Jeanette Ives Erickson, RN, Chair of the Partners HealthCare Chief Nursing Council and former Senior Vice President for Patient Care Services at Massachusetts General Hospital,​ has seen it all in her 40-year nursing career.

The trouble with basing hospital staffing on a one-size-fits-all formula, without regard to actual patient needs, is that it could carry unintended consequences when a patient actually needs a nurse. The potential for harmful delays in transporting and transferring patients, as well as longer wait times, are real.

In recent posts, we’ve articulated why Partners feels Question 1, mandating nurse staffing ratios, would threaten patient care quality. As election day nears, Newton-Wellesley Hospital Chief of Hospitalist Service Steven Pestka, MD, has penned an opinion piece highlighting his own concerns with the proposed mandate.

As Breast Cancer Awareness Month is observed nationwide through October, the Dana-Farber/Brigham and Women’s Cancer Center (DF/BWCC) is mobilized on several fronts to treat—and someday prevent—the disease, the second most common cancer in women.

What makes a scientist a superstar? The journal STAT has a theory. The publication’s “Wunderkinds 2018” list is out, highlighting unheralded heroes in science and medicine after an extensive review of nominations in the hundreds by STAT editors and reporters. On the list are three Partners HealthCare-affiliated physicians.

Influenza, commonly known as the flu, killed approximately 80,000 people last season alone, and the flu vaccine has demonstrated effectiveness in preventing—and reducing complications of—this common infectious illness. That’s why Partners HealthCare practices across the network strongly encourage their patients to get vaccinated.

As recent news has brought to bear, violence and persecution in countries beyond America’s borders often drives victims to seek refuge within them.

A good idea is just an idea—until it finds champions to make it a real-life innovation. Institutions across Partners HealthCare are energized to embrace that spark. That was the vision behind the launch of the Brigham and Women’s Hospital Digital Innovation Hub in 2013, when 72% of surveyed BWH employees said they had an innovative idea.

Previously on this blog, we explained​ the deleterious impact the government-mandated nursing ratios included in Massachusetts Ballot Question 1 will have on patient care. There are numerous damaging effects that these artificial, one-size-fits-all ratios will have on health care quality.

​Partners HealthCare researchers are committed to improving quality of life for all patients, including those who encounter significant challenges with everyday activities. For people with Alzheimer’s disease and other dementia disorders, the simple act of getting dressed each day can be a complex ordeal.

Every day, Partners HealthCare clinicians provide patients with new chances to live life to the fullest and embrace previously inconceivable activities. For Camille Frede, the idea of swimming was once out of the question.

For years, advocates promoted the use of telemedicine in stroke care, citing data pointing to its efficacy in fostering better outcomes and cost savings. Now, a new federal law—enacted thanks in large part to advocacy by organizations like Partners HealthCare, the American Heart Association (AHA), and the American Academy ...

This November, Massachusetts voters will face a ballot question that would impose government-mandated nurse staffing levels at all hospitals statewide. If Question 1 passes, every hospital would be required to adopt one-size-fits-all nurse-to-patient ratios, enforced at all times.

Big data is everywhere – including the Partners HealthCare System. McKinsey Global Institute has reported that “data driven organizations are 20 times more likely to acquire new customers, six times more likely to retain those customers and 19 times more likely to be profitable as a result.”

A newly discovered cell in the human airway, discovered by researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital and colleagues, may hold new clues—and hope—for the 70,000 people with cystic fibrosis around the world.

Every day, researchers, therapists, and clinicians across the Partners HealthCare System investigate rehabilitation techniques and practices aimed to improve our patients’ quality of life and increase mobility. One patient, Meredith Koch, continues to benefit from this integrated care.

​As Massachusetts’ largest employer, Partners HealthCare employs more than 74,000 individuals with a wide range of talents and a myriad of job functions across our System. Michael R. Jaff, DO, President of Newton-Wellesley Hospital, is one of 30 physicians with that particular credential among the hospital’s 1,000 medical doctors.

Partners HealthCare is committed to supporting bold research endeavors that aim to improve patient care and quality of life. For the 120,000 patients on transplant wait lists for new hearts, lungs, and kidneys, every donated organ represents hope.

Among a small subset of patients, chronic disease comes hand-in-hand with a range of complex social and economic circumstances, creating a tangled web of critical needs and an ongoing cycle of complications and costly interventions such as extended hospitalization.

To kick off National Preparedness Month, we're bringing news of an exciting development on Nantucket. As construction of the new Nantucket Cottage Hospital continues, the building’s elements are designed to withstand change—seasonal-to-year-round population fluctuation, the evolving health care landscape, and (literally) the winds of change.

Partners HealthCare’s commitment to bringing the benefits of telehealth to our patients has taken another stride forward, with a new initiative called Partners HealthCare On Demand. The new solution provides urgent care video visits, with high-quality care from Partners clinicians for minor illnesses and injuries.

For athletes, physical agility, strength, and flexibility are of paramount importance. Standard prosthetics, which can severely limit athletic performance in the aftermath of amputations, can be underwhelming for these patients.

Symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease can range from mild forgetfulness to life-altering changes in mental capabilities. These variants can pose significant challenges for the more than five million patients affected by this disease as well as for their health care providers.

​Being a doctor or nurse trends high on the list of common aspirations for young people thinking about careers. Less common: a wide range of allied health professions—like respiratory therapists and dietitians—that may not typically cross a student’s radar.

It’s well-known that the inconveniences of treatment and recovery often hinder access to appropriate medical care. Among individuals who are homeless, these challenges make access to care nearly impossible, as the daily search for food, clothing, and shelter takes priority over preventive and acute care.

Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH), the founding members of Partners HealthCare, earned high marks in multiple specialties by U.S. News & World Report - with MGH earning the number four (4) spot on the honor roll of best hospitals and Brigham and Women’s earning the number twenty (20) spot.

Modern society offers a myriad of examples of technology’s impact—along with devices and apps that prove to be little more than passing fads. At Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH), innovators are hard at work building, testing, and evaluating technologies that promise to enhance patient health.

​The modern demands of patient care can weaken the connection between clinical encounters and scientific inquiry that often leads to innovation. The kind of curiosity that led a young doctor to develop the first dialysis machine based on a patient case, for example, can be lost to additional administrative demands and shorter patient stays.

Spaulding Rehabilitation Network's mission was built around supporting individuals as they strive to reach their greatest abilities. Spaulding’s commitment to that mission—not only for its patient population, but for its workforce as well—has been recognized once again by a leading national coalition dedicated to workforce disability inclusion.

One of the missions of the Partners HealthCare Medicaid Accountable Care Organization, launched officially this March, is to meet patients “where they are” with services that enhance their access to quality care. A new program is helping by meeting patients seen in the emergency department, connecting them to appropriate services and supports.

One of the ways in which Partners HealthCare is working to enhance care quality is by addressing the “social determinants” of health—those factors within a person’s environment and lifestyle that impact their ability to access good health. High on the list of barriers within these social determinants: transport to health care providers.

​At the Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) Connors Center for Women’s Health, the cries of healthy babies are a typical day’s soundtrack—but these sweet sounds often belie the deeper struggles women and families can experience on the road to parenthood.

At libraries, community centers, pools, parks, and schools, children across Massachusetts are lining up this summer—not for a special event, but for something more essential: access to free meals.

A typical day for nurse practitioner Jordan Hampton, MSEd, MSN, RN, CPNP, runs the gamut. Among her patients at the Chelsea High School Student Health Center, a satellite of Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) Chelsea HealthCare Center, she sees everything from strep throat to issues around sexual health.

Partners HealthCare recently convened two symposia focused on bringing insights and underscoring our commitment to fostering meaningful improvements and better outcomes.

If Brigham and Women’s Hospital Associate Bioengineer Yu Shrike Zhang, PhD, has anything to do with it, that low-tech problem will someday be solved with high-tech printing technology.

A typical day for physicians at Massachusetts General Hospital can often feel anything but typical, as they diagnose and treat patients with a range of conditions. Occasionally, though, a situation throws a curveball to even the most practiced physician. That was the case when MGH physicians played a role in solving a 4,000-year-old mummy mystery.

Patients undergoing rehabilitation for injuries and illnesses often must defy daunting obstacles to regain mobility and independence. Now, with a high-tech treatment modality in use at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital (Spaulding), some patients are even defying gravity.

The demands of motherhood and careers in surgery are both widely understood. When the two roles are combined, the challenges can be daunting—as highlighted in a recent Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) study shedding light on the issues facing mothers in surgical training.

Rebecca Lee, MD, a physician in Partners HealthCare’s North Shore Physicians Group, consults a cue card as she talks a patient through her goals for her last stage of life. Though the patient has a serious inherited disorder, her condition is currently stable—and that’s exactly the point.

​“Take two of these; doctor’s orders.” Easy enough? Not according to recent data linking medication nonadherence—or noncompliance—to a host of complications and even preventable deaths. One estimate ties poor medication adherence to as much as $300 billion per year in avoidable costs.

June is Pride Month, a fitting time for organizations like Partners HealthCare to assess our own culture when it comes to diversity and inclusion. As we mark the first anniversary of our official gender and inclusion policy and toolkit, launched last June, we’re evaluating our progress and what we can still do to grow as a welcoming community.

Partners HealthCare employees have a new pathway to advance their education, thanks to an expansion of a partnership with Southern New Hampshire University. The initiative builds on the accredited, nonprofit College for America program at SNHU, which has already helped more than 400 Partners employees.

The decision-making capabilities of a primary care physician are generally fixed within a certain scope of knowledge; it’s simply impossible to maintain a specialist’s understanding of every disease state. Artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to change that.

Partners Patient Gateway is a convenient and secure way for patients to manage their health and communicate with their doctor's office online. It is so convenient, in fact, that the Partners patient health information portal has just topped 700,000 subscribers – meaning nearly half of our 1.5 million active patients are enrolled.

