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People, Facilities & Services

The Massachusetts General Hospital is known around the world as a premier academic teaching and research hospital with distinguished physicians and research scientists, a highly skilled nursing staff, a dedicated workforce, and state-of-the-art technology and facilities. Since the founding of its charter in 1811, Mass General has focused on building and maintaining the best possible structure for delivering quality care – both in terms of its physical facilities as well as its staff and technical capabilities. Below is a snapshot of some highlights of the hospital’s people, facilities, research and services.

People

The MGH takes pride in hiring the best and brightest and investing in their professional development. The hospital is one of the largest private employers in Boston, with 21,450 employees in 2009. MGH staff includes about 4,000 registered nurses; 200 primary care physicians; and 2,600 specialists. There are more than 2,300 research scientists and fellows. In addition, more than 3,800 allied health workers and over 13,500 employees in other roles support the hospital’s daily operations.

Honors for Physicians, Nurses, and Research Scientists

As of December 2009, 24 MGH physicians are members of the Institute of Medicine and eight MGH research scientists are members of the National Academy of Sciences. Other recent honors to MGH staff include the following:

Jack W. Szostak, PhD, of the Department of Molecular Biology and the Center for Computational and Integrative Biology, was named a co-recipient of the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Szostak received the international prize for his work predicting and then discovering telomerase, an enzyme that builds and maintains the protective caps at the tips of chromosomes. In 2006 Szostak was a co-recipient of the Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research for the same work.

Gary Ruvkun, PhD, of the MGH Department of Molecular Biology, was a co-recipient of the 2008 Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research. Ruvkun and his colleagues were honored for their discovery that tiny molecules of RNA can control the activity of critical genes in animals and plants. The Lasker Awards are often considered the American version of the Nobel Prize, and many Lasker recipients have gone on to win the Nobel.

Two MGH scientists — Bradley Bernstein, MD, PhD, Department of Pathology, and Konrad Hochedlinger, PhD, Center for Regenerative Medicine – were among the first group of Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Early Career Scientists, announced in May 2009. Among 50 recipients of the six-year HHMI grants designed to fully fund their work, both investigators are also affiliated with the MGH Cancer Center.

MGH investigators Frederick Ausubel, PhD, of the Department of Molecular Biology, and Sylvie Breton, PhD, of the Program in Membrane Biology in the Center for Systems Biology and the Renal Unit, were among the first recipients of Transformative R01 Awards, established in September 2009 by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to support innovative research projects that have the potential to overturn scientific dogma.

Two of the six 2009 Nursing Excellence National Nurse of the Year honorees are MGH nurses. Grace Good, APRN, BC, team leader of Team 5 in the Hospitalist Medical Service, and Adele L. Keeley, RN, BSN, MA, nursing director of the Medical Intensive Care Unit, received top honors in the Clinical Care and Management categories, respectively.

The discovery of four potential new Alzheimer's disease genes by Rudolph Tanzi, PhD, director of the MGH-MIND Genetics and Aging Research Unit, and Lars Bertram, PhD, of MGH-MIND, was named to Time magazine’s list of the "Top Ten Medical Breakthroughs of 2008." The better understanding of how these and other genes may increase the risk of developing the disease may lead to the development of future therapies.

MGH: A Great Place to Work Receives Honors

With its comprehensive benefits for a diverse workforce, the MGH has been recognized among the nation's top employers many times over the years.

A number of publications have recognized the MGH among the Best Places to Work in the nation. The Boston Globe named the MGH to its list of Best Places to Work in 2008, 2009, and 2010 and Conceive Magazine and Becker's Hospital Review/Becker's ASC Review named the MGH to their lists of Best Places to Work in 2010. The Scientist has recognized the MGH to its Best Places to Work in Academia list in 2007, 2008, 2009, and 2010. The MGH has also been named to The Scientist's 2011 Best Places to Work for Post-Docs list.  Commended for supporting a diverse workforce, DiversityInc named the MGH to its list of Top Five Hospital Systems in 2010.

MGH's Be Fit program, a hospital initiative that makes healthy nutrition and exercise a workplace priority, has been lauded by the international Alliance for Work-Life Progress with its Work-Life Innovation Excellence Award, and the American Heart Association recently recognized MGH in 2008, 2009, and 2010 with its Start! Fit Friendly Award in the gold category for the hospital's work promoting healthy eating, a wellness culture, and activities that improve physical activity among employees.

