PHMI Blog - Blog from Partners Harvard Medical International

Today Asan Medical Center and Partners Harvard Medical International kicked off the first day of their sixth joint scientific symposium. The program, entitled “Present and Future of Neuroscience: From Molecules to Human Disease,” is being held in Seoul June 26-27.

Asan Medical Center, Korea’s largest tertiary care center, has a relationship with PHMI dating back to 1996. In addition to offering this biennial symposium, Asan and PHMI collaborate on a number of activities and programs focused on enhancing clinical care and research at Asan Medical Center.

This year’s symposium features discussions on neurodegeneration and repair, stroke, Parkinson’s disease, psychiatry, and other topics related to neuroscience. Among the Harvard Medical School faculty slated to participate are Dr. Rudolph Tanzi and Dr. Eng Lo of Massachusetts General Hospital and Dr. Michael Wolfe of Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

The University Hospital in Dubai has been recognized with the award for best design of a hospital in the making. The award was given at the inaugural “Hospital Build Middle East” conference in Dubai. 

The University Hospital was conceived as the centerpiece of the new Maktoum Academic Medical Center in Dubai Healthcare City. When it opens (estimated 2011) it will be the premier tertiary care teaching hospital in Dubai. Partners Harvard Medical International (PHMI) has served as the lead planner for the hospital during what has been a unique process of development. More than 40 faculty members from various Harvard Medical School-affiliated teaching hospitals joined with PHMI to participate in the planning of the hospital’s clinical and functional service lines.

This is the second major recognition for the University Hospital. In November, Partners Harvard Medical International and Ellerbe Becket (the architecture firm on the project) were awarded a Certificate of Merit by Healthcare Design magazine, at their annual conference and architectural showcase.

A June 10th op-ed in the New York Times entitled “Overseas, Under the Knife” looks at the rise of medical tourism — specifically the growing numbers of Americans who are opting to undergo surgery overseas “because the allure of good care at half the price is too good to pass up.”

Dr. Arnold Milstein and his co-writers point to Wockhardt — a Partners Harvard Medical International collaborator since 2001 — as an example of a  ”well-regarded” hospital in India offering care at prices “60 to 90 percent lower than those of the average American hospital.”

The authors also point out that while “medical tourism” has largely referred to cosmetic procedures, more and more people are looking abroad for complex procedures like heart surgery and knee replacement. This poses its own questions (which the op-ed explores, referencing the standard notes of skepticism with regards to seeking care outside the United States), but as the authors point out, accreditation by Joint Commission International (JCI) gives at least some indication of a foreign hospital’s commitment to providing quality care.

Wockhardt hospitals in Mumbai in Bangalore are among the more than 200 hospitals that JCI has accredited. While this accreditation does not measure patient outcomes, it does evaluate the systems and processes that a health care organization has put in place in order to enable them to provide high-quality care. Intensive collaborations between leadership and staff at Wockhardt and Partners Harvard Medical International have focused on putting the right things in place — including not just policies and procedures, but importantly, the right quality-focused culture — to help Wockhardt meet the standards set by JCI.

Milstein and co-authors go on to suggest the adoption of a way for American hospitals to track the frequency of short-term surgical complications, and also suggests that foreign hospitals and doctors be invited to participate. Such comparisons, they write, would not only help inform patients who are thinking about traveling abroad for health care, but also “allow us to learn if our care is the world’s best — and to accelerate our improvement efforts if it is not.” This is an important change in mindset where medical tourism is concerned. For many underinsured Americans, heart surgery in India – whether accompanied by a visit to the Taj Mahal or not — is not medical tourism. It’s just an attempt to get the care they need at a price they can afford.

In May, representatives of PHMI visited faculty and administrators of Lebanese American University’s Gilbert and Rose-Mary Chagoury School of Medicine for an annual Joint Advisory Board meeting and a faculty development workshop. PHMI has been assisting LAU as  it prepares to welcomes its first medical student class later this year. During the visit, three faculty from PHMI sat down for a round-table interview about the LAU project.

Dr. Daniel C. Tosteson, who served as Dean of Harvard Medical School (HMS) from 1977 to 1997, died on May 27th after a long illness. He was 84 years old.

Under Dr. Tosteson’s leadership the Medical School underwent a dramatic transformation that included a radical reform of the medical curriculum and a reorganization of the School’s academic departments. The restructured curriculum, known as the “New Pathway” program, set the standard for medical education in the United States and abroad. During his tenure Dr. Tosteson also oversaw a nearly ninefold increase in the School’s endowment, which helped to finance major infrastructure projects as well as an increase in the size of the faculty.

Dr. Tosteson is also credited with expanding the scope of HMS beyond the Medical School Quad and the affiliated teaching hospitals. He was instrumental in the creation of Harvard Medical International (HMI) in 1994. His vision for HMI was that the organization, as a self-supporting subsidiary of Harvard University, would serve as the vehicle through which institutions outside the U.S. drew upon the School’s innovations in education and research to improve the quality of health care around the world. Dr. Tosteson’s charge to HMI was to “do good by doing well,” words that inform the organization’s mission to this day. Dr. Tosteson chaired HMI’s Board of Directors while serving as dean, and continued to advise the leadership of HMI after his retirement in 1997.