Partners HealthCare member Neighborhood Health Plan (NHP) is launching a first-of-its kind initiative to increase access to life-saving treatments for those struggling with substance use disorders.

​Patients and families in Rhode Island will soon benefit from a formalized extension of a clinical collaboration between Care New England Health System (CNE) and Partners HealthCare.

In April, we highlighted a pioneering Mass. Eye and Ear gene therapy treatment offering hope to a young patient with inherited retinal disorder. Though the surgical-first, newly therapeutic called Luxturna had yielded encouraging clinical trial results, there was no way to know for sure how it would impact the young patient’s eyesight—until now.

If the clinicians, quality specialists, and administrators gathered at the third annual Partners HealthCare Patient Experience Summit took away one message regarding treating patients with substance use disorders, it was this: Treat these patients as if they have any other chronic illness like heart disease, diabetes, or HIV.

As partnership talks continue between Partners HealthCare and Care New England, enhancing population health and value-based care remain guiding principles for Partners’ future, concentrated in the region.

​“This is what I call rock star city,” Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker told the 1,700 participants gathered at the World Medical Innovation Forum, recently hosted by Partners HealthCare. “I’ve never seen such a terrific collection of intellectual capital.”

Partners HealthCare is empowering its patients through Apple’s Health Records feature and other consumer health applications so they can better manage their health. Patients enrolled in Partners Patient Gateway can now authorize parts of their medical record to be shared with third party apps—enabling them to play a bigger role in their own care.

Moving discovery from the region’s institutions into the community—that is the goal of the Cambridge Science Festival, a unique 10-day celebration of science, technology, engineering, art, and math. Partners HealthCare hospitals played a key role in helping the festival’s attendees understand the many ways that medical science impacts their lives.

A national databank of genetic- and molecular-level insights that could guide how patients are treated and radically change care for future generations—futuristic pipe dream or tangible goal?

The health care access benefits of telehealth—care provided remotely through virtual technologies—has prompted physicians and policymakers to examine how its use can be expanded to benefit patients. As providers and health systems experiment with new applications, a key question has emerged: How will telehealth impact health care spending?

​Much of the work underway in Partners HealthCare’s research laboratories is aimed not only toward elucidating new treatments for specific conditions, but toward fostering better understanding of the basic science that underpins medicine and health care more broadly.

Teaching and learning go hand-in-hand. That’s the idea at the core of education initiatives across Partners HealthCare institutions, and the driving force behind the longtime relationship between MGH Institute of Health Professions graduate school and Harvard-Kent Elementary School in Charlestown.

For every medical center—within and beyond Partners HealthCare—the staffing of nurses is a calibrated balance of several factors: numbers of patients, intensity of care required, and the actual availability of nurses.

Artificial intelligence (AI) will be the talk of the town when over 1,500 health care stakeholders—clinicians, industry executives, researchers, investors, and policymakers—gather in Boston next week at the 2018 World Medical Innovation Forum, hosted by Partners HealthCare.

As elite athletes and everyday runners complete the 26.2-mile physical feat of the Boston Marathon today, a logistical feat will also be achieved behind-the-scenes, near the race’s 16-mile mark. On the campus of Newton-Wellesley Hospital, all hands—from administrative to medical—will be on deck to ensure the safety and health of everyone involved.

Only two drugs have been FDA approved to treat amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) since 1995. Now, an encouraging new treatment may exist in a phase 3 clinical trial of NurOwn, the first-ever stem cell therapy for ALS developed by BrainStorm Cell Therapeutics. And MGH is one of six national sites testing the therapy in patients.

​Partners HealthCare has published a new set of quality measures that show a more comprehensive picture of preventive and chronic care outcomes and effectiveness by sharing new data gathered by doctors during the patient visit and recorded in the patient’s health record.

​Sometimes it’s not the latest technology or complex policy change, but the simplest acts of humanity that have the most significant impact on patients. In the intensive care unit (ICU) at Massachusetts General Hospital, that comfort takes shape with an elite group of therapy dogs who have paid visit to patients there for more than a decade.

The oldest eye and ear, nose, and throat hospital in the country is the newest member of Partners HealthCare. On Sunday, April 1, Massachusetts Eye and Ear (Mass. Eye and Ear) officially joined our network, and will now enhance our patients’ access to the highest quality, research-driven care for eye and ENT conditions.

Homelessness in Boston is a crisis with many sides and many stakeholders. It’s a problem with social, health, and economic implications—and a new, Partners HealthCare-supported initiative launched by Mayor Martin J. Walsh aims to address it on all fronts.

​Ellen J. Bubrick, MD, has never shied from complexity—in fact, that’s what drew the Brigham and Women’s Hospital researcher and epilepsy surgery program director to neurology in the first place. Complexity led Dr. Bubrick to target her research toward helping patients with uncontrolled epilepsy that is unresponsive to conventional treatment.

​Consumers today are accustomed to streamlined service and rapid response—expecting choice, convenience, access, and quality when they shop for both goods and services. But when it comes to health care, consumers’ digital-based expectations are mismatched with what care providers can actually provide.

​When patients with diabetes or high blood pressure present in the emergency department (ED), physicians can offer medications for treatment. For opioid-addicted patients, however, ED doctors are rarely able to offer the standard-of-care medication buprenorphine, despite its demonstrated efficacy in easing addiction’s grip.

For acutely ill adult patients, does care in the comfort of home deliver the same outcomes as hospital care? That was the essential question of a recent Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) pilot study, the first randomized, controlled clinical trial in the nation to test the impact of home-based hospital care on care quality, safety, and costs.

For patients seeking treatment for a wide range of challenging conditions, Partners HealthCare’s wealth of clinical trials offer access to novel therapies or treatment strategies otherwise unavailable in the normal course of care.

Imagine if we lost the entire population of New York City every year. That's essentially the impact that coronary heart disease (CHD) has as the world's number-one killer, claiming more than 7 million lives annually. What if we could prevent these deaths by changing the way we identify and treat the signs of CHD?

​To those untrained in neuroscience’s inner workings, the blood-brain barrier is not a well-known feature of the brain’s anatomy. To Brigham and Women’s Hospital researcher Choi-Fong Cho, PhD, however, it is the center around which her laboratory revolves.

With the official March 1 launch of Partners HealthCare’s Medicaid Accountable Care Organization (ACO), a host of tools designed to better serve the medical needs of Medicaid patients will now benefit more of our highest risk patients in this population.

Enbrel. Humira. Sovaldi. Xeloda. For many people suffering from chronic inflammatory arthritis, gastrointestinal illnesses, and certain cancer diagnoses, medications like these can be highly effective in managing conditions and improving overall quality of life, but also very expensive and challenging to manage at home.

​Brigham and Women’s Heather Baer, ScD, is the principal investigator of a study looking at three strategies for weight management in the primary care setting. Dr. Baer is just one of the hundreds of investigators at Partners HealthCare working to address a health care challenge through clinical research.

From industry consolidation to disruptive technology, a range of pressing health care topics were central to the conversation at the Boston Business Journal's Power Breakfast on February 15. Partners HealthCare President and CEO David Torchiana, MD, was one of four health care leaders participating in the panel discussion.​

As CEO of Newton-Wellesley Hospital, Michael R. Jaff, D.O., is adding to the expansive list of assets that have long made the medical center a best-kept secret in the community he calls home.

For decades, health care reform in Washington, DC has been mired in partisan politics, often limiting policymakers' ability to enact solutions that enhance quality and access. A new effort aims to break the gridlock and deliver affordable, quality care-and Partners HealthCare has a seat at the table.

For patients with end-stage renal disease—advanced chronic kidney disease that necessitates dialysis for survival—complications and hospitalization present a persistent threat. Often faced with comorbidities such as diabetes or vascular disease, patients require treatment from a patchwork of providers—which can result in fragmented, redundant care.

On a given day, most of Massachusetts General Hospital's 1,000 beds are typically spoken for. During this high-volume flu season in the Commonwealth, however, a single empty bed can be impossible to find. The influx of flu patients, combined with a Hurricane Maria-induced IV bag shortage, has forced many area hospitals to think creatively.

​Among spinal surgeries, fusion procedures for lumbar spine disorders are exceedingly common—and costly. Though these procedures typically comprise a common framework—minimize pressure on the nerves, stabilize the spine, introduce any necessary implants for stabilization—substantial variety can be found in surgical approaches and surrounding care.

In the past century, medical advances have added 25 years to our lifespan, and yet, Partners Vice President for Connected Health Joseph Kvedar, MD, notes that we have not done enough to ensure individuals are living vibrant, productive, healthy lives as we age.

Partners HealthCare is committed to strengthening patient care throughout the region. With intent to enter into a definitive agreement with Care New England Health System (CNE) announced this morning, we will outline details and plans to welcome several locations across Rhode Island into the Partners network​.

Twice each month, a group of Partners HealthCare primary care doctors, nurse practitioners, behavioral health support specialists, social workers, addiction specialists, and other providers gather virtually. On the agenda: how best to assess, treat, and triage patients in primary care settings with substance use disorders.

As highlighted in posts on this blog, Partners HealthCare is committed to advancing diversity and inclusion, across our organization and in our communities. Now, with a newly launched initiative led by the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce, we join nine other organizations committed to expanding economic opportunity for minority-owned businesses.

​What does one’s method of transportation to and from work have to do with their health? Quite a bit, according to a growing body of evidence showing that social and economic factors—such as education, food security, housing, and income, and the environment—along with health behaviors can account for a full 80 percent of a person’s health outcomes.

As the Commonwealth’s largest employer with over 73,000 employees, Partners HealthCare has committed to expanding and supporting diversity and inclusion in the workplace. We recognize that this goal is of utmost importance, which is why we are striving to raise awareness of current challenges and share strategies for success.

As advances in medical implants help children with structural heart defects live longer, healthier lives, a challenge of treatment has been the implants’ size: fixed, and unable to expand as children grow. As a result, these children have had to endure a multitude of life-saving surgeries to re-repair or replace leaking heart valves.

