Bryant Joins as BWH’s First Chief Compliance Officer

James Bryant, JD, joined BWH in November as the first chief compliance officer for the hospital and the Brigham and Women’s Physicians Organization.

“As we face an ever-growing number of external regulatory mandates, we are strengthening our commitment to develop the safest and most compliant environment of care,” said BWH President Gary Gottlieb, MD, MBA. “Jim will build on an already strong compliance foundation to make ours a top-notch program, and we welcome him to this new role.”

As chief compliance officer, Bryant is responsible for billing compliance, conflicts of interest, clinical trials billing compliance and the compliance hotline. He plans to work with his team to create an overall work plan for compliance throughout the hospital and to help BWH move towards a better coordinated, enterprise-wide compliance program. Bryant also will serve as a resource to assist departments that have billing and coding compliance staff issues.

“The fact that BWH has created this new position reflects the hospital’s commitment to maintaining the highest level of ethics and good citizenship, paralleling BWH’s commitment to provide the highest quality of care possible,” Bryant said. His work goes well beyond auditing records and reporting the results, and he looks forward to working with departments to manage risks and educate staff about changes in the law.

Bryant’s background in law and regulations is extensive. He joins BWH from the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS), where he spent the last nine years. As a regulator for CMS, he focused on helping providers understand the ever-changing Medicare regulations and working with them on reimbursements and fraud abuse. He most recently served as associate regional administrator of CMS. One of his biggest projects there was the initiation of a compliance effectiveness pilot. “The pilot looked at the outcomes and benefits of having compliance plans in place at hospitals,” he said.

A graduate of Yale University and the University of California at Berkeley School of Law, Bryant also worked with in the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office under Scott Harshbarger and began his legal career in private practice.

Gandhi Named Executive Director in CCE

Tejal Gandhi, MD, in October was named executive director of Quality and Safety in the Center for Clinical Excellence after seven years as the center’s director of Patient Safety. In her new role, Gandhi will continue to lead the patient safety efforts at BWH and Faulkner Hospital, overseeing measurement and improvement of publicly reported quality measures and the successful attainment of safety and quality-related pay for performance targets.

“Tejal has been instrumental to the ongoing success of BW/F patient safety efforts,” said Michael Gustafson, MD, MBA, vice president for Clinical Excellence at BW/F. “She is a leading figure nationally and internationally on ambulatory patient safety, as well as on the use of technology in improving health care quality and patient safety.”

Gandhi co-chairs the Partners HealthCare High Performance Medicine initiative on patient safety, leading the system-wide effort to standardize and disseminate patient safety best practices across all Partners institutions.

Owens Writes Q&A Health Column

Lisa Michelle Owens, MD, co-director of Brigham Primary Physicians at Faulkner Hospital, writes a regular primary care question and answer column in The Boston- Bay State Banner as part of the newspaper’s monthly health insert titled “Be Healthy.” The insert is part of a BWH and Partners HealthCare effort to reduce racial and ethnic disparities in health by improving health communication. The column focuses on topics such as cervical cancer, diabetes and heart disease. Leroi Hicks, MD, MPH, and Selwyn O. Rogers, Jr., MD, MPH, co-director of Surgical Critical Care and division chief of Trauma, Burns, and Surgical Critical Care, also contribute to the column.

Thompson House Renovations Underway

Thanks to the generosity of Thornton & Naumes, LLC, a Boston-based law firm that represents victim of asbestos-related diseases, including mesothelioma, BWH is renovating the Patrick Thompson House at 48 Francis St. When rehabilitation of the three-family house is complete this spring, it will provide low-cost housing for up to nine families to remain close to patients while they are being treated at BWH for mesothelioma.

Thornton & Naumes donated $1 million towards the project to renovate the Patrick Thompson House, which previously made one three-bedroom apartment available to families of patients receiving bone marrow transplants. The renovations are scheduled to be complete in May.

From left, Neil Liefer and Mike Thornton, both of Thornton & Naumes, LLC, BWH’s Martha Burke, Dave McMorris of Thornton & Naumes, and Dr. David Sugarbaker toured the Thompson House recently during renovations.

Haynes Honored by LSO

Harley Haynes, MD, vice chairman of the department of Dermatology, was honored at the Oct. 26 Longwood Symphony Orchestra concert at Symphony Hall with the “Excellence in Melanoma Care” award. The distinguished award, presented by the Children’s Melanoma Prevention Foundation and the Melanoma Educational Foundation, recognized Haynes for his outstanding and empathetic care to Melanoma patients. The concert featured Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9.

