Audra Meadows

Part of BWH’s mission of providing excellent patient care involves not only identifying health care inequities that some patient populations face, but also working to eliminate those disadvantages.

Closing that gap comes with challenges, but at the 2016 Minority Faculty Career Development Award Grand Rounds, held on May 4, Audra Meadows, MD, MPH, of Obstetrics and Gynecology, shed light on potential solutions.

The event—hosted by the Center for Faculty Development & Diversity’s Office for Multicultural Careers—also included recognition of this year’s MFCDA recipients, Joseph Mancias, MD, PhD, of Radiation Oncology, and Viviany Taqueti, MD, MPH, of the Division of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging, and an honorees’ breakfast reception.

The MFCDA program, founded in 1996, provides financial support to early-career underrepresented in medicine (URM) physicians and scientists at BWH, with the goal of increasing their presence across the institution. The five-year $100,000 award is given to two URM faculty members annually, with more than 30 awards having been distributed since the program began.

During her presentation, Meadows, a 2009 MFCDA recipient, explored whether group prenatal care is the future of care in Obstetrics. Group prenatal care particularly benefits women at high risk of preterm birth and infant mortality, which includes African-Americans and women under the age of 21.

“The goals of obstetric care are a healthy mom, a healthy baby and a term delivery,” said Meadows. “But for black patients, infant mortality is higher in Boston, in Massachusetts and across the U.S. We want to know why this disparity exists and how to reduce the gap and bring infant mortality to zero.”

Meadows detailed BWH’s CenteringPregnancy® program, a partnership between BWH’s Ambulatory Obstetrics Practice and the Center for Community Health and Health Equity, which has garnered success since its launch last June. The program provides prenatal care and peer support in a group setting, as well as individual clinical evaluations and time with BWH clinicians. The women learn how to conduct self-health assessments, take their own blood pressure and record their weight. They also meet each week in groups of eight to 12, with dedicated physicians and nurses present, for 90 minutes to discuss prenatal and parenting topics.

The program is helping young women through such issues as teen pregnancy, family support and pregnancy education. Several studies have demonstrated the benefits of group prenatal care compared to traditional, individual care when it comes to pregnancy outcomes and health behaviors. Of 83 BWH participants surveyed, 100 percent reported satisfaction with their care. Additionally, the average weight of participants’ babies was a healthy 7 pounds, and the average gestation period was 39 weeks.

“CenteringPregnancy® is one of very few ongoing training programs available to expand the reach of this care model to more women, and we’re proud to be championing it here,” said Meadows.

Learn more about the MFCDA.

JazzBoston musicians perform for fair attendees.

On April 30, the BWH Lung Center, BWH Center for Pulmonary Heart Disease and JazzBoston—a nonprofit advocacy organization for Greater Boston’s jazz community—teamed up with the Roxbury Tenants of Harvard (RTH) for the first “Good Music = Good Health Jazz Fair,” a community-based health and wellness event held in RTH’s outdoor Levinson Plaza in Mission Hill. In addition to spirited musical performances, the event provided education about lung health, physical fitness and nutrition to community members.

The event is the result of the Lung Center and JazzBoston’s joint initiative in music and medicine, announced last month, to create a new model for managing and improving lung health based on the breathing and blowing techniques of jazz singers and wind instrumentalists. The April 30 event, which coincided with International Jazz Day, was a great way to kick off an important partnership, said Bruce Levy, MD, medical director of the Lung Center and chief of the Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine Division.

“Music therapy is increasingly recognized for its holistic roles in health and healthy living,” Levy said. “We are delighted to join these outstanding community leaders in a unique collaboration that promotes music as a healing medium and expands both our organizations’ outreach to the city of Boston.”

BWHers Aaron Waxman, MD, PhD, director of the Pulmonary Vascular Disease Program; Brad Wertheim, MD, of the Center for Chest Diseases; Abbey Karin and Julie Tracy, senior exercise physiologists in the Dyspnea and Performance Evaluation Program; Eliza Shirazi, BWH health and fitness specialist; staff from Brigham and Women’s Primary Care Associates, Longwood; and others were on hand to talk with community members about their lung health. Jackie Rodriguez-Louis, MPH, MEd, program coordinator for the Partners Asthma Center, provided smoking cessation education.