Collaboration is the essence of Partners HealthCare’s mission. Across our hospitals and 6,000 physicians, efforts are underway—every day—to enhance quality for our patients through interdisciplinary partnerships that uncover new insights and strengthen our standards of care.

On December 8, the Partners HealthCare Integrated Care Management Program (iCMP) had a lot to celebrate. This year’s annual iCMP All Team Gathering commemorated the program’s 5-year-anniversary by highlighting achievements of staff members and looking forward toward expansions and project goals.

Here on Connect with Partners, we strive to share compelling stories from Partners HealthCare and the local and national health care industries with our readers. Our blog posts cover innovative patient care, pioneering research, legislation discussions, and other important health care issues currently affecting our communities.

For one Massachusetts General Hospital researcher, the crusade to help adolescents with anxiety and depression find hope is matched in significance only by a determination to help give women a rightful place at the bench in STEM research fields.

​Six organizations battling opioid use disorders on the frontlines of Massachusetts’ communities will soon have reinforcements in the form of $50,000 design grants awarded this week by RIZE Massachusetts.

Every day, doctors and clinicians pursue innovations to improve patient care. These ideas often involve mining patient data to determine the best course of treatment or to proactively avoid symptoms and negative reactions altogether. However, these clinicians often find that this data is siloed across systems, which prevents them from accessing it.

While a joyful time for many, the holiday season is often regarded as a challenging time of year for those struggling with mental health conditions like depression, anxiety, or exacerbating feelings of isolation. Across the Partners HealthCare System, we’re working hard to ensure that our patients receive comprehensive mental health care every day.

As previously reported by news outlets and in this blog, Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary is committed to a merger with Partners HealthCare, a move aimed at preserving and enhancing the hospital’s long legacy of specialty care.

The Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary sees approximately 300,000 patients each year—and has seen its share of challenges in the 193 years since its founding. But after years of financial challenges, the specialty hospital needs the support of an integrated care system to continue its work.

A new treatment under clinical trial at Brigham and Women's Hospital offers new hope for the 8,000-10,000 U.S. children with multiple sclerosis (MS.)

Technological advances have revolutionized the way we approach care for a host of conditions. What if innovation could also revolutionize perhaps the most essential element of health care delivery: the sterile environment?

Is the Senate health care bill the right prescription for the right condition? Two opinion pieces in this morning's Boston Herald identify ways in which the Senate’s "cure" misdiagnoses the health care challenges we face—with unintended side effects.

In fiscal year 2017 Brigham and Women's Hospital embarked on a $150 million cost-cutting initiative. This is just one slice of Partners HealthCare's overall forward-looking effort to reduce our operating budget by $500 million.

As we reach the end of Breast Cancer Awareness month, "go pink" campaigns have underscored the importance of early detection. At Partners HealthCare, we maintain that the benefits of mammography are substantial—it can catch more cancers at early stages than other screening, and thus save lives.

On October 23rd, the Massachusetts State Senate held a hearing at the State House to weigh the pros and cons of a new health care bill it is considering. A major component of the proposal would set a new target for hospital spending.

What is the outcome when more than 185 clinical colleagues gather for a day of networking in Partners' new Assembly Row building? According to the physicians, nurse practitioners, and physician assistants who attended Partners Clinicians Day on Sept. 16, insight and inspiration were just the beginning of the takeaways.

Patients rely on health care professionals to make the right choices for their health. But how do they know if they’re getting the care that’s right for them? Imagine having chronic pain in your knee and you want to fix it. Often it’s not obvious when you should take medicine, get physical therapy, or when you should pursue more invasive options.

In September we saw some of the worst hurricanes on record in the Continental U.S. Houston, Texas was hit especially hard by Hurricane Harvey. The devastating photos show years of memories diminished into piles of rubble. But an underlying problem grows with each day that passes, when people can't get access to medications and healthcare.

The Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital is known as a place of mental and physical rebuilding, superhuman strength and raw inspiration. But on Sept. 12, it was the site of a ritzy red-carpet movie screening. "Stronger", the story of Jeff Bauman, Boston Marathon bombing survivor and double amputee, premiered in the very gym where he made his recovery.

This year, Partners is awarding $500,000 through its 10 Innovation Discovery Grants specifically to local researchers developing treatments and cures for deadly diseases using cutting-edge artificial intelligence. The goal is that these technologies can impact the speed at which new treatments can make it to the hospitals.

In 2006, Mayor Menino sold Long Island in Boston Harbor to Jack Connors. The price? A dollar. 11 years later, that dollar, and the island summer camp it started, have gone on to change the lives of thousands of at-risk children living in Boston.

For a decade now, Partners has been extending care beyond the walls of our facilities to keep patients healthy and out of the hospital. Today, this practice is commonly known as "population health." And it's working.

Yesterday, the state's Center for Health Information Analysis (CHIA) released a report measuring growth of health care spending in Massachusetts. The report contained some very positive news, indicating that health spending in Massachusetts rose about 2.8%—coming in lower than the benchmark state regulators established as part of Chapter 224.

Most people know that eating right and staying active can help keep them healthy. But patients should also consider asking their doctors at their next check-up whether they are up to date on all immunizations. Vaccines are one of the most convenient and safest preventive care measures available.

Research coming out of Brigham and Women’s Hospital may prove that a drug called canakinumab could potentially reduce the chance of three great health risks.

Partners will participate in an initiative to improve care and reduce costs for Massachusetts' Medicaid program. In March 2018, Partners will launch Partners HealthCare Choice as part of the new MassHealth Accountable Care Organization program, which aims to shift provider reimbursements from a fee-for-service model to an accountable care model.

Four Partners HealthCare hospitals earned high marks this year. McLean Hospital and Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital earned the highest rankings to date. MGH was again among the top hospitals in the country in all 16 specialties, and BWH ranked among the top hospitals in the country in 11 specialties, ranking in the top 20 in cancer.

Substance use disorders (SUDs), including alcohol and opioid use disorders, are highly prevalent in our New England communities. To address this, Partners has developed a network of clinical and non-clinical support services to meet the complex needs of patients with SUDs.

You’ve probably heard the ancient proverb, “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” That very philosophy, the uniting of two opposing forces against a third opponent, is now playing an important role in the field of oncolytic virus research.

​Building upon efforts started by its LGBTQ employees, Partners HealthCare has added gender identity and gender expression to its equal employment opportunity policy, taking a leadership role as a major corporation to clarify transgender rights and help provide a road map to employees in transition.

With cancer comes pain. Emotional pain, yes. But physical pain is a common symptom that can be complicated by the side effects of oral chemotherapy. Moreover, the subjective nature of pain makes it challenging for patients and their care providers to manage these dynamics, leading to pain crisis and expensive hospital utilizatio...

Every year, the Boston Business Journal honors a local CFO who has made a positive impact on the financial market. The F. Gorham Brigham Jr. Lifetime Achievement Award is reserved for individuals who embody the pay-it-forward legacy of Brigham himself. This year, we’re proud to congratulate our very own Peter Markell—CFO, ...

13 Hospitals, 207 Practices, 74,000 Users, all Using One Integrated Health Record This month, the largest strategic initiative in Partners history – the implementation of the Epic electronic health record (EHR) across our system – is celebrating its initial completion within its original timeline, helping us deliver more coordi...

Earlier this year, the Epic clinical and revenue cycle applications went live at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital in Boston. At the same time, Spaulding implemented Nuance Dragon Medical 360, clinical speech recognition software that replaces traditional transcription of the clinical narrative with computerized voice recognition.

Jim Noga, Vice President and Chief Information Officer, recently received the Leadership CIO of the Year® ORBIE®, the premier technology executive recognition program of its kind.

This past weekend Partners HealthCare CEO Dr. David Torchiana appeared on NECN’s The New England Council’s DC Dialogue to discuss some of the most pressing health care issues in Massachusetts and in the nation.

Today, Kate Walsh, president and CEO of Boston Medical Center, and our own Dr. David Torchiana, delivered a full-throated editorial in support of the Boston health care community’s commitment to fighting the clear and growing threat of climate change.

As the state seeks to overhaul its Medicaid program, MassHealth, with the most ambitious redesign in more than 20 years, it has chosen no less than 18 provider groups to help launch the effort in January 2018, including Partners HealthCare.

When the goal of treatment is to improve the health of the patient, discussions and plans around end of life can sometimes seem counterintuitive. But death is just as much a part of the medical sphere as life-saving treatments. A growing group of Partners clinicians are urging their colleagues to be more open and comfortable with the topic of dying

Just this past month, Partners HealthCare CEO David Torchiana, MD, and Dr. Jeffrey Leiden, the chairman, president, and chief executive officer of Vertex Pharmaceuticals, co-authored a Boston Globe op-ed reiterating the vital importance of National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding to the local biomedical community.

As Partners continues to innovate and discover new, effective ways to deliver patient care, it has become increasingly apparent that some patients are best cared for where they are most comfortable, in their homes. This is where the Partners Mobile Observation Unit comes in.

“Today marks a milestone for Partners,” said our own David F. Torchiana, MD, as he helped launch the first-ever Diversity & Inclusion Summit: Many Perspectives, One Community.

When we published our latest Partners HealthCare Annual Report last month, we did so along with a few video vignettes of stories from throughout our network. One video focused on Nantucket Cottage Hospital and people from the storied island that it serves.

We believe artificial intelligence (AI) will be an inevitable part of health care in the future, and this week we’ve taken steps to partner with our new Boston neighbor, GE Healthcare, to ensure that we remain at the forefront of discovery and innovation in this space.

As readers of this site know well, the biomedical community here in the Commonwealth is a powerful, vibrant one that leads the way toward understanding and treating serious human disease.

At the conclusion of the 2017 World Medical Innovation Forum: Cardiovascular, attendees left with a renewed sense of understanding about how the medical and scientific communities will work together to combat ailments that represent one of the biggest health-related killers around the globe.