BWH Faculty Receive American Heart Association Awards

Several BWH faculty took home awards from the American Heart Association’s annual conference, with Michael Gimbrone, MD, chairman of the Department of Pathology, being named one of four AHA Distinguished Scientists for 2007. At its annual conference each year, the AHA recognizes distinguished scientists whose work has importantly advanced the understanding and management of cardiovascular disease and stroke. This year’s awards were presented during the AHA Scientific Session in November in Orlando.

Gimbrone, the Elsie T. Freidman Professor of Pathology at HMS and director of the Center for Excellence in Vascular Biology at BWH, was among the first to establish reproducible methods for the in vitro culture of endothelium and smooth muscle from human blood vessels and to use the tools of modern cell biology and molecular biology to dissect their functions in health and disease. His research focuses on the mechanisms of vascular disease, in particular the role of the endothelial cell in complex disease processes such as atherosclerosis, thrombosis and inflammation.

In addition, Marc Pfeffer, MD, PhD, the Victor J. Dzau Professor of Medicine at HMS in the Department of Medicine, won the AHA’s Clinical Research Prize for identifying destructive structural changes in diseased hearts and showing that therapies can limit damage in his clinical trials.

BWH’s Eugene Braunwald, MD, chair of the TIMI study group, served as the Distinguished Scientist Lecturer for the 2007 sessions, delivering an overview of Triton-TIMI 38, a head-to-head trial comparing clopidogrel and prasugrel.

Several other BWH faculty received awards during the AHA’s 2007 Scientific Sessions:

Susan Cheng, MD, finalist for Clinical Cardiology Levine Young Investigator Award;

Samia Mora, MD, finalist for EPI Elizabeth Barrett-Connor Award;

Ami Bhatt, MD, PhD, Judith Meadows, MD, and Amy Miller, MD, PhD, finalists for Clinical Cardiology Women in Cardiology Trainee Award for Excellence;

Marc Bonaca, MD, finalist for Clinical Cardiology Laennec Young Investigator Award;

Travel stipends were awarded to Ping-Yen Liu, for Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology Merit Award; Shoji Sanada, MD, Basic Cardiovascular Science Abstract, and Vincent Segers, MD, Basic Cardiovascular Science Abstract.

Hiatt Receives IOM’s Lienhard Award

The Institute of Medicine in November honored BWH’s Howard Hiatt, MD, with its prestigious Gustav O. Lienhard Award for improving the performance of personal health services in the U.S. and around the world.

“Throughout his professional life, Howard Hiatt brought compassionate and innovative approaches to health and medical care,” said Harvey V. Fineberg, president of the IOM. “Many of today’s leaders in health can trace the roots of their accomplishments to the inspiration, example and guidance of Howard Hiatt.”

For more than five decades in medicine, Hiatt has cared for thousands of patients and mentored and trained thousands of physicians and medical students. At BWH, Hiatt was a key leader in creating the Division of Social Medicine and Health Inequalities to address health disparities from a global perspective.

He also played a significant role in the growth and success of Partners In Health. Before coming to BWH, Hiatt served as dean of Harvard School of Public Health, a physician and chief at Beth Israel Hospital and the leader of the Harvard Medical Practice Study, which has been credited as the most important investigation of medical malpractice in history.

Hiatt is the 22nd recipient of the Lienhard Award, which includes a medal and a $25,000 prize.

Tempany-Adfhal Named First Incumbent

Clare Tempany-Adfhal, MD, director of Clinical Focused Ultrasound and a professor of Radiology at HMS, on Oct. 29 was named the first incumbent of the Ferenc Jolesz, MD, Distinguished Chair in Radiology Research. Jolesz is the vice-chairman for Research in the department of Radiology and the director of the Division of Magnetic Resonance Imaging. The chair was established partially through a donation from GE and other donors.

Sequist Awarded Fellowship

The Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) awarded the 2007 Herbert W. Nickens Faculty Fellowship to BWH’s Thomas Dean Sequist, MD, MPH, assistant professor of medicine. The fellowship recognizes an individual who assists medical schools achieve their diversity objectives and eliminate health care disparities. Sequist was presented with the $15,000 grant to support his academic and professional activities at the AAMC’s annual meeting in November.

Churchill Receives Leadership Award

For his profound influence in improving patient safety worldwide, BWH’s William Churchill, MS, RPh, executive director of Pharmacy, was the country’s sole recipient of the 2007 Distinguished Leadership Award in Health-System Pharmacy Practice. This prestigious award is presented annually in December by the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists.

Churchill has played a major role at BWH in improving the safety and efficiency of medication administration systems and expanding the role of clinical pharmacy specialists through the use of medication safety technology. He is sought after around the world to present on medication safety. He chairs many committees at BWH and Partners dedicated to improving medication safety.