More than 300 people attended and were able to participate in asthma and blood pressure screenings and exercise assessments, while performers from JazzBoston encouraged attendees to join in on the music-making. The event included an instrument petting zoo, which gave visitors a chance to hold and try out instruments, and contests and prizes for attendees of all ages. The afternoon concluded with a community concert.

“The idea is to play good music, and to do that, you need healthy lungs,” Waxman said.

The BWH Lung Center, Center for Pulmonary Heart Disease and JazzBoston have begun organizing additional community-based health and wellness fairs in Boston that integrate education and music to help raise awareness of the importance of taking care of one’s lungs and teach participants techniques for strengthening their lungs, whether they have a respiratory disorder or not.

Master teachers and performers identified by JazzBoston will also work with Lung Center physicians to develop new therapies that accelerate the rehabilitation process for patients who have chronic lung disease or are recovering from chest surgery. The musician/physician team will design and hold clinics that incorporate wind instruments, including the voice, to create a lively, motivational therapy experience.

Endocrinologist and Brigham Diabetes Program Director Marie McDonnell conducts a video visit with one of her patients.

If you asked Adam Licurse, MD, MHS, five years ago about telemedicine—the remote diagnosis and treatment of patients by means of mobile and telecommunications technology—he may have likened it to a science project.

“It has long been a cool idea, but the technology was not that good and the workflow was clunky,” said Licurse, a primary care physician at Brigham and Women’s Advanced Primary Care Associates, South Huntington, assistant medical director of the BWPO and associate medical director of Partners Population Health Management. “Providers were not reimbursed for their time, and the demand just wasn’t there.”

Contrast this notion with today, with advanced video technology that works as well as Skype and FaceTime and a clear demand from patients and providers to have new ways to connect with each other outside of the traditional health care setting.

“Telemedicine has taken off,” said Licurse. “A lot of doctors and practices are becoming really excited about it, and we’ve hit a point where patients are hearing about video visits and other technologies through media and their health plans and asking their physicians about them.”

BWH has been exploring telemedicine through several BWPO-led pilots for the past two years. These pilots consist of video visits and e-visits between providers and patients, as well as video consults and e-consults between providers.

“There is a large and growing group of departments and divisions at BWH that are offering video visits to replace or supplement outpatient visits for certain groups of patients,” said Jasdeep Sahota, MSc, EMBA, senior project manager for the BWPO. “The Department of Medicine, including Endocrinology, Gastroenterology and Primary Care, is the largest group, and the departments of Surgery and Psychiatry are also exploring these tools.” Fifteen to 20 additional groups are expected to begin using video visits in the next six months.

E-visits are underway through Partners Patient Gateway. Instead of patients asking their providers questions through the portal’s email functionality, patients use Patient Gateway to fill out a questionnaire that simulates the questions that clinicians would ask during an in-person visit. When providers later answer their patients’ questions via the portal, they have much more information at their disposal thanks to the robust questionnaire, which on the provider side is integrated into Partners eCare.

Provider-to-provider video consults are used when clinicians at different institutions need to connect with each other about a shared patient, sometimes directly involving that patient in the video encounter, such as through BWH’s current pilot with Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital. The effort is focused on improving patient care and avoiding unnecessary hospital readmissions.

Lastly, through provider e-consults, primary care providers can get feedback from specialists on specific patient cases to see if a referral to a specialist is necessary. This type of communication has been happening informally for years but is now formalized through Partners eCare, with many primary care physicians and specialists participating.

“These tools are helping providers create more access for patients in their clinics,” said Sahota. “Video visits and e-visits are more convenient for patients who struggle to get into the city, and follow-up visits are quicker and easier for patients.”

Licurse says these tools also allow providers to better meet patients where they are, helping to make health care more patient-centric and lower-cost.

“At the highest level, these tools translate into better care for appropriate patients,” said Licurse. “With more tools for self-care, patients feel more engaged and empowered to participate in their care. Our goal is to continue to use these tools to tailor our care based on the unique populations we serve.”

Michael McKenery

When Michael McKenery, BSN, RN, a clinical research nurse in BWH’s Center for Alzheimer’s Research and Treatment, stepped on the bus to go to work one morning last month, he didn’t realize he would end up coming to the aid of a local high school student onboard.

