HealthManagement, Volume 14, Issue 1/2012

From the 19th to the 25th of September2011, the Belgian Association of Hospital Managers organised a study trip to Boston, the capital of New England. Around 40 hospital manager stook this great opportunity to visit arange of interesting hospitals.


On the programme: Tufts Medical Centre, a world-class academic centre. This medical centre is the principal teaching hospital for Tufts University School of Medicine. They offer outstanding patient care to both adults and children, teach generations of future physicians the most advanced medical science and break newground with ongoing, innovative research.


Brigham and Women’s Hospital, world renowned in virtually every area of adult medicine. As a teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School, their leadership inpatient quality and safety, development of state-of-the-art treatments and technologies,and robust research programmes have improved the health of people around the world.


Massachusetts General Hospital the third oldest general hospital in the US andthe oldest and largest hospital in New England continues its tradition of excellence today. The Hospital was designated a Magnet hospital, the highest honour for nursing excellence awarded by the American Nurses Credentialing Centre.


Newton Wellesley Hospital is a member of Partners Healthcare, a network founded by Massachusetts General Hospital and Brigham and Women’s Hospital. This partner affiliation grants patients seamless accessibility to the finest community-based medicine as well asthe most advanced specialty care in th eworld. The hospital offers patients access to various centres of excellence.


Beth Israël Deaconess Medical Centre have assembled surgical and clinical expertise second to none, have a state-of-the-art trauma centre, developed sophisticated minimally invasive techniques and called on innovative training and technology to ensure the highest level of patient safety and quality of care. Each year, more than a quarter of a million patients and their families count on Beth Israël Deaconess Medical Centre.


And last but not least the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Research focuses on many topics – from biology and chemistry to political science, economics and linguistics – but when an issue is of global, immediate importance, MIT puts its effort where it is needed most.


Both the quality of the presenters, their presentations and the stakeholders gave us a better insight into the evolution of medicine in the United States and also the primary importance of quality in all their activities. The technologies used to achieve these quality objectives are very advanced and close to perfect. The desire to achieve these goals through these methods was omnipresent in all sites visited.


We can conclude that this study trip was for us one of the most successful that we have organised during the past ten years.


Jean-Pierre Vandervondelen

Vice-President, Belgian Association of Hospital Managers

Trip Organiser

 

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