Celebrating patient-focused, quality-based and mission-driven highlights across our Brigham community

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Patient and Family Care

By the Numbers: Responding to increased demand for care

Hospitals across the U.S., including the Brigham, continue to receive more patients seeking care and requiring longer stays — resulting in bottlenecks throughout the health care system. On an average day in 2023, the Brigham’s medicine and surgical occupancy rate was 103 percent, amounting to 743 inpatients. Despite these challenges, we remained committed to caring for those who needed our world-class care, including the 6,386 transfers we accepted from other hospitals throughout 2023.

Teams across the Brigham have championed collaborative and innovative solutions to address this capacity crisis. In 2023, we admitted 233 patients to our Home Hospital program, which offers eligible patients the option to receive home-based, hospital-level care and reduce wait times in our Emergency Department.

Our Departure Lounge, which enables eligible patients to leave their hospital room 90 to 120 minutes faster while awaiting a ride in the comfort of the lounge, completed 1,658 discharges in 2023.

Since last January, 56 patients have been transferred back to community hospitals when they no longer require the level of care we provide — freeing up beds while better supporting patients and their loved ones who no longer need to travel to Boston.

To address obstacles that patients face leaving the hospital, we also began contracting for beds at local post-acute facilities, ultimately allowing 232 patients to be discharged to a reserved bed. And in April, Brigham and Women’s Faulkner Hospital broke ground on an expansion project that includes a five-story building that will add 78 inpatient beds.

Brigham, Boston Children’s Team Makes History with First In-Utero Brain Surgery to Fix Deadly Condition

(Photo: Andrew Lederman/Boston Children’s Hospital)

When Kenyatta Coleman went for a prenatal ultrasound 30 weeks into her pregnancy, she and her husband, Derek, were alarmed to learn there was a rare and deadly blood vessel abnormality inside their baby’s brain. Three weeks later, they were on a plane from Louisiana to Boston to participate in a clinical trial to treat the condition with in-utero brain surgery. Performed by a multidisciplinary team of specialists from the Brigham and Boston Children’s Hospital, it was the first procedure of its kind ever done successfully in North America.

With seemingly impossible precision, the team repaired blood vessels deep in the fetus’ brain while she was still in the womb. Baby Denver was born two days later, safe and healthy. She will celebrate her first birthday in March 2024.

BWH Achieves Magnet Redesignation

On March 16, hospital leaders and staff gathered in Bornstein Amphitheater and via webcast to hear the news that Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) had been credentialed as a Magnet organization for the second time in a row. This national recognition by the American Nurses Credentialing Center is the gold standard of nursing excellence and patient care, and it honors the work and culture of an entire institution.

Brigham Establishes Department of Urology

On Oct. 1, BWH elevated its Division of Urology into a Department of Urology, marking the establishment of the institution’s first new clinical and academic department in a decade. Adam S. Kibel, MD — former chief of the division, the DiNovi Family Distinguished Chair in Urology at the Brigham and the Elliott Carr Cutler Professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School — was named inaugural chair of the new department.

Quality Excellence

  • Became the first hospital in New England to earn the American College of Surgeons’ Geriatric Surgery Verification.
  • Recognized by The Leapfrog Group as a leader in quality and safety, as well as a Top Teaching Hospital.

Supporting Our Community

By the Numbers: Resources and services

  • 6,000 bags of food and 8,500 meals were distributed through Mass General Brigham (MGB) Community Health Vans
  • 200 children’s hats, gloves and pajama sets distributed through MGB Community Health Vans
  • 700 children’s books distributed through MGB Community Health Vans
  • 294 new referrals to the Passageway Program, which supports patients, employees and community members who are experiencing abuse from an intimate partner
  • 59 new referrals to Adelante, a collaboration between BWH and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center to assist current and former victims of human trafficking

SSJP Closes Gaps, Boosts Opportunities for Boston Students

Education and economic opportunities are closely linked to health outcomes, yet access to them is not equitable. Since 2001, the Brigham’s Student Success Jobs Program (SSJP) has helped narrow that gap by partnering with seven Boston Public Schools to place high school and college students in paid internships in 40 departments. This year, all 25 seniors in the program graduated high school, and 92 percent began their first semester at college. Nearly all SSJP interns are students of color, and three out of four attend a high school where most students come from low-income households.

Free Community ‘Yard Sale’ Supports Local Families

The Brigham’s Stronger Generations Initiative partnered with community organizations, staff and volunteers to host a free “yard sale” to distribute hundreds of items and resources to pregnant individuals and families with young children. Hosted in May at BCYF Curtis Hall in Jamaica Plain, the event served 133 families, most of whom reside in the Brigham’s priority
neighborhoods. Volunteers gave out over 500 packs of children’s clothing, 500 diaper and pull-up packs, 550-plus books, 100 school-supply kits, 1,500 menstrual hygiene products and more.

