Mass General Brigham (MGB) (formerly Partners HealthCare) is a not-for-profit,[5] integrated health care system[6] that engages in medical research,[7] teaching,[8] and patient care. It is the largest hospital-based research enterprise in the United States, with annual funding of more than $2 billion.[9] The system's annual revenue was nearly $18 billion in 2022.[10] It is also an educational institution, founded by Brigham and Women's Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital.[11][12][13] The system provides clinical care through two academic hospitals, three specialty hospitals, seven community hospitals, home care services, a health insurance plan, and a robust network of specialty practices, urgent care facilities, and outpatient clinics/surgical centers. It is the largest private employer in Massachusetts.[14] In 2023, the system reported that from 2017–2021 its overall economic impact was $53.4 billion – more than the annual state budget.[15]
In 1994, fueled by economic and political pressure to cut costs on patient care and health care education, the two hospitals merged to create a new parent corporation: Partners HealthCare.[17] The two entities continued to operate largely independently, and remained competitors in multiple areas, until 2019.[18][19]
In 2015, Partners launched an electronic health record (EHR) system, allowing doctors, nurses, and other caregivers easier access patients' medical history. The effort computerized millions of health records across the system, creating one record for each Partners patient, allowing information to be more easily shared among caregivers.[20]
In 2016, the system moved to into their current headquarters, located in Somerville's Assembly Row. The building allowed Mass General Brigham to merge 14 other offices.[21][22]
In 2019, 25 years after the founding of Partners, the health system made the decision to fully integrate the organization under the new name "Mass General Brigham".[23]
Mass General Brigham has 2.5 million patients annually, generating $18 billion in operating revenue and more than $2 billion in research funding. Brigham and Women's and Massachusetts General are consistently ranked among the best hospitals in America,[24] while Massachusetts Eye and Ear,[25]McLean,[26] and Spaulding[27] are also among the nation's best in their respective specialties.
Its current President and CEO is Dr. Anne Klibanski.[28]
Board of Directors
The system's current Board of Directors consists of the following members:[29]
Executive Committee of the Board
Scott M. Sperling (Chairman) – Co-Chief Executive Officer at Thomas H. Lee Partners[30]
The following is a lists of medical firsts and milestones accomplished by Mass General Brigham institutions:[67][68]
1811: Massachusetts General Hospital opens and becomes the first teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School.
1818: The Asylum for the Insane, a division of Mass General, opens as the first hospital in New England to treat mental illness. In 1892, it is renamed McLean Hospital, which is known today as the flagship mental health hospital of Harvard Medical School and Mass General Brigham.
1832: The Boston Lying-in Hospital was founded in Boston, MA, as one of the nation's first maternity hospitals dedicated to women unable to afford in-home medical care. It is the first of Brigham and Women's Hospital predecessor institutions.
1837: The first North American book on tumors was written by MGH co-founder Dr. John Collins Warren.
1841: MGH's Warren Library became the first general hospital library in the U.S.
1846: William T.G. Morton, MD, and John Collins Warren, MD, of Mass General perform the first successful public demonstration of surgical ether anesthesia.
1846: The "first truly significant medical patent ever issued" was U.S. Patent No. 4848. It was given to Drs. Charles T. Jackson and William T. G. Morton for the discovery of sulfuric ether as a surgical anesthetic.
1870: MGH's Dr. James Clarke White opened the first ward in North America dedicated to skin diseases; the following year, he became the first American professor of dermatology.
1888: MGH opened the Bradlee Operating Theater, the first aseptic operating room in U.S.
1896: Walter J. Dodd, an apothecary and photographer at MGH, produced the first X-ray exposure in a U.S. hospital.
1900: Two 1878 graduates of the Massachusetts General Hospital Training School for Nurses, Sophia Palmer and Mary E. P. Davis, founded the American Journal of Nursing, the first independent nursing publication to be owned and operated by nurses.
1905: Though MGH's Ida M. Cannon and Dr. Richard Cabot are credited with establishing the first Social Service department located within a hospital.
1914: MGH physician Dr. Paul Dudley White introduced the use of the electrocardiogram (ECG) in the U.S.
1926: Harvey Cushing, MD, performs the first surgery using an electrosurgical generator in an operating room at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital.