In recent months Partners Harvard Medical International has added several new members to the team.

In Boston:

• Dr. Rick van Pelt, Director
• Dr. Anthony Carpenter, Associate Director
• Susan Lin, Program Assistant
• Matthew Maguire, Web & Communications Manager
• Elizabeth O’Connor, Program Assistant
• Chris Rizzo, Network Adminstrator
• Anne Stevenson, Program Coordinator

For PHMI’s team in Dubai:

• Dr. Tobias Barker, Director of Medical Simulation at Harvard Medical School Dubai Center
• Kate Mullally, Director of Licensing at the DHCC Center for Planning & Quality

Welcome to all of the new PHMI staff!

PHMI WORLD is now featuring a stem cell training course that is connecting Latin American researchers with scientists at Harvard University. In our September issue you can also learn about how top German medical students are reshaping their school’s curriculum via a unique student program that Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich.

Also in PHMI WORLD:

• Six staff members from Asan Medical Center in Korea complete Harvard observerships
• Progress in education and patient care at Sri Ramachandra University in India
• Other news and updates from Dubai, Singapore, and China

Massachusetts General Hospital and Brigham & Women’s Hospital — the two Harvard Medical School teaching institutions that are also the co-founders of Partners HealthCare — both made the top 10 of the US News & World Report’s annual health care honor roll. Boston is the only city in the United States to have two hospitals ranked in the top 10.

From the Partners announcement:

Partners hospitals also scored well in the individual specialties rankings, rating among the top ten in 13 of the 16 fields.  BWH ranked first in kidney disease for the second consecutive year, while also earning the top ranking in gynecology.  MGH was ranked first in psychiatry for the thirteenth consecutive year, while McLean Hospital ranked fourth place in psychiatry, continuing to be the highest-ranking freestanding psychiatric hospital on the list.  Spaulding placed seventh in rehabilitation, and was again the only New England rehabilitation hospital making the list. In addition, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, with which Partners formed Dana-Farber/Partners CancerCare, ranked fifth nationally in cancer, while the MGH Cancer Center ranked seventh.

MGH was among the top ten hospitals in the country in eleven specialties, including psychiatry, cancer, cardiology, endocrinology, digestive disorders, geriatrics, neurology/neurosurgery, kidney disease, orthopedics, respiratory disease, and rheumatology. 

BWH ranked in the top ten hospitals in the country in five categories, including kidney disease, cardiology, endocrinology, gynecology, and rheumatology.

U.S. News analyzed data on 5,453 medical centers to produce this year’s rankings.  Only 170 hospitals were ranked in one or more specialties and, of those, just 19 were of Honor Roll caliber.

You can read the entire US News report here.

Partners Harvard Medical International (PHMI), in association with the Medical Education Unit of the National University of Singapore (NUS) Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, will present a continuing education course entitled “A Systems Approach to Assessment in Medical Education.” The course, based on programs developed by the Harvard Macy Institute, is the fifth jointly offered education program of PHMI and NUS. During the four-day course, faculty and participants will focus on the critical assessment issues facing medical educators today, including how to measure and access the effectiveness of educators, departments, and institutions.

Participant Objectives

• Develop an institutional vision and mission
• Understand and apply the principles of assessment theory
• Analyze approaches to assessment
• Translate educational goals into measurable outcomes
• Design assessment systems that support continuous quality improvement

Program Co-Directors

• Elizabeth Armstrong, PhD, Senior Consultant at PHMI and Clinical Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School
• H. Thomas Aretz, MD, Vice President of PHMI and Associate Professor of Pathology at Harvard Medical School

Dates: October 20-23, 2008 

Registration: Registration for the course is on a first-come, first-serve basis, with a deadline of August 15, 2008. To register, please contact Jocelyn Kwan via email at jocelynkwan@nus.edu.sg or by telephone at 6516 8123.

Lebanese newspaper The Daily Star reports that construction has begun on the LAU Medical School. From the article:

Once completed, the 12,500-square-meter 21st-century structure will house both the new medical school and the Alice Ramez Chaghoury School of Nursing. The $18-million state-of-the-art complex will be the nation’s most technologically advanced medical school - a world-class facility with video streaming, videoconferencing, digitized collections of microscope slides, multi-disciplinary laboratories, an electronic library, and 24/7 cyber cafe.

The new medical school will contain a simulation and skill assessment center for patient encounters, including a mock-up laboratory, full-scale-simulation surgical-procedure room, multi-purpose bays and control room.

“The underlying concept behind the design is to build the medical and nursing school around people rather than just technology. Fundamental human needs like comfort, and social ambiance will take prominence. The blueprint allows for ample natural light and large windows to maximize daytime illumination for a motivating atmosphere and inspirational view,” said LAU’s public relations director Christian Oussi.

. . .

Since becoming LAU’s president in 2004, professor Joseph G. Jabbra has been the driving force behind LAU’s aggressive and unprecedented $100 million expansion campaign.

“The establishment of the Medical School is an integral part of our exceptional achievements; building upon past successes,” said Jabbra. “The Medical School was also established to fill the void created by not having proper indigenous disease research in the region,” he added.

See additional coverage from this blog and revisit the beginnings of the LAU-PHMI collaboration.