This past month, the city of Newton and Newton-Wellesley Hospital (NWH) revealed plans to collaborate on a new public-private partnership called the Substance Abuse Disorders Service team that will work within the hospital and the community to fight the growing opioid epidemic.

To mitigate delays and connect patients more quickly with quality specialist care, Partners’ physicians now have access to a Partners program called eConsults.

Jim Ewing has literally made a name for himself in the Maine rock climbing community, with several trails bearing his name in that state. After an accident, he and his team at Brigham and Women's Faulker Hospital did the same with an experimental amputation procedure now known as the Ewing Amputation.

For the past several years​, Partners HealthCare has participated in the U.S. government’s Pioneer Accountable Care Organization​​​ (ACO). By participating in an ACO, we’re required to share in the financial risk associated with our patients’ medical spending and think about alternative ways to get patients the care that they need.

​In 2016, 8 in 12 Massachusetts residents who died from an opioid overdose had been prescribed opioids in the period leading up to their death. It’s uncomfortable to admit, but the data proves it: health care is a big part of the country’s opioid epidemic.

In our Partners HealthCare Annual Report, out now, the “Better Together” ethos is present on every page. Give it a read today and see for yourself the depth of our commitment to better outcomes for our patients and the communities in which we serve.

The Care New England Health System of Providence, Rhode Island (CNE) has announced its intent to join Partners HealthCare. Pending regulatory approval, the decision would mark a culmination of a collaborative cardiovascular and surgical relationship that began at Brigham and Women’s Hospital back in 2009.

A new study by researchers at Partners HealthCare, one of the nation’s largest Medicare Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs), shows that physician turnover and low numbers of enrolled patients play a key role in an ACO’s ability to meet its financial targets.

Given the breadth and depth of our research programs, meeting patient enrollment targets continues to be a challenge for many clinical research studies across Partners HealthCare.

Today Partners HealthCare took a big step toward our goal of becoming “net carbon positive” by the year 2025 by way of a partnership with Antrim Wind Energy. This 28.8MW wind farm project in Antrim, New Hampshire, owned by Walden Green Energy, will reduce our organization’s annual greenhouse gas emissions by 110 million pounds.

This year Partners was proud to host the first World Neuroscience Innovation Forum at the Francis Crick Institute in London. The March 27 event saw experts from the U.S. and Europe convene to battle Alzheimer’s, multiple sclerosis, and other neurodegenerative diseases that afflict one in six people around the world.

Under the mantra “Zero Stigma. Zero Deaths,” respected leaders from throughout Massachusetts gathered today to launch a statewide private-sector initiative that will battle the ravaging effects of opioid addiction.

An inexpensive and easy-to-use smartphone app created as part of a collaborative research and development effort between Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) and Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) represents a new, incredibly effective tool for the 45 million couples worldwide who struggle with infertility.

Healthcare transformation has upped the ante in regards to the maintenance of healthcare provider competency.

The way we talk about and address the topic of health equity is actively changing. We took the opportunity to speak with Joe Betancourt, MD, MPH, Director of the MGH Disparities Solutions Center, and Deputy Director Aswita Tan-McGrory, for an update on the latest developments regarding where this area of health care may be headed in the near future

Today, the Commonwealth’s Provider Price Variation Commission will assemble for the last time. The group has made tremendous progress examining many important issues in Massachusetts health care and has done an important job brining disparate points of view together toward a shared goal of strengthening our delivery system.

​Massachusetts is the best state in the nation according to U.S. News & World Report’s new ranking of the Best States released Tuesday. The Bay State led its 49 competitors because of its strong performance in health care and education, two categories Americans prioritize as very important.

Since 2013 Newton-Wellesley Hospital has been host to the National TeleNursing Center (NTC), an ambitious project funded by the federal government to develop a trauma-informed and culturally responsive model for providing telenursing services to survivors of sexual assault in remote communities.

Today, Partners HealthCare is comprised of 11 hospitals and more than 6,000 physicians. By working together, our network of medical experts has created a whole that is much greater than the sum of its parts when it comes to patient care.

The Commonwealth’s commission on provider price variation is nearing the end of its deliberations. The commission has worked diligently since last year and co-chairs Representative Jeffrey Sanchez and Senator James Welch deserve credit for the effort they have made to find consensus among disparate perspectives.

Now that the Accountable Care Organization (ACO) model is an integral part of many health care systems across the U.S., including Partners, PBS NewsHour recently asked: How are they working? A number of Partners HealthCare staff who work at the forefront of the ACO movement answered.

Over the course of the past week, a number of health care cost proposals have been put on the table, which would cap or, in some cases, cut prices paid to Massachusetts hospitals.

After five years in the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Innovation Center Pioneer Accountable Care Organization (ACO) Model, which is being phased out by CMS, Partners HealthCare will continue to optimize care for Medicare beneficiaries under a similar initiative called the Next Generation ACO Model.

Today Massachusetts Eye and Ear (MEE) is taking its first steps toward becoming a member of the Partners HealthCare system.

Today we proudly join the North Shore Medical Center (NSMC) in welcoming David J. Roberts, M.D., as its next president. Previously, Dr. Roberts has served as the Chair of Medicine and Chief of Cardiology at NSMC.

Boston Basics, the early childhood development initiative co-founded by Wendell Knox and funded by the Black Philanthropy Fund, has a grand science-backed plan for shrinking the achievement gap that focuses on one key mantra: keep things simple.

After years of uncertainty, the Dimock Center in Roxbury has received the funding necessary to rebuild and restore its 18,000-ft inpatient addiction treatment facility—which was by some estimates on the brink of collapse.

Trauma can have significant, long-term negative effects on health and mental health. The experience of adverse events – both physical and emotional – as well as negative incidents, like substance abuse and mental health, can cause distress for individuals, communities, and populations that can be felt across generations.

Dr. David Torchiana welcomed Boston Mayor Marty Walsh, Reverend Liz Walker and almost 300 others to a luncheon celebrating the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King late last week to discuss strategies that can begin to address violence and lead to healthier lives for Boston’s young people.

A series of new grants from Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) Center for Community Health and Health Equity (CCHHE) given to 14 local nonprofits will go a long way toward improving the health and wellness of children, adults and seniors in several Boston communities.

Physicians across the country are speaking: they understand the value of electronic health records (EHRs) in collaborating more efficiently with their colleagues, tracking larger patient populations, and offering patients safer, more personalized care.

Over the course of the past several months the state’s Price Variation Commission has examined the many factors that contribute to differences in hospital prices. The group agrees that there are many factors that warrant variation in hospital pricing. For example, hospitals that care for sicker patients deserve higher levels of reimbursement.

For the first time ever, a New Hampshire hospital, Wentworth-Douglass Hospital, is now part of the Mass General Hospital (MGH) family and a member of the Partners HealthCare sytem.

One year ago, the Southern Jamaica Plain Health Center (SJPHC) received a 2-year Partnership for Community Health Excellence and Innovation grant that helped create two new, critical roles: a medical social worker and a health coach.

Our most popular Connect with Partners post from 2016 was actually a package of three articles that we called “Partners HealthCare Facts.” In this series, we focused on the following three stories, each of which gave a glimpse into the Partners network and its role within the larger health care landscape. The People Who Are Par...

We’re proud of all of our award-winning hospitals, and it seems as though our readers are as well. Taking the number two spot on our top 3 list of the most popular Connect with Partners posts of 2016 is coverage of Massachusetts General Hospital winning the prestigious Foster McGaw Prize for Excellence in Community Service.

As 2016 comes to an end, we at Partners HealthCare and Connect with Partners wanted to reflect on some of our most popular posts from the year. As we dug into the numbers, we discovered an interesting mix of topics that, to us, show health care is as active and innovative as ever before.

This morning’s Boston Globe features an op-ed authored by Dr. David Torchiana, in which he​ expounded upon Massachusetts health care costs, and called for a measured, informed path forward as the state looks to improve our systems of care.

​In this space, we often discuss the cost of health care in Massachusetts relative to the state’s cost of living.

It’s a sobering fact that many Americans, from all walks of life, will at some point in their lives experience the impact of mental illness and its surrounding stigma. However, it’s important to remember that this stigma can also motivate us to create a sense of community that helps address the illness and stigma head-on.

In 2014, the median household income in the US was just over $53,000. In Massachusetts it was $63,000, and in Boston almost $76,000. That means Bostonians earned 41% more and Massachusetts residents 18% more than the national average.

At Partners, we’re doing what we can to improve access to primary care through four major initiatives.

By following their noses, one Massachusetts General Hospital doctor and his research team have discovered an innovative test that may be a promising 15-year head start in the early-detection battle against Alzheimer’s disease.

In a Boston Globe article published this week, momentum appears to be on the side of a new “hospital at home” pilot being conducted by doctors at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH).

A diverse gene pool is as important to scientific research as a diverse workforce is to ensuring a strong and vibrant organization, said Dr. Scott Weiss, Scientific Director of Partners HealthCare Personalized Medicine.

Tailoring treatments to the individual patient based on their predicted response or risk of disease is the next evolution of health care.

Within a five-mile radius of Harvard Square, there is more biomedical research talent than there is in any city in the world. And, Boston’s hospitals are second to none.

As the state’s Price Variation Commission continues its examination of the many factors that can lead to variation among hospital prices, one essential teaching hospital function must be considered: research.

​A story in the Boston Globe today reported that Neighborhood Health Plan (NHP), an affiliate of Partners HealthCare, and MassHealth have instituted a temporary enrollment freeze on new MassHealth members joining NHP.

This month, Partners awarded $1 million in Innovation Discovery Grants (IDG) to ten researchers within our system. The grant program was created to support breakthrough technologies developed by staff at Partners hospitals, and get those technologies more quickly translated into new devices, drugs or other treatments that can improve patient care.

No one can deny the important role that pharmaceuticals play in today’s health care system and in the lives of patients every day. In Massachusetts, we also know the significant contribution that the pharmaceutical and medical device industries make to our economic growth. However, such progress is not without costs.

