informatics Officer.
Those currently leading the project and the Dells need to identify someone to be the CEO of the of the campus and the Chief Medical Officer of the hospital. Whether that is one or two persons is unknown. It is also most unclear exactly what the cancer program will be. Will there be clinical research? Will there be any bench research? Will there be space for commercial development on site?
Claude says that an Office of Innovation and Entrepreneurship is planned with a Texas Health Catalyst Program to “leverage UT Austin’s academic research.” Commercialization will be a big part of the new Dell Medical School campus.
I had to ask Claude if he thought Dr. Pisters could lead the Austin project. Claude thought, no.
Claude thought Dr. Pisters was too valuable where he is to have him lead the Austin project.
I asked Claude why Pisters was so valuable in Houston? What has he accomplished?
The answer was financial stabilization after DePInho took the institution into the red. MD Anderson has the highest net patient revenue of any hospital in Texas at $6.06 billion.
“His accomplishments are largely managerial and reputational rather than transformational,” said Claude.
“He didn’t build something new; he stabilized what was there.”
”His workforce and culture initiatives, 53% leadership hires since 2017 being women and 91% employee survey participation rate are meaningful internally but don’t directly move the needle on cancer outcomes.”
So what exactly is MD Anderson Austin?
“MD Anderson will be integrated into UT Dell Medical Center…rather than being a freestanding MD Anderson building.”
“In short: right now, “MD Anderson in Austin” is a promise, a brand, and a fundraising narrative.”
Then I asked Claude about another as yet imaginary hospital, The Kinder Children’s Cancer Center. “It aims to be the nation’s largest and most comprehensive cancer center focused exclusively on children.” I guess the plan is to outdo St. Jude.
This new cancer center was seed-funded by a $150 million gift from the Kinders, but the project is likely to cost at least $1 billion.
Then I asked Claude about the leadership of this new cancer center.
There is a search for a physician-scientist to lead the cancer center. A joint board will choose the new leader. I found it comforting that a physician-scientist will lead this endeavor. I hope the leader is named soon.
So, that’s what I found out about MD Anderson’s big building projects.
Neither project has a current leader. The Kinder Children’s Cancer Center still needs a lot of money. MD Anderson Austin sounds like it will be the oncology service within a larger hospital. The travail of the initial blending of the MD Anderson Pediatrics program and that of the oncology service at Texas Children’s still has a long way to go given the vast differences in faculty compensation, benefits, and treatment styles at the two facilities. There are major challenges facing this merger and without a leader, the merger is difficult. There is great skepticism that this is really a merger rather than truly being an acquisition by Texas Children’s of the Division of Pediatrics at MD Anderson.
That’s my update. Write me with what I got wrong or if you have more information. Claude and I always appreciate the help.
