Partners HealthCare

MISSION: To serve the community by enhancing patient care, focusing on teaching and research, and taking a leadership role as an integrated health care system. Partners recognizes that increasing value and continuously improving quality are essential to maintaining excellence. DESCRIPTION: Partners HealthCare is an integrated health system founded by Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital. Partners offers patients a continuum of coordinated high-quality care. In addition to its two academic medical centers, the Partners HealthCare system also includes community hospitals, specialty hospitals, community health centers, a physician network, home health and long-term care services, and other health-related entities. Partners HealthCare is one of the nation’s leading biomedical research organizations and a principal teaching affiliate of Harvard Medical School. IMPACT: Through its High Performance Medicine Initiative, Partners is seeking to improve in five key areas. Over the past four years, Partners has made significant progress in each of these areas: 1. Maximizing the use of new information technology. 2. Increasing patient safety and reducing medical errors. 3. Making high quality uniform across the Partners system. 4. Better coordinating care for the sickest and most expensive patients. 5. Improving efficiency in the use of high-cost drugs and radiology tests.