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NEWS OF NOTE FROM BIDMC
BIDMC primary care physician Tom Delbanco, M.D., and co-investigator Jan Walker, R.N., M.B.A., recently launched a year-long study called OpenNotes, which will examine the effects of making doctors’ notes accessible to patients. Funded with a $1.5 million grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the project will involve 25,000 patients and their primary care physicians at BIDMC, Geisinger Health System in rural Pennsylvania and Harborview Medical Center in Seattle. The researchers’ report on the early stages of the study in the Annals of Internal Medicine and the project’s recent launch received extensive coverage in the media, including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Reuters, HealthDay, and Newsweek. Also check out a video about Open Notes.
BIDMC physician Mitchell T. Rabkin, M.D., has devised a new health care reform plan with consultant Jack Cook that calls for the end of the current fee-for-service pay structure and would make doctors and patients accountable for the cost of their care. See the archived Boston Herald article for more.
BIDMC was recognized as one of the nation’s top hospitals in the US News & World Report “Best Hospitals” edition, placing among the leaders in seven clinical specialty categories. According to the magazine, the medical center is among an elite group of 152 hospitals nationally—only 3 percent of the nation’s 4,852 hospitals—to rank in at least one of 16 specialties. Check out the BIDMC press release for more.
BIDMC was recognized as one of the nation’s “Most Wired” hospitals according to the results of the 2010 Most Wired Survey released in the July issue of Hospitals & Health Networks magazine. See the BIDMC press release for more.
BIDMC Chief of Pathology Jeffrey Saffitz, M.D., Ph.D., BIDMC pathologist Mark Boguski, M.D., Ph.D., and colleagues recently published a call to action in the American Journal of Clinical Pathology (AJCP) for bringing their field up to speed in genomics and making the area a core competency for all pathology trainees by 2012. Their report coincides with a new training program for pathology residents at BIDMC, one of the first of its kind in the U.S., to immerse them in genomics and prepare them for leading their patients into the age of personalized medicine. See their original report in the AJCP, commentary on genomeweb, and the BIDMC press release for more details.
BIDMC’s Akash Patnaik, M.D., Ph.D., recently received The Prostate Cancer Foundation’s Young Investigator Award, which includes a three-year $225,000 grant to support his work. Patnaik is investigating the molecular mechanisms that link obesity to poorer outcomes in prostate cancer patients. The press announcement has more.
A preliminary research study led by Elizabeth Mostofsky, M.P.H., a member of the Cardiovascular Epidemiology Research Unit at BIDMC, has shown that the risk of stroke increases for two hours after drinking even a small amount of alcohol. Her team notes, however, that moderate drinking over the long term might actually reduce your risk of heart attack and stroke. Read more in the HealthDay article.
BIDMC’s new chief of nephrology, Martin Pollak, M.D., along with colleagues at the Universite Libre de Bruxelles in Belgium recently discovered that a gene called APOL1, which appears to protect people from sleeping sickness in Africa, also appears to make black Americans four times more likely to develop kidney disease. Their findings shed light on why U.S. blacks are far more likely than whites to suffer from kidney disease and could potentially lead to new treatments or even preventive measures. Check out the coverage from Fox News.
| CANCER CARE IN THE COMMUNITY |
BIDMC’s Cancer Center has joined forces with Commonwealth Hematology-Oncology, the largest community-based private cancer practice in New England, to create a new model for cancer care in eastern Massachusetts, which combines convenient regional care with access to the leading-edge oncology resources of a world-class academic medical center. Underlying the affiliation is the two organizations’ commitment to economic responsibility and their belief that the highest quality cancer care can be delivered efficiently. Find more details in The Boston Globe article, the Patriot Ledger article, and the BIDMC press release.
| DRIVING WITH DISTRACTIONS |
In a recent essay in The New England Journal of Medicine, BIDMC primary care physician Amy Ship, M.D., encouraged doctors to initiate discussions with their patients about the dangers of talking or texting on a cell phone while driving. Her call to action received extensive media coverage by The New York Times, The Boston Globe, Reuters, The Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times among others.
On June 13, the Boston Red Sox introduced the Red Sox Scholars Class of 2010 in an on-field ceremony with Red Sox players at Fenway Park prior to a Red Sox vs. Philadelphia Phillies game. The 25 new Red Sox Scholars, who will enter sixth grade in the fall, are all academically talented, financially challenged middle school students in the Boston Public Schools and join seven previous classes of Scholars. The Red Sox Scholars program is the educational cornerstone of the Red Sox Foundation and is presented by BIDMC, the Official Hospital of the Boston Red Sox. For more, see coverage at redsox.com and commentary, photos, and a video on Running A Hospital.
In the June issue of the journal Nature, a cancer genetics team led by Pier Paolo Pandolfi, M.D., Ph.D., director of research at the BIDMC Cancer Center, describes a new regulatory role for the genetic molecules RNA—independent of their already well-known protein-coding function—that relies on their ability to communicate with one another. Of potentially greater significance, this new function also holds true for thousands of noncoding RNAs, dramatically increasing the known pool of functional genetic information. Learn more in ScienceDaily, ScienceNews, and the BIDMC press release.
| ERRING ON THE SIDE OF OPENNESS |
As part of a $25 million effort funded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Kenneth Sands, M.D., M.P.H., BIDMC’s senior vice president of health care quality, recently received a $300,000 award to develop a plan for a liability system to disclose medical errors promptly and offer compensation by improving communication between patients and providers. See The Boston Globe article for more.
For the third consecutive year, BIDMC has been recognized by the Premier healthcare alliance as a winner of the Premier Award for Quality, one of 21 hospital winners and three health care systems nationwide ranked in the top 1 percent in the nation for patient care. Check out the BIDMC press release for more details.
At Grateful Nation, we make saying thank you an event. Sponsored by grateful patients and their friends and family, all our fundraisers support the great work of BIDMC. Learn more about attending our upcoming events—or even starting one of your own—at http://www.bidmcgiving.org/.
© Copyright 2010 Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center | 330 Brookline Avenue, Boston, MA 02215 | 617-667-7330
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