Mass General Brigham
Mass General Brigham is a Boston-based non-profit hospital and physicians network that includes Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) and Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), two of the nation's most prestigious teaching institutions. It was founded in 1994 with H. Richard Nesson, MD, former president of Brigham and Women's Hospital as CEO of Mass General Brigham and Samuel O. Thier, MD, formerly president of Massachusetts General Hospital as president. According to "The Boston Globe", by 2008, Mass General Brigham became Massachusetts' "largest private employer and its biggest healthcare provider, treating more than a third  of hospital patients in the Boston metropolitan area". History. In 1994, Brigham and Women's Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital were brought together by Partners founding co-chairs John H. McArthur and Ferdinand "Moose" Colloredo-Mansfeld. Jack Connors succeeded them as chair in 1996. In 2016, the then Partners Healthcare moved 14 sites in eastern Massachusetts and moved 4,500 non-hospital employees into of a new office building located in the Assembly Square neighborhood of Somerville, Massachusetts. Mass General Brigham's executive headquarters remained in the Prudential Tower in Boston. 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. 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. 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. In February 2018, the state of Massachusetts Public Health Council formally signed off on the acquisition of Massachusetts Eye and Ear. The deal was formalized on April 1, 2018. In a notice published on April 2, 2018 , Mass. Eye and Ear's President John Fernandez announce the finalization of the agreement to make MEE a part of the Partners HealthCare hospital and physicians network. On February 19, 2019 Partners named Dr. Anne Klibanski, as its interim chief executive officer of the hospital Network and will be effective in April 2019. In June 2019, Partners HealthCare announced Dr. Klibanski, who was named interim chief executive officer in February, now has been named the company's permanent president and chief executive officer. During the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, Partners HealthCare, who reported operating income of $484 million (3.5% operating  margin) in fiscal year 2019, refused hazard pay to its healthcare workers despite lack of proper PPE. Rebranding. In late November 2019, Partners HealthCare made the decision to rebrand as the new name Mass General Brigham to reflect upon the organization's best known assets, Massachusetts General Hospital and Brigham and Women's Hospital and to unify the largest employer in Massachusetts. The rebranding will allow Brigham and Women's and Massachusetts General to keep their individual hospital names, but is unclear if their various community hospitals will have a name change. Board of directors. Edward P. Lawrence, a retired  partner at the Boston law firm Ropes & Gray LLP replaced Jack Connors as Chairman in 2012. Scott M. Sperling became Chairman in 2018.   Jack Connors, the "Boston businessman and power broker" was the "highest profile figure" at Partners HealthCare System Inc. from 1996 to 2012. Connors and William C. Van Faasen, former CEO of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, co-chaired a business consortium that pushed for the state's universal health coverage law. Connors "worked behind the scenes" to get the Massachusetts health care reform law of 2006 passed. Mass General Brigham board members have included Earl M.  Collier, Yolonda L. Colson, M.D. (Brigham and Women's Hospital), Anne Finucane (Bank of America), Susan Hockfield (former MIT President), David W. Rattner, M.D. (Massachusetts General Hospital), Charles K. Gifford (Bank of America), Richard E. Holbrook (former Chairman and CEO, Eastern Bank), Albert A. Holman, III (Chestnut Partners Inc., investment banking), Wycliffe Grousbeck (Boston Celtics), Carl J. Martignetti (Martignetti Companies), Pamela Reeve (former CEO of Lightbridge), William M. Cowan (GE and former US Senator), Jay O. Light (former dean of the Harvard Business School), Maury E. McGough, MD, (North Shore Medical Center Board of Trustees), Cathy E. Minehan (CEO Federal  Reserve Bank of Boston 1994–2007), Jerold Rosenbaum (Chief of Psychiatry Massachusetts General Hospital), Alexander L. Thorndike (Century Capital Management), John Fish (Suffolk Construction), Scott Schoen (Baylon Capital Partners), Scott M. Sperling (Thomas H. Lee Partners investments), Diane B. Patrick (Ropes & Gray), Henri A. Termeer (Genzyme), Dorothy A. Terrell (founding board member of the Commonwealth Institute), James L. Kaplan (Cubic Asset Management), Lori Tishler, M.D., David Torchiana, M.D., and Gwill York, entrepreneur with tech and healthcare companies. York co-founded Lighthouse Capital Partners, based in Cambridge and Menlo Park, in 1994, and led investments in companies such as Vertex Pharmaceuticals, Millennium  Pharmaceuticals, Human Genome Sciences, Cascade Communications, Sirocco Systems, Speechworks, and StorageNetworks. James J. Mongan, MD, served president and chief executive of Mass General Brigham in 2003 to 2009. In 2008 "Modern Physician" magazine named Mongan as the "most powerful physician executive in America". He also received Modern Healthcare's CEO IT Achievement Award. Mongan asked "Connors, who readily admits knowing little about medicine" to extend his tenure. Gary L. Gottlieb, MD, became president and chief executive of Mass General Brigham at the end of 2009 and he asked Connors to remain in his position on the board. In 2015 David  F. Torchiana, MD, became president and CEO of Mass General Brigham. His total compensation for 2015 was nearly $4.3 million, with a base salary of $1.9 million, plus bonuses and retirement benefits. On January 28, 2019, Dr. Torchiana unexpectedly announced his departure as the chief executive of Mass General Brigham effective at the end of April 2019. According to "The Boston Globe", the reason for the departure was disagreements between Torchiana and the leaders of the two major hospitals that make up Mass General Brigham. Composition. Current members of Mass General Brigham include: Partners Continuing Care. Partners Continuing  Care is the Non-Acute Care Services Division of Mass General Brigham headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts. The organization provides rehabilitation, long term acute care, skilled nursing, home health care, and hospice services. Partners Continuing Care consists of the following organizations: Spaulding Rehabilitation Network. The Spaulding Rehabilitation Network is a provider of rehabilitation and medical management programs in the Greater Boston area. The network offers inpatient rehabilitation, outpatient rehabilitation, long-term acute care, and skilled nursing services. The main campus of the network is the Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital, a 132-bed rehabilitation teaching hospital located in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the  official teaching hospital for Harvard Medical School's Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation. Mass General Brigham International. Mass General Brigham International is a subsidiary of Mass General Brigham that focuses on the advancement of global health. PHI collaborates with foreign embassies, ministries of health, and universities overseas to improve health status indicators directly through patient care initiatives and indirectly through medical conferences and other educational programs for physicians and nurses. Mass General Brigham's biomedical research "juggernaut was larger than Harvard University's." and embarked on a multibillion-dollar expansion program that rivals those of all other Massachusetts hospitals  combined." A doctors' magazine recently named Mass General Brigham's current chief executive the most powerful physician executive in the nation. Expansion. 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. Blue Cross. Mass General Brigham CEO Thier led Mass General Brigham's efforts to demand higher payments from insurance companies. In May 2000 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. 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. Prior to this, Thier had informed all three managed care companies that they would all be paid at the same rate. 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.