Facilities

The MGH campus includes 25 buildings in downtown Boston as well as 11 outpatient care and seven research facilities off campus. Taken together, these comprise the largest teaching and research hospital for Harvard Medical School.

Several structures on the MGH campus embody the collaborative approach to science and medicine at the hospital. The Lunder Building, which began occupancy in the summer of 2011, is a welcome addition to the clinical facilities on campus. The building will increase the total number of inpatient beds by 150, create 28 new procedure rooms and a significant number of pre- and post-procedure bays, and expand, co-locate and enhance services in cancer, the neurosciences, radiation oncology and emergency services. The Richard B. Simches Research Center houses 25 percent of the hospital's total research space while incorporating four thematic research centers to foster new and exciting collaborations among scientists from different disciplines. In the same way, the Yawkey Center for Outpatient Care incorporates a number of outpatient services under one roof cultivating clinical collaboration and access to multiple disciplines. In 2009, the Ragon Institute was established with the generous support from the Phillip T. and Susan M. Ragon Foundation, creating a model of scientific collaboration that links the clinical, translational and basic science expertise at MGH, MIT, Harvard and the Broad Institute to tackle the greatest global health challenges related to infectious disease research.

Finally, as a world-renowned research institution, Mass General has 22.5 acres of research labs, with more than 700,000 square feet of bench-research space on three campuses. MGH has annual research funding of more than $619 million, making it the largest hospital-based research program in the United States.

Technology

While MGH may be the oldest and largest hospital in the New England area, it is also a national leader in developing and refining information technology for patient records, research, education and clinical care – from the operating room to patient rooms. A survey by the American Hospital Association found that MGH has the highest number of technologies as compared to other teaching hospitals in the Boston area with 17 of 18 possible technologies available at MGH – including key services and specialized inpatient and outpatient services, as well as diagnostic and therapeutic imaging services such as proton beam therapy at the Francis H. Burr Proton Therapy Center.

Regularly investing resources in a variety of equipment and systems to ensure patient safety and prevent errors, the hospital has implemented a number of helpful technologies. One initiative, which was completed in 2009, is a hospital-wide electronic medication administration system intended to enhance patient medication safety and prevent medication-related adverse events by electronically linking the systems clinicians use to order, dispense and administer medications. Called the Electronic Medication Administration Process for Patient Safety (EMAPPS), the system incorporates the scanning of bar-coded medications, patient wristbands and clinician ID badges.

The hospital also has installed “smart pumps,” which aid in the administration of many intravenous agents, and in 2007, ceiling lifts, which help to safely lift and maneuver patients were implemented at MGH. In 2008, MGH Imaging, implemented the Duplicate Exam notification feature in its Radiology Order Entry System across Radiology areas. This new feature alerts referring physicians if a similar imaging test or procedure already has been performed recently on the patient within the Partners network.

Services

MGH offers sophisticated diagnostic and therapeutic care in virtually every specialty and subspecialty of medicine and surgery. The Heart Center, the Cancer Center, orthopaedics, obstetrics and digestive specialties are the largest of its 18 clinical services. Each year, MGH provides services for nearly 50,000 admissions. Its emergency and ambulatory care facilities handle about 1.3 million visits. MGH also sponsors graduate medical education in 17 of those core specialties, including Medicine, Pediatrics, Surgery, Psychiatry, Dermatology, Radiology, Pathology, Anesthesiology, the Neurosciences and more than 90 subspecialties.

MGH services have been recognized in many ways for its excellence. Most recently:

MGH continues to rank among the top hospitals by U.S. News and World Report, placing second among the nation's best hospitals in 2011-12. The MGH also received top honors in the following specialties: cancer, cardiology and heart surgery, diabetes and endocrinology, gastroenterology, geriatrics, gynecology, nephrology, neurology and neurosurgery, orthopedics, psychiatry, respiratory disorders, rheumatology and urology. For the 16th year in a row, MGH Psychiatry was ranked the leading program in the country. MassGeneral Hospital for Children was also ranked nationally by U.S. News and World Report in the following specialties: diabetes and endocrinology, gastroenterology, nephrology, neurology and neurosurgery, orthopedics and pulmonology.

On April 15, 2008 MGH received official notification that it had been re-designated as a Magnet hospital for another four years by the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC). Magnet recognition is the ANCC's highest honor for nursing excellence and has been awarded to fewer than five percent of hospitals nationwide. In 2003, MGH had the distinct honor of being designated the first hospital in Massachusetts to be awarded Magnet Nursing Services Recognition by the ANCC.

 

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