The crowded bus was on its way to the Longwood Medical Area when McKenery noticed a young passenger who was standing near him begin to fall and convulse. He and another nurse on the bus were able to reach the student before she fell completely and slowly lowered her down to the ground, protecting her head from injury.

“The whole incident lasted about 10 to 15 seconds; she came to very quickly but was disoriented and scared,” said McKenery, who also works in BWH’s Infusion Center. McKenery then asked the student questions to reorient her, such as if she knew the name of the president and the day of the week.

When she was ready, the student sat up with McKenery’s help. He called her mother, learning that she had no history of seizures. The bus driver, who had pulled the bus over to the side of the road, called the student’s school to ensure that a police officer could meet her at her bus stop and take her to the school nurse. McKenery, who was an EMT before becoming a nurse and is currently pursuing a master’s degree in adult geriatric primary care, said he was relieved the student was ultimately fine.

“What Michael demonstrated is that being a Brigham nurse is not a job, but rather a way of living and being in world,” said Jackie Somerville, PhD, RN, FAAN, chief nursing officer and senior vice president of Patient Care Services. “Michael is a great ambassador for our practice beyond our walls.”

Nearly 2,000 books have been donated to the Brigham Baby Academy, a program introduced earlier this year that seeks to prevent language delays among NICU babies by ensuring they are read to at least once a day. NICU families are also discharged with several new books for parents to read to their babies at home. Members of the design firm Tsoi/Kobus & Associates recently delivered a generous donation of books to the NICU and Department of Pediatric Newborn Medicine. To make a donation of your own, bring a new or gently used book to the Connors Center for Women’s Health security desk on the Lower Pike, or visit giving.brighamandwomens.org/nicu-reading-program.

From left: Ellen Golden, Hanni Stoklosa and Jasmine Grace Marino

Though it may seem like a faraway issue, human trafficking—defined as the recruitment, acquisition, harboring or transporting of adults or children by improper means such as force, fraud or deception, with the aim of exploiting them for profit—happens here in the U.S., including in Boston.

On Feb. 12, BWH hosted an event in honor of V-Day, a global movement dedicated to ending violence against women and girls. The BWH event featured a compelling presentation by a survivor of human trafficking, followed by a panel discussion of how trauma-informed care can better identify and heal survivors of violence and human trafficking. Of the 21 million victims of human trafficking around the world, up to 88 percent report having interacted with a health care provider during the time they were being trafficked.

Survivor and advocate Jasmine Grace Marino was once one of these victims. During the five years when she was being trafficked, Marino had many appointments with her primary care physician at another hospital, but the physician never noticed the signs or the danger she was in, which included brainwashing, violence and the threat of violence by her trafficker.

“Human trafficking is hidden in plain sight,” said Marino, who, at 19 years old, first met the man who would become her trafficker. He paid her attention and treated her like a girlfriend at first, said Marino, who had experienced sexual violence in the past. “We were both coming out of a broken system.”

Marino has since founded a nonprofit called Bags of Hope, which provides basic needs and resources to women who are victims of trafficking.

“Human trafficking victims present in many clinical settings, including emergency medicine, OB/GYN, psychiatry, and primary and urgent care,” said panelist Hanni Stoklosa, MD, MPH, an attending physician in the Department of Emergency Medicine and a member of the Division of Women’s Health. “Health systems need to develop frameworks to better care for this highly vulnerable population.”

Annie Lewis-O’Connor, PhD, NP, founder and director of the BWH Coordinated Approach to Recovery and Empowerment (C.A.R.E.) Clinic, highlighted the importance of trauma-informed care—an approach to patient care that recognizes the presence of trauma symptoms in patients and acknowledges the role that trauma has played in their lives. She also shared some of the new approaches she and her C.A.R.E. Clinic staff are using to engage patients in their care, such as texting patients to check in on them between appointments.

“Each visit with a patient is an opportunity to act in a trauma-informed way,” said panelist Eve Rittenberg, MD, medical director for Primary Care at the Fish Center for Women’s Health. “That patient-clinician relationship is at the core of what patient care should be.”

