3290 The Christmas letters

Yesterday was probably the big haul--maybe 10 cards and 4 or 5 letters. Today I got a lovely Christmas letter [holiday letter] from the Ohio State University Medical Center thanking me for all my hard work and dedication in 2006. "The success we have achieved would not be possible without [my] your contributions and all of us working together as one team."

I retired over six years ago, but there's a few folks over there who haven't noticed I'm gone.

But I learned a lot reading the Christmas letter [holiday letter]:

• There is a $780 million expansion project, the largest upgrade and expansion of facilities in OSU Medical Center history--this year they completed the Biomedical Research Tower (800 researchers identifying the mechanisms of disease) and started the expansion of the Heart Hospital and Digestive Diseases Tower.
  
• All kinds of new talent and administrators have been hired.
  
• The Center improved in national rankings in ALL three of the mission areas--patient care, research and education
  
• The Leapfrog Group named the Center to its list of top hospitals in the USA in quality and safety.
  
• US News & World Report ranked our hospitals among America's Best for the 14th consecutive year and in the top 20 for the 2nd year in a row
  
• We were named one of the 100 most wired health systems by Hospitals & Health Networks and
  
• received the CIO 100 Award from CIO magazine.
  
• The faculty hold almost $200 million in sponsored research funding--triple the amount when I retired (was it me?)
  
• We have the 8th largest medical student enrollment in the country--only 9% of the applicants are accepted.
  
• Financially, 2006 was the best year ever--we generated more than $1 billion in revenue and reinvested almost $50 million back into our organization in all areas.

But we went to Finland, Estonia and Russia, Bay View, Michigan and Columbus, Indiana, California and Illinois.