What business advantages do you enjoy from your home base in Miami Gardens?

Our headquarters location is perfect. We are where several highways come together. Because of this, we have easy access to our clinics both north and south. Plus, the busy highway system gives us great visibility. Thousands of potential customers drive past ChenMed every day. We also benefit from a diverse and excellent talent pool with competencies in healthcare. Our centers are multilingual and multicultural, effectively serving, Cuban, Haitian, and African-American patients in convenient neighborhood locations. Our centers are not located in high-rent areas. So, we can focus more resources on serving patients; and can continually test and refine innovative approaches to care. Ours is a culture of love, accountability and passion. Our physicians annually see fewer than 400 patients on average, intentionally. As a result, our physicians frequently see patients up to 12 times per year. Because our patient panels are one-fifth as large as the national average, our doctors nurture outstanding relationships with each of their patients. Better physician/patient relationships, combined with onsite specialists, laboratory tests, medication delivery, and courtesy transportation really make Chen Senior Medical Centers special places – especially for seniors living with major and complex health challenges.

How do technology innovations improve your patient care?

Our nimble IT company, ChenTech, is constantly improving our electronic health records system and other end-to-end technologies designed specifically for medical practices that deliver value-based care. We leverage technology to empower ChenMed doctors, so they can continuingly help patients achieve better health outcomes. ChenTech offers custom services like Silicon Valley – all to help doctors stay focused on patients and best practices.

Miami Gardens faces challenges, but we are working with the community. We have many initiatives in both the public and charter schools here, and use state and federal grants to increase educational success. We also have important programs at St. Thomas University (STU) that are geared toward helping mature students who want to begin or complete a college education. We have developed many of our new programs based on what The Beacon Council, the County’s business development agency, has identified as target industries through their One Community One Goal Initiative. To best serve the employment market, we have added market-ready programs in cybersecurity and big data, along with expanded nursing and health sciences offerings. There has been a significant expansion of our business advisory board, and we have a president’s advisory board made up of mostly business people and people who are related to the different fields in each one of our schools. Additionally, we are proud that over 1,200 of our students in our undergraduate, graduate and law programs are Miami-Dade natives. The government has to remain involved in supporting higher education, especially if it is going to be more accessible. We cannot do it ourselves, especially as private independent institutions. Money is not wasted in higher education at STU. We are constantly looking at our finances in order to offer the best for our students. We need to ensure that people appreciate what we are doing and make funds available. The business community also needs to be slightly more forthcoming, not only with resources, but also with opportunities. We have wonderful higher education institutions in this community, and local businesses need to embrace this. They need to consider our institutions while recruiting. The trustees and friends of STU are very generous. We actually have scholarship funds that are entirely created through donations and private foundations. That is how we are able to help provide support for many students. The state and federal governments provide some funding, but it is not enough.

From an education standpoint, what are the main challenges to prepare the workforce for an ever-changing job market?

We need to focus on the technology and innovation sector, which is the significant driver of today’s global economy. We must be particularly mindful of South Florida’s needs. High demand areas like aviation and cyber security require a talent pipeline.

How can universities better connect academia with industry to best facilitate praxis?

Florida Memorial University received a significant grant from the Lilly Endowment and the United Negro College Fund. When we were writing for the grant, there was a planning phase where we met with local industry leaders on campus to talk about what they want to see in graduates, what the current market demands were and the skill sets that industries are looking for. Our faculty members then submitted ideas to better connect academia with the needs of industry. The results have been incredible and give us confidence that we are equipping our students for the jobs the market is demanding.

What are the main efforts being done to ensure the affordability of higher education in South Florida?

I am proud to say that we are the least expensive private institution in the State of Florida. We are trying to keep our costs fat because we understand the difficulties that our population has when it comes to being able to afford higher education. This is why for the past four years our costs have not increased.

How does Miami Gardens factor into the equation?

Miami Gardens is a uniquely strong location. The mayor and members of the city council have taken important steps to seek out new opportunities and investments as well as attract new businesses to the city. The stadium is creating job growth, technology firms are investing in the area and schools are opening. You quickly realize that Miami Gardens is full of opportunities.

At one time, the city owned more than 60 acres of land. The philosophy during that time was that by maintaining ownership of the land, the city would control the type of development on the sites. However, I look at it differently. My approach is that by controlling zoning and to some degree the land use, the city can encourage the best development for not only city-owned properties but also for those owned by the private sector. This allows us to attract the right companies and investors to help the city grow in the best way possible. We’ve made changes throughout the city to encourage more investment. One area in particular is the adoption of the Entertainment Overlay District (EOD) along the NW 27th Avenue Corridor. The purpose of the EOD is to encourage various uses, such as movie theaters, hotels, restaurants, retail, commercial and mixed-use opportunities. The $60-million General Obligation Bond (GOB) voted for by city residents has been a tremendous selling point to the private sector looking for opportunities. Once private investors know public investment is being pumped into a community their interest grows, and they are more inclined to invest in the vision regarding those communities. The GOB has sent a positive message to the business and residential communities that the city is willing to take the lead in making investments in its own neighborhoods. This approach has led to attracting more investment opportunities in our city, proving private dollars truly follow public dollars. We have two large tracts of land that are going through a transformation. Both will have a positive impact on our tax revenues for years to come. Finally, we constantly review and restructure the fees that investors pay to the city to ensure they are comparable with other cities. This encourages those who might want to make improvements to their facilities and, of course, for the larger scale developments.