Ellen Golden, MSW, LICSW, Emergency Department lead social worker, also lent her expertise to the panel, which was moderated by Paula Johnson, MD, MPH, executive director of the Connors Center for Women’s Health and Gender Biology and chief of the Division of Women’s Health.

Partners Urgent Care opened its first urgent care center last year in Brookline’s Coolidge Corner. Two additional centers opened this past December at 11 Mt. Auburn St. in Watertown and 71 Needham St. in Newton.

Partners Urgent Care is a collaboration between Partners and MedSpring Urgent Care—a national urgent care provider that focuses on delivering excellent medical care, convenient service and value to patients. In addition to the Boston-area sites, MedSpring operates more than two dozen urgent care centers in Austin, Chicago, Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston.

The centers offer patients affordable, high-quality health care alternatives to emergency rooms. They also support primary care physicians whose patients need non-emergency care after normal office hours.

“We had 15 patients on our first day,” said Julia Sinclair, MBA, senior vice president of Clinical Services at BWH and executive administrator of Partners Urgent Care, referring to the Coolidge Corner location. “The average daily volume in September was 29 patients per day; by December, it was 47 patients per day. We are hearing that patients appreciate the comfort of the facility, as well as the convenience, both in terms of location—it’s right in front of an MBTA Green Line stop—and efficiency—they appreciate being able to be seen quickly.”

Partners Urgent Care centers provide medical care to adults and children over 1 year old. Physicians are on-site from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. every day, including weekends and holidays. Providers treat a wide range of illnesses and injuries, from coughs and colds to cuts and broken bones. All centers are equipped with digital X-ray and on-site lab capabilities in addition to occupational health services. Also offered are amenities such as free Wi-Fi, snacks and beverages and children’s activities.

Walk-ins are welcome and same-day appointments are available. Patients covered by most commercial and public insurance plans can be seen at any Partners Urgent Care location. The center is open to everyone, however, not just existing Partners patients.

All locations are operated under the clinical and quality oversight of Partners HealthCare, BWH, MGH and MedSpring. Patients who require follow-up can receive care elsewhere within the Partners system or be referred back to their primary care physician or another health practice or community health center.

Partners Urgent Care expects to open additional centers in Eastern Massachusetts in the coming year. For more information, visit partnersurgentcare.org.

A woman appeared in my office in distress. She was terrified and didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know what to do, either. But I knew who would: a social worker. I brought her to the Social Work team, which helped her come up with a plan to address her concerns.

Another patient started taking her medicine and was at target for her treatment plan. Why? Regular meetings with our pharmacist convinced her that she wanted to live healthily.

I could keep sharing stories. The family meeting supported by the geriatrician, organized by the CMP nurse, including three different specialties; the connections made by a medical assistant or a nurse; the communication between home health care and us for a demented woman; medical treatment of alcohol use disorder. These are my stories, but they could have happened to any patient in the Jen Center. This is team-based care.

Teams share their strengths and knowledge to bring patients to a new level of care. Warmly handed from one caregiver to the next, the patient learns that he or she has not just a medical provider, but a group of people who can gather together, brainstorm, use their skills and provide so much more than a consultation or a checkup.

This doesn’t happen by accident. This happens because of hard work, dedication and efforts to understand each other’s roles and responsibilities. It is also a product of deep respect for each other and for our patients. In this season of giving, I am so thankful for what each member of our team does for our patients, and for each other.

Lori Tishler, MD
Medical Director, Jen Center

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Our office remains open during lunch hours so that patients can get an appointment during their own lunch breaks. Women, Infants and Children (WIC) and Nutrition staff stagger their lunch breaks in order to provide office coverage during this time.

One day earlier this year, one of our WIC staff, Myrta Montijo, went out to pick up lunch at a local restaurant while other staff covered the front desk. As Myrta returned to Brookside to eat her lunch, she passed through the waiting area. There was one woman waiting for her WIC appointment. The patient commented to Myrta that her lunch smelled so good and that she was so hungry, having spent many hours on the road and at appointments that day. She asked Myrta where she got her lunch, as she was hoping to stop there on her way home. The patient still had an hour or so longer before she would finish her appointments at Brookside and Myrta could see how exhausted she was, so she asked the patient if she could share half of her lunch with her.

The patient quickly agreed and was so grateful for Myrta’s kind gesture and generosity!