Tom Fryer, a 69-year-old retired financial advisor, is also someone whose genes could be helping find cures for cardiovascular ailments. And cancer. And a host of other gene-related diseases that are in desperate need of a cure. It’s all because Fryer made the decision to contribute some of his blood to the Partners HealthCare Biobank.

Partners HealthCare, Massachusetts General Hospital and Brigham and Women’s Hospital are joining a nationwide research effort to “crowd source” medical information from no less than 1 million individuals as part of an effort to better understand disease and its cures.

Thanks to a competitive grant from the Massachusetts Health Policy Commission, a new program is taking shape at the Lynn Community Health Center (LCHC) that could have a profound impact on one of our community’s most underserved populations: patients suffering from debilitating mental health and substance abuse issues.

Much has been made of “unwarranted price variation” among health care providers in Massachusetts. Market dominance is often cited as the reason a business can negotiate higher prices. So, what’s the share for some of the Commonwealth’s major health care players within their relevant marketplace?

Most Americans know they have a credit score and they know how to see what that score is. But, most Americans have no idea that they have been assigned a health-risk score by their insurer. If these were better known, and better constructed, health insurance markets in the U.S. would work more smoothly.

It was a day full of cutting-edge innovation, research, and recognition for leadership in medicine here in Boston as medical professionals gathered last weekend for the return of Partners Physicians Day.

HUBweek is back again this year for a second installment of one of Boston’s biggest gatherings for the best and brightest in the fields of science, technology and medicine.

Massachusetts policymakers can rightly be proud that a once-pressing health care problem, a lack of health insurance coverage for hundreds of thousands of people, has been virtually eliminated.

Once again this summer, Partners HealthCare helped to provide nutritious meals to thousands of low-income children throughout Massachusetts.

Addiction is a complex issue that touches every aspect of the communities we serve. At Partners, we also understand that the traditional treatment models, which considered addiction an acute disease, were too often ineffective.

This week, the state turns its eye toward the complex issue of price variation. A diverse group of stakeholders has been appointed to examine the issue and debate what -- if any -- changes need to be made in the way that different health care providers get paid for the services they provide.

This week, a new state report offered encouraging news on health care spending growth in Massachusetts. Growth in health care expenditures rose by about 3.9% last year, marking the third consecutive year cost growth in Massachusetts has been below 5%.

The disparities that patients with limited proficiency in English experience during care are disconcerting, to say the least. For instance, patients with Limited English Proficiency (LEP), are more likely to experience adverse events such as medical errors due to communication problems, and are more likely to suffer physical harm when errors occur.

According to federal data released today, Partners HealthCare has successfully improved the quality of care provided to approximately 83,000 Medicare patients.

This month, Medicare announced that it will not use corrected wage data for Nantucket Cottage Hospital in establishing the rural floor for Massachusetts. What does this mean for Massachusetts hospitals and patients?

Every 90 days, Partners voluntarily issues a press release detailing our financial performance as a system. We do this out of a sense of obligation to be transparent with our patients, our employees, government, bondholders, the media as well as the rest of the health care marketplace.

Throughout the year, Partners HealthCare convenes dozens of system-wide committees to discuss, brainstorm, and strategize about policies and ideas that will improve the care our patients receive. To further our discussions and learning, we often bring in experts to inform our thinking.

Today we’re proud to announce that five Partners HealthCare hospitals have been recognized for excellence by the annual U.S. News & World Report annual Honor Roll of America’s Best Hospitals.

Dr. Sekar Kathiresan and his team of investigators, Pradeep Natarajan, MD, and research coordinator Erina Kii in the Center for Human Genetic Research at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), are looking for a needle in a haystack.

The programs supported by the Center for Population Health touch many points of care during a patient’s medical experience — whether it’s treating an acute illness, managing a chronic problem, or end-of-life care.

The Vineyard Hospital Center for Pain Management (CPM) is well on its way to setting the standard for how telemedicine can help patients in remote areas successfully manage their pain--often without the use of habit-forming narcotics.

“I’m sorry, but I don’t have the notes from the last doctor you saw.” How many times have you heard that? Most of us in healthcare have said it ourselves. How is it that we can advance science and save lives but we can’t get a medical note from across town? Solving the problem is difficult and expensive – especially at the practice level.

With the nation’s changing healthcare landscape and shifting demographics, it is critical that our healthcare leaders are able to design affordable and effective systems of care that work for all of us. This is why the Kraft family generously donated millions of dollars, enabling Partners to launch the Kraft Center for Community Health Leadership

With the goal of preparing a skilled diverse workforce that reflects our community, Brigham and Women’s Hospital offers area youth access to the Student Success Jobs Program (SSJP).

Experts have long known that the “microbiome”—the three-pound symbiotic collection of fungi, bacteria and viruses inhabiting every human’s gut—plays an integral part of our health. But only recently have we discovered the specifics of why the microbiome is so important, especially as it relates to cancer.

Five percent of patients account for half of health care spending and patients with multiple chronic conditions cost up to seven times more than those with only one.

Frequent visitors to this site know Heidi Rehm, PhD as one of the nation’s leading experts in genetic medicine. As the Director of the Partners Lab for Molecular Medicine and associate professor of pathology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, her work has been covered extensively in the media and on our site.

At Partners HealthCare, we’ve made enhanced treatment and prevention options a priority for the communities we serve. We also recognize this growing issue requires resources from everyone, including political leadership, law enforcement, and other health care organizations.

Partners HealthCare is a national leader in pioneering the collection and use of a patient’s self-reported information about their health status. Called Patient-Reported Outcome Measures, or “PROMs,” the data are collected using clinically-validated questionnaires that ask about symptoms, functional status, and quality of life.

Nanotechnology, which is the science of engineering and controlling matter at the molecular scale, is no stranger to cancer treatment. In fact, nanotechnology and the cancer research field began to commingle as far back as 40 years ago, but only recently has the relationship seen an explosion of true progress and information.

Since July, 2012, Partners HealthCare has been moving forward with the implementation of a fully integrated electronic health record to benefit the patients of each of our member institutions. The timeline for implementing what we call Partners eCare across more than a dozen hospitals and hundreds of community-based practices was five years.

For more than 20 years, the Partners HealthCare workforce that supports our world-renowned institutions has been scattered across 15 locations in the Boston metro area. As a result, working across departments has been challenging for many of our employees. This week, that starts to change.

Post-acute care has often been a black box for hospital-based physicians and nurses. Traditionally defined as the place where a patient is cared for after a hospital stay, but before they return home, it has become a significant part of a patient’s experience as pressure has increased to reduce hospital lengths of stay and readmissions.

Population health management, it’s a term you hear often, but what is PHM actually trying to do? Thousands of people across Partners are working together to achieve these five goals.

Today we are proud to unveil a new look and new site functionality for Connect with Partners. As you take a look around, you’ll notice a new design, easier navigation, and a streamlined, intuitive approach to showcase our perspective on current health care issues in Massachusetts.

In 2004, President George W. Bush used his State of the Union speech to champion a new health information technology plan and what we now commonly call electronic health records (EHRs). “By computerizing health records,” said Bush, “we can avoid dangerous medical mistakes, reduce costs, and improve care.”

If you read the local papers or any recent state government reports you likely have the impression that Partners HealthCare is like PAC Man, gobbling up market share at every turn. What are the facts?

​Late yesterday, elected officials in Massachusetts detailed a plan that represents an effective way to provide needed assistance to those community hospitals that serve high numbers of low income patients here in Massachusetts.

Hundreds of health care organizations across the country are experimenting with the accountable care organization (ACO) concept, trying to both improve patient care and lower the cost of that care

What does it take to create a world-class health care system? More than 68,000 employees, a third of whom are doctors and nurses. On average, they have worked for Partners, or one of our institutions, for 9 years and are in their early 40’s, although the full workforce is evenly divided between Baby Boomers, Generation X’ers, and Millennials.

It was an impressive announcement. Partners’ flagship hospitals—Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH)—contributed the most academic papers to the world’s leading medical journals last year.

In the ongoing conversation about health care costs a frequently asked question is “why do some hospitals charge more than others for the same services?” The truth is, no two hospitals or health systems are quite the same. In this post are some of the reasons that care at Partner's hospitals costs more.

Today, Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) is celebrating its acceptance of the prestigious Foster G. McGaw Prize for Excellence In Community Service. In recognition of this achievement, the American Hospital Association put together this video, which brings the award, and the people that made it possible, to life.

This week marks a proud moment for Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), and the entire Partners family, as MGH accepts the prestigious Foster G. McGaw Prize for Excellence In Community Service. This prize, first awarded in 1986, recognizes health care institutions and communities who make improving community health a priority.

After nearly a decade of collaboration, Massachusetts General Hospital is moving forward with plans to make New Hampshire-based Wentworth-Douglass Hospital a member of the MGH family.

Earlier this month, more than 150 global health experts and innovators gathered at Massachusetts General Hospital for a comprehensive “Zika Innovation Hack-a-thon.” ​The goal of this comprehensive, two-day event was to approach the growing Zika virus threat in new ways and get the world closer to a solution for this debilitating threat.​

An average of 1,000 Massachusetts lives lost per year. Approximately 2.5 million people addicted nationwide. These sobering facts are the face of the opioid epidemic in this country today.

At Partners HealthCare, what matters are the new treatments, technology innovations, and collaborations that enhance our patients’ lives. Every day, we work to diagnose and treat disease; to see new research opportunities; and to solve the problems that will change our communities for the better.

As our understanding of complex genetic testing advances, the need for dynamic clinical networks that analyze, interpret, and react to data in real-time has never been more apparent.

In a wide-ranging interview published in CommonWealth Magazine, Partners HealthCare CEO David Torchiana, MD makes a comprehensive case for the constructive role Partners plays in the state’s health care market.

Teams implement and monitor newly-integrated systems at Partners eCare command center. (Photo courtesy of MGH.)At Partners HealthCare, our network of hospitals aims to work seamlessly across a continuum of care. To deliver more coordinated care, you need a more coordinated information management system.