Research and Innovation

By the Numbers: Fiscal year 2023

  • More than 2,100 active clinical trials
  • Published more than 9,500 research papers
  • 5,372 research employees
  • 42 investigators named to Clarivate’s 2022 Highly Cited Researchers list, a prestigious “who’s who” of influential researchers
  • The Brigham was ranked #3 among independent hospitals for National Institutes of Health (NIH) research funding in 2022. The Brigham and Mass General have been ranked in the top three hospitals in terms of NIH support for more than 25 years.
  • The Brigham earned $844 million in research revenue in FY23, which includes funding from basic science grants, clinical trial agreements, donor gifts directed toward research and other sponsored research activity.

New Institute Seeks to Illuminate Immune System’s Role in Disease

In May, the Brigham received the largest gift in its history — $100 million — from eminent biotechnology entrepreneur
Gene Lay, MS, DVM, to establish a new research institute dedicated to better understanding how immunology
and inflammation influence autoimmune diseases and cancer. Led by Brigham immunologist and principal investigator Vijay Kuchroo, DVM, The Gene Lay Institute of Immunology and Inflammation brings together some of the world’s most distinguished scientists from Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School.

Novel Trial Gives Hope to Patients with Deadly Brain Tumors

Glioblastoma is an aggressive brain cancer that is notoriously resistant to treatment. A research team led by E. Antonio Chiocca, MD, PhD, chair of the Department of Neurosurgery, shared promising results from a phase one, first-in-human
clinical trial that might start to change that narrative. Using gene therapy techniques, Chiocca and colleagues reprogrammed a virus to target and attack glioblastoma cells. The study, published in October, showed that the therapy is safe and extended the survival of most patients in the 41-person trial.

 

Education

By the Numbers:

  • 400+ medical students
  • 1,450 residents and fellows (925 residents and 525 fellows)
  • 200+ training programs
  • 60+ college and university partnerships

Redefining Norms in Medical Education

As the post-pandemic era continued to reshape health care throughout 2023, the Brigham’s medical education programs recognized that the learning environment must also adapt to ensure the next generation of health care professionals — and the faculty who teach them — are best prepared for this new, complex landscape. With increased focus on hybrid education, innovative programming, work-life balance and competency advancement, many aspects of medical education were reimagined to ensure students and trainees receive the optimal balance of education and clinical experience.

Pictured above: Residents in General Medicine and Oncology services participate in “smear rounds,” which provides dedicated time for trainees to review their patients’ blood smear tests with a senior hematologist.

Simulation Lab Expansion Propels Nursing Education

In June, the Department of Nursing received a $5 million gift from the Chin Family Foundation to develop a nursing simulation lab in support of education, professional development and lifelong learning. In collaboration with the Center for Nursing Excellence and the Neil and Elise Wallace STRATUS Center for Medical Simulation, the Patricia A. Chin Nursing Simulation Lab at Brigham and Women’s Hospital will provide innovative programming and technologies to advance nursing practice at all stages of professional development. The gift will be used to expand the existing space and resources at STRATUS with the addition of two nursing-focused, high-fidelity simulation rooms and a multi-purpose conference room and debriefing room.

Presidents’ Message

When we look back on all that our Brigham community accomplished in 2023 to deliver high-quality and compassionate care, ignite discovery and innovation, educate the next generation of health care professionals and care for our communities, we are filled with a tremendous sense of pride in our incredible multidisciplinary teams.

Health care is always changing, and with change comes opportunity. In the face of continued high demand for care, we have done extraordinary work as one Mass General Brigham community to embrace innovation and use our resources more effectively. The success and ongoing expansion of Healthcare at Home, a systemwide effort with roots in our outstanding Home Hospital program, superbly illustrates what real transformation looks like.

Additionally, amid the changing landscape of cancer care, we remain resolute in our commitment to continue delivering exceptional care to our patients with cancer and their families — now and in the future. The recent appointment of Daphne Haas-Kogan, MD, MBA, our chair of Radiation Oncology, as chief of Enterprise Radiation Oncology for Mass General Brigham, is an exciting early milestone in our journey to become the world’s leading cancer center.

More than anything, however, this year has underscored for us that what makes the Brigham a world-class institution are the people who work here. None of what we have accomplished would be possible without the dedication, professionalism and commitment to excellence that our multidisciplinary, interprofessional teams demonstrate each day. It is the physician assistant who makes sure that every question a patient has about their upcoming procedure is answered. It is the pharmacist whose encyclopedic knowledge of drug interactions ensures patient safety. It is the research assistant whose attention to detail in an experiment becomes crucial to its outcome. And so many, many more.

All that we faced this year has only strengthened our shared commitment to keeping the patients, families and communities we serve at the heart of everything we do.

Robert S.D. Higgins, MD, MSHA
President, Brigham and Women’s Hospital
Executive Vice President, Mass General Brigham
The Elizabeth G. and Gary J. Nabel Family
Professor of Surgery, Harvard Medical School

Giles W.L. Boland, MD
President, Brigham and Women’s Physicians Organization
Executive Vice President, Mass General Brigham
Philip H. Cook Distinguished Professor of Radiology, Harvard Medical School