Maria Dievler, MA, RD, LDN
Director of WIC and Nutrition, Brookside Community Health Center

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Tobin Elementary School students enjoy their new knit caps.

Each holiday season, the BWH community comes together to brighten the lives of those in need. By collecting toys, food, clothing and other items, BWHers do what they can to spread joy and bring smiles to people’s faces.

Wanda McClain, MPA, vice president of Community Health and Health Equity, said she’s astounded by the generosity of BWHers, not only during the holidays, but every day of the year. “Giving back is part of our mission and commitment to our local community,” she said. “These acts of kindness are just as important as the care we deliver to patients.”

Here are some of the ways BWH is giving back this season:

Toys for Tots Drive
More than 1,000 toys were collected this year and packed into 13 giant boxes to be delivered to the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve Toys for Tots Program. The generosity of BWHers and visitors has made the Toys for Tots collection at BWH a huge success for the last three years. A team of volunteers led by Bob Donaghue, operations manager for Security and Parking, organizes the drive each year.

Welcome Winter Food Drive
From now until Dec. 29, BWH is hosting a food drive to benefit the Parker Hill/Fenway ABCD Emergency Food Pantry in Mission Hill. Collection bins for canned, boxed and other non-perishable foods have been placed at various locations across BWH.

Caps for Kids
For more than 25 years, senior physical therapist Joan Casby and volunteers from BWH, the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and elsewhere collect handmade hats, mittens, scarves and other warm winter items that are donated to local schoolchildren in Boston. On Dec. 16, 500 knitted items were distributed to students at the Tobin Elementary School in Mission Hill. Volunteers spent time with students as they chose their new warm winter items, and students later came back with thank-you notes in hand for the volunteers. This year, more than 13,000 hats, scarves and other items were made, all going to various schools and hospitals in the Boston area.

Bringing the Magic of the Holidays to BWH
For the 34th consecutive year, Jim Nentwig’s family and volunteers will present patients with flowers, gifts, knitted hats and blankets around Christmas. Nentwig first dressed up as Santa (and his children as elves) when his wife, Elizabeth, was a cancer patient at BWH in 1982 and brought gifts for all of the patients on her unit. Elizabeth asked Nentwig to continue the tradition after her death, which he has, facilitating the donation of hundreds of gifts to patients and staff, which now get delivered by many of his family members and volunteers dressed as Santa and elves here at BWH and elsewhere in the area.

Neurology Blood Drive
Earlier this month, BWH’s Department of Neurology hosted a team-wide blood drive challenge. Neurology physicians, researchers, staff, patients and families were invited to donate blood at the Kraft Family Blood Donor Center and Blood Mobile to help BWH patients in need. In total, 80 units of blood were donated.

View a gallery of photos.

This fall, Partnership for Community Health, co-founded by Partners HealthCare, awarded $6 million through a dozen grants that will support 22 community health centers (CHCs) across Massachusetts. The two-year Excellence and Innovation grants are allied with elements of the overall Partners strategy—improving the patient experience, increasing capacity to serve more patients and improving quality while reducing costs.

The partnership was launched three years ago as a joint initiative of Partners and Neighborhood Health Plan, in collaboration with the Massachusetts League of Community Health Centers. The goal is to support the continued efforts of CHCs to reduce barriers to access, promote health equity and provide patient care locally. To date, the partnership has committed $16 million to CHCs across the state.

Overall, the grants support the efforts of the centers to transform their operations and patient communications and find new ways to deliver shared services across different health centers.

Sixteen CHCs will benefit from three multi-institutional grants ranging from $450,000 to $1 million. All three projects involve the use of technology—from telemedicine to imaging to patient portals—to improve access and quality of care and reduce costs.

Individual grants ranging from $200,000 to $600,000 were awarded to 12 community health centers, half in Boston and half in other parts of the state, including Springfield, Worcester and Cape Cod.

Some grants will bolster staffing. For example, Southern Jamaica Plain Health Center will add a medical social worker and a health coach to help patients change health behaviors, and Caring Health Center in Springfield will add community health workers to support improved access and use of wellness services.

Others seek to enhance patient engagement. For example, both East Boston Neighborhood Health Center and South Cove Community Health Center will work on call center enhancements that will improve care coordination.