1929: The first polio victim is saved using the newly developed Drinker respirator (iron lung) at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital.
1934: Under the leadership of Dr. Richard C. Cabot, MGH became the first hospital in the country to offer a pastoral care training program.
1937: A man of many "firsts", MGH endocrinologist Dr. Fuller Albright described what came to be known as Albright Syndrome.
1939: MGH's Dr. Edward D. Churchill, who performed the first successful pericardiectomy in the United States, developed the technique of segmental resection of the lung for certain infections like bronchiectasis.
1940: MGH's Ada Plumer became the first "official IV [intravenous] nurse" in the U.S. Until that time, it had been a medical role.
1949: Carl Walter, MD, invents and perfects a way to collect, store and transfuse blood at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital.
1954: The first successful human organ transplant, a kidney transplant, is accomplished at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital. Joseph Murray, MD, receives the Nobel Prize for this work.
1955: Drs. Wilma Jeanne Canada and Leonard W. Cronkhite, Jr., both residents in radiology at MGH, were the first to recognize the syndrome that bears their name, Cronkhite–Canada Syndrome.
1960: Dwight Harken, MD inserts the first prosthetic aortic valve directly into a human heart at the site of the biological valve. He also implants the first "demand" pacemaker and pioneers the use of the first pacemakers at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital.
1962: MGH's Dr. Ronald Malt and his team led the first successful limb replantation after twelve-year-old Everett "Red" Knowles's arm had been severed in an accident.
1963: MGH's Dr. Charles Huggins helped revolutionize blood bank procedures through his invention of the cytoglomerator, enabling freezing and storing red blood cells for extended periods.
1968: The first telemedicine system, which linked a medical station at Boston's Logan Airport with doctors at MGH, was established.
1969: Considered the "father of modern-day tracheal surgery" in the United States, MGH's Dr. Hermes Grillo developed original operations for disorders that were once considered uncorrectable.
1971: Three MGH physicians: Drs. Howard Ulfelder, Arthur L. Herbst and David C. Poskanzer, were the first to discover the link between the vaginal clear cell adenocarcinoma and the drug DES (diethylstilbestrol), at one time prescribed to prevent miscarriages.
1976: Brigham and Women's Hospital researchers launch the Nurses' Health Study, enrolling 122,000 women in America's first and largest women's health study.
1978: MGH's Dr. Jeffrey B. Cooper, with colleagues at MGH and MIT, developed the "Boston Anesthesia System," the first anesthesia machine engineered by way of human-factors studies, and the first with computer-based operations.
1981: Faulker Hospital makes history by being the first to successfully transfuse a patient with "rejuvenated blood".
1983: Dr. Allan Goroll, a pioneer of modern primary care, collaborated with his MGH colleagues on the first textbook in that field.
1989: MGH became the first hospital in the U.S. whose library had an online catalog
1991: Dr. Jack Belliveau, researcher in MGH's Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, reported the first demonstration of functional MRI (fMRI).
1995: The Brigham performs the nation's first triple organ transplant, removing three organs from a single donor—two lungs and a heart—and transplanting them into three patients.
1999: MGH's Dr. Thomas Spitzer and colleagues reported on the first-ever organ transplant carried out with the intention of stopping antirejection therapy.
2000: In what is believed to be a first in organ transplantation, the Brigham performs a quadruple transplant, harvesting four organs from a single donor—a kidney, two lungs and a heart—and transplanting them into four patients.
2007: MGH surgeons performed the first total hip replacement using a joint socket lined with a novel material invented at MGH.
2009: Brigham surgeons complete the second partial facial transplant in the United States.
2011: A multidisciplinary team at Brigham and Women's Hospital, led by Bohdan Pomahac, MD, performs the first full-face transplant in the U.S.
2015: An international team led by MGH researchers identified the first gene that causes mitral valve prolapse.
2016: The Brigham performs the first bilateral arm transplant on a patient injured during military service.
2016: MGH was the first hospital in the country where a liver transplant was performed using what doctors loosely call "liver in a box", a portable device.
2016: A surgical team led by MGHers Drs. Curtis L. Cetrulo, Jr. and Dicken S.C. Ko performed the country's first genitourinary vascularized composite allograft (penile) transplant.
