Two far-reaching and highly impactful North Florida entities joined forces Tuesday in a panel discussion that explored how their partnership will help improve health care across North Florida and South Georgia.
Members of the Institute of Sports Sciences and Medicine (ISSM) at Florida State University and Tallahassee Orthopedic Clinic (TOC) shared their expertise, knowledge and vision for improving quality of care.
The discussion was a strong nod to what the FSU Health initiative is all about: bold innovation aimed at improving health care throughout the region.
“This group represents the best of what can happen when academic research and private practice collaborate,” said College of Education, Health, and Human Sciences Dean Damon Andrew during his introductory remarks.
The four-member panel included TOC CEO Mike Boblitz, ISSM Director Mike Ormsbee, FSU and Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare Chief Clinical Research Officer Joe Frascella, and Assistant Director of Orthopedics and Sports Medicine Research at ISSM and research scientist at TOC Emilie Miley.
Throughout the hour-long talk, the panelists discussed how their partnerships benefit all parties. For example, TOC’s base of highly skilled clinicians will be able to lean on research coming from FSU’s ISSM program, made possible by the important joint hire of Miley.
TOC has been serving the needs of its patients for 50 years, but Boblitz still felt there was more that could be done with educational research. He wanted research that could innovate and create, expanding the clinic’s quality of care even more.
In Boblitz’s office is a map of the locations of TOC’s patients over the years, stretching from Panama City to Perry and across South Georgia. The clinic’s impact has been felt region-wide, taking care of roughly 270,000 patients.
As Ormsbee explained from FSU’s perspective, one glaring omission from ISSM’s portfolio was orthopedics. FSU’s cadre of researchers had no access to the clinic populations that TOC has. With the large base that TOC serves, the opportunity to partner with the clinic and provide it with crucial data was too good to pass up.
“We were thinking about ‘How do we grow this to a place that’s not only recognized regionally, but nationally and hopefully internationally?’” Ormsbee said. “We were brainstorming ideas on how to really ramp up orthopedics and a partnership with TOC was the most logical step that came to mind.”
Frascella explained the FSU Health initiative and how partnerships are a crucial part of that work.
“What’s critical from the point of view of FSU Health is really developing an ecosystem,” Frascella said. “This collaboration and partnership exemplify what we’re trying to accomplish with this new enterprise of FSU Health, where we’re building researcher and clinician partnerships.”
Panelists discussed the wide-ranging impact of their work. For example, TOC works with 41 high schools and multiple universities, another example of its massive reach. ISSM’s research is used by Division 1 athletes, weekend warriors, older adults and others.
“When people hear ‘human performance’ initially, they think athletes,” Ormsbee said. “However, we take a much broader view to what human performance actually means. For ISSM, we look at performance for clinical populations, people recovering from anything — aging, different conditions that may impact individuals. I think all of our lanes with clinical sports science, sports psychology, orthopedics, etc. — all of those things can impact human performance.”
For Miley, she wants to make sure her research addresses the needs of all populations.
“Within this partnership, we have a big focus on athletics and younger populations,” Miley said. “But the partnership can grow outwards to other populations — lower socioeconomic statuses, groups of patients that TOC sees in the South Georgia and North Central Florida Region — and then bringing in more partnerships and research to help those populations that sometimes can be underserved.”
As the discussion closed, the panelists restated their shared belief in the promise of FSU Health and its positive impact.
“I think the ripple effect from growing what we’re starting here in research to eventually helping the student population is going to be massive,” Ormsbee said.
“I think this is the starting point of realizing we need to bring all this together, with the same agenda and the same purpose,” Boblitz said. “I think the future could be really powerful.”