Additionally, other grants will target chronic conditions and process improvement.

Mary Chalifoux-Conley

With its team of nurse care coordinators across Primary Care, BWH’s integrated Care Management Program (iCMP) has been providing personalized care and attention to some of the hospital’s most high-risk patients for more than five years. A large subset of these patients suffers from chronic heart failure—the most common cause of iCMP patients’ hospital admission.

Helping these patients to stay well is a privilege, says Mary Chalifoux-Conley, RN. She co-manages 71 iCMP heart failure patients alongside practice-based nurse care coordinators, with the goal of improving their care and reducing inpatient admissions through coaching and intensive disease management. The team also collaborates with BWH primary care physicians (PCP), cardiologists, heart failure nurse practitioners and palliative care specialists.

“I assess patients’ understanding of their diet and their medications,” said Chalifoux-Conley. “I help them navigate the health care system, engage their families in their care and support behavioral changes aimed at improving their health.”

She also frequently communicates with her patients’ PCPs and cardiologists, providing them with status updates or changes in vital signs, to determine if adjustments to medications or dietary restrictions are needed.

If patients are admitted to BWH, Chalifoux-Conley makes a point to visit them. She says it is important that these patients understand the role she plays in their care—especially if they are new to the Brigham—and how to find her. When they are ready for discharge, she strives to make their transition home as seamless as possible.

“Mary has been able to engage many high-risk patients in their own care, help them improve their health and prevent them from needing to be admitted to the hospital,” said Lisa Wichmann, RN, iCMP nursing director. “Everyone’s experience with Mary has been very positive.”

One of many beneficiaries of Chalifoux-Conley’s care is James Ackerman, a semi-retired professor who recently celebrated his 96th birthday. In the past year, Chalifoux-Conley has coordinated Ackerman’s home care, followed up with him on important test results and remained in touch with his PCP and cardiologist every step of the way.

Ackerman’s wife, Jill Slosburg-Ackerman, said, “I am so grateful to the staff at the Brigham for the amazing care that our family receives. I had no idea there would be this kind of support for my husband. Mary has an ability to balance the science and medical issues with humanity. It’s more than just the medicine; Mary has made it easier for all of us.”

When needed, Chalifoux-Conley refers patients to BWH’s Ambulatory Cardiac Triage Intervention and Education (ACTIVE) Unit, a multi-disciplinary outpatient cardiology infusion center led by advanced heart disease nurse practitioners. In the ACTIVE Unit, patients can receive intravenous diuretics as needed, as well as pharmacist-led medication reconciliation, and education and assessment by a nurse practitioner. As an ambulatory treatment alternative to a hospital admission, the unit has become a successful option for patients with worsening heart failure symptoms. To date, Chalifoux-Conley has referred 18 patients to the ACTIVE Unit for the most specialized care.

Chalifoux-Conley and her colleagues believe that the future of iCMP and heart failure outreach lies in preventive care. Rebecca Cunningham, MD, iCMP medical director, says there is a cohort of patients Chalifoux-Conley is not yet seeing who could benefit from earlier intervention and additional self-management tools.

“I think there’s a lot more we can do to educate patients,” said Chalifoux-Conley. “It’s the 40- to 50-year-olds who may all of a sudden start to see a rise in their blood pressure or lipids. We need to educate them more quickly about nutrition, and if they’re pre-diabetic, get them on the right medications and help them learn how to manage their health.”

BWH volunteers at the RTH Health Fair

Late last month, BWH’s Lung Center, Heart & Vascular Center and Phyllis Jen Center joined the Roxbury Tenants of Harvard (RTH) for its annual health fair, providing health resources and information to community members and other attendees.

BWH physicians and staff, including Aaron Waxman, MD, PhD, director of the Pulmonary Vascular Disease Program; Chris Fanta, MD, of the Pulmonary Division and director of the Partners Asthma Center; Lori Tishler, MD, medical director of the Jen Center; and Jorge Plutzky, MD, director of Preventive Cardiology, were on hand to talk with community members about their heart and lung health. The BWHers offered lung fitness tests using spirometers, an instrument for measuring the air capacity of the lungs, as well as screening for asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), an inflammatory lung disease. Information about smoking cessation and hands-only CPR was also available.