2017: MGH's Dr. Bradley E. Bernstein, along with colleagues from MGH, Mass. Eye and Ear, and the Broad Institute at MIT, created the first atlas of head and neck cancer.
Innovations and ventures
Mass General Brigham is the largest hospital system-based research enterprise in America, with an annual research budget exceeding $2 billion. It is the top system for National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding in the world, receiving $1.04 billion from NIH in 2022.
The system's funding for research has grown from $1.5 billion in 2012 to $2.3 billion in 2023, with nearly 2/3 of the funds coming from outside of Massachusetts. Research revenues in 2022 were $2.2 billion. In 2023, the system said it had over 2,700 ongoing clinical trials, focused on accelerating new treatments and therapies. Among the system's recent innovations: Visudyne for macular degeneration, Enbrel for rheumatoid arthritis, Eloctate and Alprolix for hemophilia, Entyvio for crohn's disease, and total joint replacements such as Durasul, Longevity, E1, and Vicacit-E.[15]
Expansion and influence
In May 2000, CEO Dr. Samuel Thier and William C. Van Faasen, CEO of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts—the state's biggest health insurer—agreed to a deal that raised insurance costs all across Massachusetts.[69] They agreed that Van Faasen would substantially increase insurance payments to Mass General Brigham doctors and hospitals, largely correcting the underpayments of the previous 10 years. However, Partners issued a statement saying that Thier pledged only that he would treat all insurers equally.[13] According to Boston Globe investigative journalists, Blue Cross and other insurers increased the rate they paid Mass General Brigham by 75 percent between 2000 and 2008, though CEO James J. Mongan argued insurance rates in Massachusetts have gone up at roughly the same rate as the national average.[13][70]
In 2013, Mass General Brigham's plan to take over 378-bed South Shore Hospital in Weymouth was reviewed due to fears that the expansion plan is anticompetitive, a conduct Mass General Brigham had been accused of over the past four years in other cases.[71][72] In 2015, the system abandoned their plans to invest $200 million into the hospital.[73]
In April 2017, the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts announced that Partners HealthCare System and one of its hospitals, Brigham and Women's Hospital, agreed to pay a $10 million fine to resolve allegations that a stem cell research lab fraudulently obtained federal grant funding. Federal prosecutors commended the Brigham for disclosing allegations of fraudulent research at the lab and for taking steps to prevent future recurrences of such conduct.[74]
In May 2017, Partners announced they would be cutting more than $600 million in expenses over the next three years in an effort to control higher costs and to become more efficient. The cost-cutting initiative was called Partners 2.0, and the plan looked to reduce costs in research, care delivery, revenue collection, and supply chain. The plan began on October 1, 2017 and eliminated jobs. The company lost $108 million in 2016,[1] but was profitable in 2017 despite industry turmoil.[75]
In February 2018, Partners announced that 100 coders would have their jobs outsourced to India in a cost saving move. This was all part of the non-profit hospital and physicians network's three-year plan to reduce $500 million to $800 million in overhead costs. CEO Dr. David Torchiana said the job cuts were a financial necessity, adding that most sectors outsource call centers and back-office functions.[4]
During the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, Partners HealthCare, who reported operating income of $484 million (3.5% operating margin) in fiscal year 2019,[76] refused hazard pay to its healthcare workers despite lack of proper PPE. However, they did not layoff or furlough any employees during the pandemic, while cutting executive salaries.[77] The system explained it does not calibrate pay and benefits based upon patients' conditions, because a core part of its mission is delivering the same high-quality care to all patients regardless of the severity of their condition. Partners also provided employees with pay and benefits for those unable to work due to COVID-related illness, eight weeks of pay for those temporarily without work, and hotel rooms for employees.[73]
Mass General Brigham reported a loss of operations of $432 million (−2.6% operating margin) in fiscal year 2022 due to historic cost inflation, significant workforce shortages, and a worsening capacity crisis. Many health care systems and hospitals nationwide are experiencing the worst year financially since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. In response, the system announced its plan for a long-term sustainable future, which includes the following initiatives: Advancing integration to improve patient care and identify efficiencies, addressing the labor shortage by building workforce pipelines, and reducing expenses.[78][79]