After he was ejected from a car in an accident last summer, Anthony Hodges was rushed to Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Neurosurgeon Dr. Yi Lu performed emergency surgery to try to prevent paralysis, but he still feared Hodges might never walk again. However, Hodges, recently named captain of the Salem State basketball team, wa...

“They said I had PTSD and I’m like…that’s the four-letter word that no one likes to say. I don’t have that. I’m a tough guy. I’m a Marine. What if somebody finds out? What’s going to happen to me?” After six years in the Marine Corps, Brett Cassavant told the Home Base Program in a video interview that he returned home a different person.

This is part of an ongoing series by our Quality, Safety & Value team highlighting Partners HealthCare’s efforts to develop and implement best practices across our network of hospitals to improve the quality of care patients receive while reducing costs. There are countless technological advances that help us bring patients hig...

There’s no question that health care costs must be reined in, both in Massachusetts and across the country. At Partners HealthCare, we’re working on new cost control ideas, and keeping a close watch on the health care industry at large to see how changing models of health care are impacting the communities we serve. Accountable ...

As Massachusetts led the nation in tackling access to health care in 2006, we are leading the way on the cost question, too. Numerous state agencies and The Boston Globe have reported on the record low cost growth that has occurred in Massachusetts since 2009. Nationally, the rate of cost increases has been the lowest since thes...

At Partners HealthCare, we’ve made it a priority to integrate behavioral health care into our primary care practices, particularly through population health management programs. In this post, Dr. Brent Forester, who heads up these efforts, explains the important role of screening primary care patients for mental health condition...

A report released by the Massachusetts Health Policy Commission (HPC) last week has once again brought the complex issue of price variation to the forefront of health policy conversations. While the HPC and others are quick to highlight providers that charge higher prices than their competitors, their conclusions leave out a num...

In Massachusetts, we’re known for offering a standard of medical care that is among the best in the nation and even the world – patients come from all over for treatment at our hospitals. We’re also known for having some of the nation’s highest medical costs. However, while health care spending in Massachusetts is high in absolu...

Reducing the cost of health care is a top priority for Partners HealthCare. For the past 40 years, per capita health expenditures in the U.S. have risen at a rate higher than inflation, with challenging consequences. For U.S. employers operating in a global marketplace, rising health care costs can be crippling to the bottom lin...

Occasionally, as part of the ongoing health care cost dialogue, the issue of hospital assets is raised and the question is asked – why do hospitals need “reserves”? Most hospitals and health systems across the state have some level of investment assets and there are good reasons for it.

This is part of an ongoing series by our Quality, Safety & Value team highlighting Partners HealthCare’s efforts to develop and implement best practices across our network of hospitals to improve the quality of care patients receive while reducing costs. What do electronic health records have to do with the quality of health ca...

This is the first in a series of occasional posts from Partners HealthCare President and CEO David Torchiana, M.D. I was recently given the opportunity to talk about Partners HealthCare at a breakfast meeting of the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce. The topics included concerns about the opioid crisis, our commitment to commu...

From startup incubators to preventive patient safety measures, health care providers throughout Massachusetts are finding unique and innovative ways to redesign care. Recently, the Massachusetts Hospital Association presented their inaugural Accountable Care Compass Awards to recognize some of the excellent efforts by the C...

This week, the Health Policy Commission met for their annual Cost Trend Hearing to address the challenges our industry faces in controlling health care costs. While many questions remain, some progress has been made, and insurers and providers alike were on hand to share the efforts that collectively they have taken to reduce co...

This is the fourth in an ongoing series by our Quality, Safety & Value team highlighting Partners HealthCare’s efforts to develop and implement best practices across our network of hospitals to improve the quality of care patients receive while reducing costs. When our patients need care after a hospital stay, it can be ch...

At Partners HealthCare, corporate citizenship is a natural extension of our core mission to expand access to affordable, quality health care in the communities we serve. It also manifests itself in other ways: creating meaningful educational and career opportunities, bringing nutritious meals to local children and families, help...

With whole genome sequencing, it’s possible to tell patients years in advance what their future health may hold in store for them. But these possibilities raise new questions about the right way to handle such sensitive information. Now a government grant will help Partners HealthCare researchers look into the answers. Over the...

When hospitals assemble their emergency plans, the safety of patients, visitors, and staff is always a top concern, but at academic medical centers, there’s another important consideration to take into account: clinical research. Clinical research brings its own concerns in an emergency. Years of work can be lost if paper noteb...

Today’s health care challenges call for innovative ways to improve the quality of care while reducing costs. For three years, we’ve been pursuing new solutions through the U.S. government’s Pioneer Accountable Care Organization (ACO) program, and federal data released this week show that in the past year, we’ve slowed healt...

Rep. Katherine Clark with children at a Summer Food Service Program site in Revere Good nutrition is a cornerstone of good health, especially for growing children. A healthy diet is essential for healthy development, but some children experience hunger far too often. According to Project Bread’s "2014 Status Report on Hunger ...

Aboard the ferry to Camp Harbor View There is always something fun and exciting going on for both campers and staff during a summer at Camp Harbor View, which brings together youth from across the city’s neighborhoods on Boston harbor’s Long Island. We fill our days with all kinds of activities: swimming, soccer, sailing, art...

This is the fourth article in an ongoing series by our Quality, Safety & Value team highlighting Partners HealthCare’s efforts to develop and implement best practices across our network of hospitals to improve the quality of care patients receive while reducing costs. Across the United States and within Partners HealthCare, tho...

Partners HealthCare's Oz Mondejar and Dr. Cheri Blauwet with Kristen McCosh, Commissioner for Persons with Disabilities for the City of Boston Last week marked 25 years since the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was signed into law. From workplaces to public places, the ADA changed the way Americans with disabi...

U.S. News & World Report’s Honor Roll of America’s Best Hospitals is out today, and Partners HealthCare founding members Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) both received top ratings, with MGH again ranked first and BWH, sixth – the hospital’s best-ever ranking. Their achievements make B...

At Partners HealthCare, we know that health begins at the very start of our patients’ lives; the first few months are crucial. Recognizing this, Partners employees have joined together for the past four years to provide baby baskets to new families. Throughout the Partners system, employees donate items that new parents need &...

At Partners HealthCare, we’re committed to providing better care, close to home for all of the communities we serve. That’s why we’re announcing a plan to improve care and coordination with North Shore Medical Center (NSMC) by serving the needs of the region more efficiently and significantly improving access to behavioral healt...

A summer job can prove to be much more than a paycheck—it can be a valuable professional experience that gives young people the opportunity to connect with mentors. And economic and educational opportunities can in turn have a positive impact on health. At Partners HealthCare, we are committed to addressing all the soci...

The Kraft Fellowship in Community Health Leadership is a competitive two-year post-residency program dedicated to preparing a new generation of physician-leaders to foster new models of collaboration between academic medicine and community health centers. Kraft Fellows are selected on the basis of academic achi...

This is the third in an ongoing series by our Quality, Safety & Value team highlighting Partners HealthCare’s efforts to develop and implement best practices across our network of hospitals to improve the quality of care patients receive while reducing costs. Depression and related diseases have a staggering impact on our socie...

Addressing public health issues requires the hard work and commitment of many. At Partners HealthCare, we’re dedicated to working with local non-profit organizations to meet all the health needs of our community. The Massachusetts Public Health Association (MPHA) shares in our commitment to promoting health equity for all, whi...

Over the weekend, we continued the rollout of a new integrated electronic records management system that represents one of the most important investments in quality and safety that we have ever made. With Partners eCare, patients have a single record containing all of their clinical and billing information – and it will follow...

Since 2012, Partners HealthCare has been one of the participants in the U.S. government’s Pioneer Accountable Care Organization (ACO) pilot program. In both 2012 and 2013, previous reporting showed that Partners had decreased the rate of growth of health care costs. Last week, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Service (CMS)...

With the recent publication of our annual report, we took an opportunity to look back over the past year at advances and achievements throughout the Partners HealthCare system. Through strong partnerships and system-wide efforts, we’ve continued to improve the quality of health care – and equally important, make it more afford...

At Partners HealthCare, we are always looking for ways to improve the quality and efficiency of patient care while lowering health care costs. One of the benefits of our integrated health care system is the ability to implement change on a large scale. As a part of that effort, the Partners Healthcare Clinical Process Improvemen...

The idea of helping individuals use activity trackers to improve their health and wellness is something we are passionate about at Partners HealthCare Connected Health. It's been well documented that activity trackers are widely available and proven to increase physical activity. Yet they are not broadly used – and those who ...

https://youtu.be/e8SsBonSGyA “To make sure folks keep earning higher wages down the road, we have to do more to help Americans upgrade their skills,” President Obama said in his State of the Union address earlier this year. In response, the White House launched the Upskill Initiative to help prepare workers of all ages for high...

Nationwide, healthcare organizations spend $6.5 billion on energy each year, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. At Partners HealthCare, we’re committed to reducing our environmental footprint. To celebrate Earth Day this week, here are a few ways we’re working toward that goal. Sustainable Initiatives Across Ou...

Two years ago, our hospitals treated nearly a hundred patients who were injured in the bombings at the Boston Marathon. On April 15th we marked the second anniversary of the attack by taking part in a new tradition: One Boston Day. Boston Mayor Martin Walsh designated One Boston Day as a time to give back to the loca...

Throughout the United States, every phase of healthcare is being fundamentally restructured. As these changes take place, the need for disruptive research and applied innovation will remain an enduring priority. Partners HealthCare, as the largest single academic research entity, is convening leaders from around the globe to c...

Earning a degree can be the difference between holding a steady job and pursuing a successful career. At Partners HealthCare we’re committed to creating opportunities for employees to go farther in their careers through workforce development and tuition reimbursement programs.

Partners HealthCare began a new partnership with physician group Harbor Medical Associates on the South Shore on Wednesday. The Brigham and Women’s Physicians Organization has a long-standing, close clinical relationship with Harbor Medical Associates. By merging, we will be able to offer more coordinated care for our mutual pa...