“We had more than 180 members of the community drop in, and we signed up more than 40 people for a healthy nutrition program and 30 for a healthy exercise program,” said Waxman. “It was a very successful health fair.”

Other organizations at the fair included Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, the National Kidney Foundation, Harvard School of Dental Medicine, Mass Eye and Ear and the American Heart Association.

BWH is a longstanding partner of RTH—a nonprofit organization devoted to developing and maintaining safe and affordable housing for low- and moderate-income people of diverse backgrounds in Mission Hill.

Every October, with the help of the Center for Community Health and Health Equity (CCHHE), BWH takes part in national Domestic Violence Awareness Month. This year, the hospital is broadening its efforts and recognizing the month as Interpersonal Violence Awareness Month in order to educate and raise awareness of not only domestic violence, but all forms of violence that take place in our community, homes and institutions.

“Patients present with many forms of trauma and injury caused by violence,” said Mardi Chadwick, JD, director of Violence Intervention and Prevention Programs for the CCHHE. “By silo-ing care, we may be missing the larger context of our patients’ lives. Changing Domestic Violence Awareness Month to Interpersonal Violence Awareness Month is the first in many steps to re-envision how we understand and provide trauma-informed care to all patients.”

By focusing on the intersections of trauma and violence, the Brigham community is considering the ways in which trauma is differentially experienced across the lines of race, gender, culture, class, sexual identity and socioeconomic status, and how these many factors impact health.

“The more we learn about, recognize and support patients who have complicated experiences, the more we will advance in our efforts to achieve greater health and social equity for patients surviving trauma,” said Chadwick.

Several events will be held this month to generate awareness of interpersonal violence and promote safety and well-being for everyone in the BWH community. BWHers can stop by an information table in the 75 Francis St. lobby all month long to learn more and obtain resources about interpersonal violence.

Additionally, Schwartz Rounds on Oct. 13 will highlight a specific case related to community violence, and a service on Oct. 14 will honor all survivors, victims and community members impacted by violence and trauma, among other events. BWHers will also see the hospital’s “Do No Harm” campaign on the television screens across BWH and the distributed campus, featuring personal messages of hope, support and inspiration to those experiencing interpersonal violence.

BWHers can join the cause virtually on Facebook or Twitter (@passagewayBWH). For more information, email passageway@partners.org. View the full calendar of events and the “Do No Harm” campaign.

The herb garden on Shattuck Street

Earlier this summer, members of Patient Care Services (PCS) had the idea to create something new on BWH’s campus: a small herb garden on Shattuck Street.

The effort to plant and maintain the garden was led by Kathy McManus, MS, RD, director of Nutrition, and Maureen Fagan, DNP, MHA, WHNP-BC, FNP-BC, associate chief nurse for Obstetrics and Gynecology and executive director of the Center for Patients and Families. They have developed a schedule in which members of the Nursing and PCS departments take turns watering the herbs.

“We are always trying to find creative ways to promote health and wellness,” said McManus, who routinely sends her PCS colleagues unique recipes from Food Services that incorporate the herbs. “We hope that this garden will inspire us all to get back to the fundamentals of cooking at home and taking care of ourselves. We know there is a strong connection between food and medicine and that many cultures rely on food as medicine. Nutrition is very powerful.”

The garden contains mint, basil, Thai basil, cilantro, parsley, sage and rosemary. Patients, families, staff and visitors are welcome to take a cutting from the herbs to use when preparing meals. Cutting the herbs helps them grow and, in turn, yield more herbs.

The garden is symbolic of several core values of the PCS department, such as including the family as a key part of the care team; promoting cooking and living a healthy lifestyle; and incorporating healing and caring modalities.

“The beauty found in nature can enhance healing,” said Fagan. “Seeing a beautiful garden helps our patients, their families and our staff relieve stress, which benefits their well-being.”

McManus and Fagan encourage all BWH staff with or without a green thumb to join them in their gardening and healthy eating efforts. For more information, call 617-732-6636.

The Nutrition and Food Services departments host a Heart-Healthy Cooking Demo on the first Wednesday of every month from 2 to 2:30 p.m. on the second floor of 75 Francis St., near the entrance to the Shapiro bridge.