Medical Center asks state to boost funding to pursue NCI cancer designation and expand facilities

Lou Anne Woodward, a representative of the Medical Center, asked state budget officials during a budget presentation to continue and increase funding to accelerate the medical center's campaign to achieve National Cancer Institute designation and to support new facilities and programs across the campus.

The request matters because NCI designation provides access to research grants and clinical trials that the Medical Center leaders say are necessary to improve the state's cancer outcomes; the center also outlined immediate construction and workforce needs that rely on state and other funding.

Woodward described the Medical Center as the state's only academic medical center and said it combines clinical care, education and research. "We are the only academic medical center in the state," she said. She told officials the center recorded about $118,000,000 in extramural research for fiscal year 2024 across 369 awards and has more than 10,000 employees and roughly 3,000 students. She said the hospital has 994 licensed beds and that "we are typically full every single day." She also highlighted a case mix index of 2.18, calling it the highest in the…