Prostate cancer is curable when detected early, yet an American man dies from the disease every 18 minutes. Affecting one in seven men, this disease is even more common than breast cancer (which affects one in eight women), but public awareness and research funding to improve diagnosis and treatment are still lacking. That’s wh...

After conversations with the Attorney General’s office last week, we have taken an important step with regard to our affiliation plans with South Shore Hospital (SSH) and Hallmark Health System (HHS). The Attorney General made a public statement and a formal filing with the court yesterday. We have listened and heard the p...

This is the first in an ongoing series by our Quality, Safety & Value team highlighting Partners HealthCare’s efforts to develop and implement best practices across our network of hospitals to improve the quality of care patients receive while reducing costs. At Partners HealthCare, we’re investing in system-wide clinical teams...

We are pleased to share the news that the Partners HealthCare Board of Directors met Wednesday evening to choose its next President and Chief Executive Officer, Dr. David Torchiana. He is currently Chairman and CEO of the Massachusetts General Physicians Organization (MGPO). Dr. Torchiana is recognized and respected as a ...

For many years, individuals with disabilities have found jobs through programs that gave them work experience but weren’t necessarily competitive in terms of benefits, compensation and the opportunity to grow in a career. At Partners HealthCare, we’re focused on taking those opportunities to the next level by creating a mo...

This afternoon, Superior Court Judge Janet Sanders rejected our consent agreement with the Massachusetts Attorney General which would have allowed us to proceed with our affiliation plans with South Shore Hospital (SSH) and Hallmark Health System (HHS). This decision is very disappointing for all involved in this process, includ...

We’re teaming up with some of the country’s largest insurers and health care systems to promote new payment models for health care providers that improve the quality of care and help lower costs. As The New York Times reported this week, the Health Care Transformation Task Force will advocate for new payment structures that are ...

How has American healthcare fared since the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was passed? That’s the wide-ranging question that Steven Brill’s new book “America’s Bitter Pill” strives to answer, and Brill’s response is more positive than one might expect. Brill explores the impact of America’s evolving healthcare system on patients, pr...

More than 11 percent of Massachusetts families live in food insecure homes, which means that approximately 700,000 people in Massachusetts don’t know where their next meal is coming from today. In an effort to address this crisis, Partners HealthCare is providing Hunger Assistance grants to 18 local community health centers du...

Partners HealthCare CEO Gary Gottlieb, MD, recently spoke with Modern Healthcare about some of the strategies we’ve pursued to expand access to affordable health care, closer to our patients’ homes. One major effort of recent years has involved implementing population health management across our system. This serves a greater...

At Partners HealthCare, we’re dedicated to improving access to affordable, high-quality care, closer to patients’ homes. In early 2015, we will partner with MedSpring Urgent Care to open new urgent care centers in Eastern Massachusetts – and offer patients a lower-cost alternative to emergency department visits. Across the US, ...

L–R: State Senator Patricia Jehlen; Mark Ehrlich, New England Regional Council of Carpenters; Brian Doherty, Building and Trades Council of the Metropolitan District; City of Somerville Alderman Bill White; City of Somerville Mayor Joseph A. Curtatone; Dr. Gary Gottlieb, President & CEO, Partners HealthCare; Congressman Michael...

Trauma is more pervasive than many realize—more than half of the population has had some experience of trauma. It can come in many forms: physical violence, domestic abuse, street violence and even the witnessing of such violence. Some people try to mitigate the effects and others struggle to do so. Caregivers and provide...

Last month, Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) announced the launch of the Ann Romney Center for Neurologic Diseases, a global collaboration to accelerate treatments and cures for five of the world’s most complex and devastating neurologic diseases. The center will focus on multiple sclerosis (MS), Alzheimer’s disease, ALS (Lo...

Approximately one in three veterans who served in Iraq and Afghanistan experience post-traumatic stress or a traumatic brain injury (TBI) after returning home. These “invisible wounds” are often complex. A perceived social stigma keeps many veterans from addressing them. Ryan Pitts, a Medal of Honor recipient who served in Afgh...

Dr. Gary Gottlieb has announced that he will be stepping down as Partners HealthCare’s President and CEO next summer to pursue a new opportunity as CEO of Partners In Health. Dr. Gottlieb remains deeply committed to pursuing partnerships with South Shore Hospital and Hallmark Health that are fundamental to our vision of exp...

Oz Mondejar grew up with a strong appreciation for the opportunities available in the United States, instilled in him by a mother who immigrated here from Cuba. He also grew up with a limb difference. Together, those experiences have helped fuel his desire to create more opportunity for skilled individuals with disabilities. T...

Dr. Elizabeth Karlson with a Biobank participant At Partners, we’re committed to investing in cutting-edge research while also striving to improve efficiencies. The Partners HealthCare Biobank, which was featured in The Boston Globe, is one innovative program that does both. A joint project between Massachusetts General ...

Instructor and MGH Institute of Health Professions alumna Ali Stoll teaches an adaptive sports class at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital. Experiencing a disabling injury or illness can strike a significant blow to a person’s self-confidence, among many other challenges. Participating in adaptive sports often provides a much-...

Phil Tropeano and Dr. Richard Alexander On a recent Sunday in August, Phil Tropeano gathered with nearly 50 family members and friends to celebrate his 92nd birthday. There was also an extra reason to blow out the candles – the birth of Tropeano’s great-great-grandson, Nicholas. The party came a few weeks after Tropeano...

At Partners HealthCare, we believe that when it comes to health care, “high quality” and “affordablility” can go hand-in-hand. Last week, we saw that point proven through our participation in the U.S. government’s Pioneer Accountable Care Organizations (ACO) initiative. For the second year in a row, Partners lowered health care...

At Partners HealthCare, serving the community extends beyond providing access to high-quality, affordable health care at our hospitals. Promoting broader educational and economic opportunities plays an important role in supporting healthy lifestyles. We’re very proud of the ongoing work we do with a variety of local nonprofit o...

For survivors of domestic violence, recovering from abuse can involve both emotional and physical reconstruction. A unique partnership between Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary expands access to much-needed treatment by providing free or low-cost care to women, men, children and transge...

It was late spring of this year when Shirley Hutchins's chronic breathing problems suddenly got worse. She had been diagnosed with pulmonary hypertension, or high blood pressure in the lungs, and pulmonary fibrosis, a kind of scarring on her lung tissue. But even after using oxygen on a part-time basis for nearly a year, she ...

More than 60 million Americans live with mental illness each year, yet social stigma and a lack of treatment facilities can make it difficult for them to get the care they need. “While over the past two decades, the public’s awareness of mental illnesses and the effectiveness of treatment have significantly reduced the stigma...

Pictured above at the Tobin K-8 School: Catherine Fine of the Boston Public Health Commission, Principal Efrain Toledano, third-grade teacher Brian Fizer and his class At Partners HealthCare, we know that healthy living extends beyond the doctor’s office to include the neighborhoods where our patients live and work....

A critical component to good health is good nutrition. However, for some children, healthy meals can be elusive. In Massachusetts, 363,000 kids qualify for free or subsidized breakfast and lunch during the school year. And when school is out, children in families that struggle with food insecurity can’t always count on regular,...

Earlier this week we visited Harbor Health Services in Hyannis to announce $3 million in grants to health centers on Cape Cod, the Islands and partnering community health centers (CHCs). In our two years partnering with Neighborhood Health Plan and the Massachusetts League of Community Health Centers we’ve awarded over $10 mill...

http://youtu.be/-H-Xw3AQFO4 Partners HealthCare president and CEO Dr. Gary Gottlieb appeared on WGBH’s “Greater Boston” last night to discuss our proposed partnerships with South Shore Hospital, Hallmark Health and Harbor Medical Associates. “Our vision is really about our patients -- getting them care where they live,” Dr. Go...

Patrick Menaged is a Distribution Technician II at Newton-Wellesley Hospital (NWH), where he has worked for more than six years. Over this time, Patrick has grown in his role, earning promotions and helping to mentor other technicians. In addition, he is the Materials Management Team Leader in the operating room (OR), where he i...

Carmen learned about the Partners in Career and Workforce Development (PCWD) program from a flyer while she was unemployed and decided to apply. For Carmen, this was the first step in a long journey of personal and professional growth. To get started on her career path, Carmen enrolled in PCWD. Soon after graduating she was hir...

Boston is again home to two of the nation’s top hospitals, according to the 2014-2015 U.S. News & World Report Best Hospitals list. Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) ranked second on the Honor Roll and Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH), ninth. Boston is also the only city with two hospitals in the top 10 list; 2014 marks the...

There has been a lot of conversation over the past few weeks about the agreement we reached with the Massachusetts Attorney General to acquire South Shore Hospital, Hallmark Health and Harbor Medical Associates. While a few of our competitors claim that these new affiliations would give Partners HealthCare too great a share in t...

Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley has filed an agreement in Suffolk Superior Court that would allow us to move forward on partnerships with South Shore Hospital, Hallmark Health and Harbor Medical Associates. Our vision offers substantive benefits for patients in these communities. At Partners HealthCare, we want to...

During the summer of her senior year at Madison Park Technical Vocational High School in Roxbury, Jen participated in the Youth Summer Internship Program offered through Brigham and Women’s Hospital's Workforce Development office. Every summer, approximately 100 high school students participate in this program that introduces th...

Laphen discovered the Partners in Career and Workforce Development program (PCWD) after moving to Boston from Jamaica.  She was accepted into the program – which includes training in customer service skills, basic medical terminology, organizational skills, money management and other topics – and secured an administrative a...

A summer job can be life-changing for a teen. It can address some of the social factors that ultimately determine the health of our young people and set them on a path to educational success and economic independence. For instance, research tells us that students who work in summer jobs are significantly more likely to graduat...

At Partners HealthCare, we’re working to bring high-quality, affordable health care closer to the communities we serve. A recent agreement in principle that we reached with the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office marked a significant step forward in achieving that goal. The agreement allows us to move forward with new partne...

Patricia is a Certified Unit Coordinator at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, where she has worked for 15 years. In 2008, she was working and taking care of her family, but she always thought about going back to school. She learned about the School at Work (SAW) program, which teaches college-preparatory math and reading/writing, co...

Yesterday we awarded the second round of grants to health centers across the state as part of the Partnership for Community Health. Together with the Massachusetts League of Community Health Centers and Neighborhood Health Plan, Partners HealthCare is distributing $6 million to 35 community health centers in this round to supp...

Rhonda Maloney was a single mother of three who was laid off from her job of six years. When her unemployment insurance ended, Rhonda refused to go on welfare – she wanted to work. She was referred to the Partners in Career and Workforce Development program (PCWD), through which she was able to get a job at Brigham and Women’s H...

Have researchers been leaving women’s health to chance? Disease must be diagnosed and treated differently in men and women, but research often fails to account for the impact of sex differences. More than twenty years ago, the U.S. government mandated that clinical trials funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) includ...

After reaching an agreement in principle with the Massachusetts Attorney General earlier this week, multiple news organizations have expressed, in their editorials, support for the proposed new partnerships with South Shore Hospital, Hallmark Health and Harbor Medical Associates as they will allow us to bring high-quality care c...

We’re pleased to announce that we have reached an agreement in principle with the Massachusetts Attorney General’s office that will allow Partners HealthCare to move ahead with partnerships with South Shore Hospital, Harbor Medical Associates and Hallmark Health System. These affiliations support our mission to offer the h...

When Vadim Parsegov graduated high school he wanted to get his foot in the door at Newton-Wellesley Hospital, so he started working as a cashier in the gift shop. He learned about the hospital’s on-site Patient Care Assistant (PCA) Training Program and was interested in gaining clinical experience, so he enrolled. He successfull...

Yesterday, I had the privilege of taking part in an important conversation hosted by Partners HealthCare at the Massachusetts State House about how we – as a community – can improve our response to domestic and sexual abuse. I joined our state’s legislative leaders, courageous survivors and a number of community-based organiz...

The Kraft Practitioner Program The Kraft Practitioner Program is a two-year program aimed at better enabling community health centers to recruit and retain talented physicians and masters-prepared nurses by providing leadership development, mentorship and structured learning opportunities for top-performing communit...

Occupational therapist Sam Conley and her patient Marc Fucarile at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital Yesterday marked the first year anniversary of our historic move into the new Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital in Charlestown. It was a bright and sunny crisp Saturday morning when hundreds of staff from across the Spaulding Ne...

Jacqueline Pires, a Dorchester resident, took part in the Student Success Jobs Program at Brigham and Women's Hospital (SSJP), an intensive year-round employment and mentoring internship program for students of Boston Public High Schools. She is the first person in her Cape Verdean family to finish high school and go to college,...

Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital patient Marc Fucarile and Dr. David Crandell On April 15, 2013, Dr. David King finished running the Boston Marathon – and then rushed to Massachusetts General Hospital to operate on 15 people over the following 30 hours. The trauma surgeon’s story is just one of many others like it: doctors and...

It has been exactly two years since South Shore Hospital, Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Partners HealthCare made public their collective vision for a more coordinated, more accessible and cost-effective health care system for patients in southeastern Massachusetts. Today, The Boston Globe published this opinion piece by South...

In 2011, Henock Celestin decided that he wanted to jumpstart his educational pursuits. He learned about the pre-college preparatory classes offered through Brigham and Women’s Faulkner Hospital where he has worked for 8 years. In July of 2012, Henock completed the pre-college classes, which taught him skills in math, reading/wri...

The Kraft Practitioner Program The Kraft Practitioner Program is a two-year program aimed at better enabling community health centers to recruit and retain talented physicians and masters-prepared nurses by providing leadership development, mentorship and structured learning opportunities for top-performing community health c...

Dr. Nadaa Ali and patient Normie Allen In the fall of 2012, Normie Allen of Roxbury wasn’t doing well. She was nearly 70 years old, and it seemed as though a combination of chronic ailments was going to overwhelm her. First, there were her main conditions: diabetes and congestive heart failure. On top of that, she suffered fro...

A mother of three young children, Nicole Connelly decided in 2008 to switch careers, go back to school and pursue her goal of becoming a registered nurse (RN). She took her prerequisite courses part-time in the evening, and then enrolled in a full-time nursing program where she received her associate’s degree and subsequently ob...

http://vimeo.com/88760184 Our population health management initiatives promote better coordinated, more accessible patient care while also helping to control costs over the long-term. Earlier this month, Partners Vice President of Population Health Management Dr. Timothy Ferris discussed our approach with Dr. Rebecca Rosen, sen...

In an editorial published today, The Patriot Ledger wrote that our proposed merger with South Shore Hospital in Weymouth would enable the hospital to serve a broader population in the region. The Quincy-based newspaper noted that existing clinical and development partnerships have already bolstered the ability of South Shore Ho...

H. Richard Nesson, then-president of Brigham and Women's Hospital, and J. Robert Buchanan, then-general director of Massachusetts General Hospital, shake hands to mark the founding of Partners HealthCare. On March 18, 1994, Partners HealthCare was born, the realization of an agreement between Massachusetts General Hospital an...

Karen Jones had been working in Information Systems at Partners HealthCare for a few years when she saw a system-wide email about the Partners in Career and Workforce Development program (PCWD) – a free job training and internship program – and she immediately thought of her son Zachary Cox and forwarded it to him. Not only did...

At Partners HealthCare, helping to develop careers in health care is one of our priorities. That’s why we’re collaborating with the Kraft Center for Community Health and the Massachusetts League of Community Health Centers to bring young people together with Kraft Practitioners and Fellows – leaders in community health. ...

The Kraft Practitioner Program The Kraft Practitioner Program is a two-year program aimed at better enabling community health centers to recruit and retain talented physicians and masters-prepared nurses by providing leadership development, mentorship and structured learning opportunities for top-performing community health c...

At Partners HealthCare, we’re committed to expanding access to high-quality, affordable care for residents across Massachusetts, and we believe that our proposed partnership with South Shore Hospital will help bring that vision to residents south of Boston. We project $27 million per year in patient savings through our partners...

Photo credit: Matt Bennett/Governor's Office (Creative Commons) This year, I have the honor of partnering with some terrific, very dedicated people who are working to end sexual and domestic violence. As a speaker at Jane Doe Inc.’s annual Massachusetts White Ribbon Day ceremony next week, I am urging men everywhere to take a...

Welcome to Workforce Wednesdays! Over the next several months, we’ll share a series of stories featuring outstanding employees from across the Partners HealthCare System. These success stories are shining examples among the 64,000 Partners employees who strive for excellence every day. At Partners we are deeply committed to pr...

At Partners HealthCare, our employees are what make us great. Each one of the more than 60,000 individuals who make up our workforce is a valuable resource and is essential in helping our hospitals deliver world-class care. That’s why we are investing in our employees and helping them to attain their career and academic goals....

“Why leave women’s health to chance?” asks Dr. Paula Johnson of Brigham and Women’s Hospital in a recent TED talk. When it comes to the relationship between biomedical research and medical treatment, inattention to sex differences can often lead to inequity in health outcomes. It’s been more than 20 years since Congress passe...

Kraft Fellow Dr. Ian Huntington and medical assistant Rosie Weekes The Kraft Center Fellows The Kraft Fellowship in Community Health is a competitive two-year post-residency program dedicated to preparing a new generation of physician-leaders who will lead the development of new models of collaboration between academic medicin...

Year Up is a one-year, intensive training program that provides urban young adults with a unique combination of technical and professional skills, college credits, an educational stipend and a corporate internship. Partners HealthCare has teamed with Year Up Boston since it opened its doors in 2001, and has hosted 142 interns t...

Our commitment to the community at Partners HealthCare runs broad and deep, and it starts with our employees. One example: our annual food drive to benefit the Pine Street Inn. Partners is proud to be the Pine Street Inn's largest single corporate food drive sponsor. Ira Keltz, who works in Partners Information Systems, share...

A study released yesterday found that hospital consolidation yields a variety of benefits for both patients and communities. According to the study, more integrated health systems are better equipped to control costs and improve patient care. The study, funded by the Federation of American Hospitals and prepared by the Center f...

South Shore Hospital Last month the Massachusetts Health Policy Commission (HPC) released its preliminary “Cost and Market Impact Review” of the proposed merger of Partners HealthCare, Brigham and Women’s Hospital and South Shore Hospital. As The Boston Globe reported this morning, today we submit a detailed response explaining...

As the new year begins, we at Partners HealthCare remain as committed as ever to increasing access to affordable health care and improving health outcomes in the communities we serve. To achieve that, we’re building a “new medical model” that will treat patients in a better, more cost-effective manner, as Partners CEO Gary Gottl...

The Kraft Center Fellows At Partners HealthCare, our vision is to nurture the next generation of health care providers. Through the Kraft Center for Community Health, we are investing in some of the brightest young leaders who will be there to deliver high quality, affordable, community-based care today, tomorrow and for...

http://youtu.be/RdkTwqnHQtY At Partners HealthCare, we’re redesigning care to make it easier for patients to get (and stay) healthy. Technology provides a variety of methods for patients and caregivers to communicate beyond the doctor’s office, and our Center for Connected Health is devoted to developing new ways to make the mo...

The Kraft Center Fellows At Partners HealthCare, our vision is to nurture the next generation of health care providers. Through the Kraft Center for Community Health, we are investing in some of the brightest young leaders who will be there to deliver high quality, affordable, community-based care today, tomorrow and for...

As we prepare to celebrate Thanksgiving with our friends and families, we are mindful of the challenges and stress the holidays can bring for some of the families in our communities. One of those challenges is hunger. This holiday season we’re helping to address this issue and providing grants - $10,000 in total - to communi...