From left, Pharmacy’s Paul Szumita, Angela Triggs, Steve Baroletti, Bill Churchill, Lina Matta and Caryn Domenici celebrate Churchill’s award.

Khademhosseini Receives BMW Group Scientific Award

Ali Khademhosseini, MASc, PhD, of the Harvard-MIT HST Biomedical Engineering Center at BWH, received a Scientific Award from the BMW Group in December for his development of a new set of methods that allows scientists to miniaturize cell cultures and control them with a high level of accuracy. He conducted this research, his PhD dissertation, while under the supervision of Robert Langer, ScD, at MIT.

The HST Center was established to foster the development of breakthrough technologies that can be applied to patient care. Just 2 years old, the center boasts 70 trainees and scientists working under the guidance of four assistant professors.

The BMW Group Scientific Award has honored 51 young scientists since 1991 in two prize categories: dissertations and diploma/Master’s theses.

Khademhosseini’s current research focuses on using cells, materials and devices to make artificial organs for therapeutic and diagnostic purposes.

BWH Awarded for Organ Donation

BWH has had its best year for organ donation yet, with a record number of 14 organ donors able to give 49 organs, and 27 tissue donors, each of whom help as many as 200 patients.

“The Brigham’s success happens unit by unit, staff person by staff person on the front lines where the work gets done,” said Richard Luskin, president and CEO of the New England Organ Bank (NEOB), during a celebration at BWH in November to honor those who make life-saving transplants a possibility through organ donation.

BWH’s consistently high rates of organ donation in the last year earned the hospital the medal of honor from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The medal is awarded to hospitals and organ procurement organizations that convert at least 75 percent of eligible donors to actual donors. BWH’s conversion rate has been as high as 92 percent between Oct. 1, 2006, and Sept. 30, 2007.

“This is a Brigham team effort in every way,” said Nobel Prize winner Joseph Murray, MD, who performed the world’s first organ transplant at BWH in 1954 and attended November’s ceremony as a special guest.

BWH officially received the medal in Nashville during the Organ Donation Breakthrough Collaborative Learning Congress. Shaun Golden, BSN, RN, CNRN, nurse manager of the Neuroscience ICU, Martha Burke, MSW, LICSW, director of Social Work and Clinical Services, Kathleen Gallivan, PhD, director of Chaplaincy, Chief Medical Officer Andy Whittemore, MD, and Kevin Kiely of NEOB collected the award on behalf of BWH.

Two courageous families and the dedicated staff of BWH and NEOB already have set the tone for this year. The first donor of the year beginning Oct. 1 produced seven organs, and the second donor eight—the most organs any person can donate, and an incredibly rare occurrence in the U.S.

BWH Brings Together Transplant Pioneers

BWH’s Department of Surgery in November brought together two transplant surgery pioneers: Joseph Murray, MD, who received the Nobel Prize for leading the world’s first successful organ transplant operation in 1954 at BWH, and Thomas E. Starzl, MD, PhD, professor of Surgery at the University of Pittsburgh’s Starzl Transplantation Institute.

Starzl, who performed the world’s first liver transplant operation at the University of Colorado in 1967, traveled to Boston to deliver the inaugural lecture as the first Murray Visiting Professor in Transplant Surgery to a standing-room only crowd in Bornstein Amphitheater.

13th Annual Mannick Awards Presented

The 13th Annual John A. Mannick Award was awarded to Ravi Kiran Ghanta, MD, Andrew W. Hoel, MD, William H. Peranteau, MD, and Adam T. Stearns, B.M.B.Ch., M.R.C.S. This award recognizes the BWH Surgery residents’ work in basic science or clinical research. The award is named after John A. Mannick, MD, who served as surgeon-in-chief from 1976 to 1994. Mannick is a leader in the field of vascular surgery, and he oversaw the growth of the department during the formation of the new Brigham and Women’s Hospital in 1980.

Phillip Elected to APSF

James H. Phillip, MD, CCE, was elected to membership in the Anesthesia Patient Safety Foundation Committee on Technology. This 18-member group aims to ensure that people are not harmed by anesthesia technology, works towards a better understanding of preventable equipment-related injuries and promotes communication regarding the prevention and of equipment-related injuries. Phillip is the director of Bioengineering in the Department of Anesthesia, Perioperative and Pain Medicine. He is the medical liaison for Partners Department of Biomedical Engineering and an associate professor at HMS.

Handin Celebrated at Symposium

Robert Handin, MD, co-director of the Hematology Division, in November was honored for his 25 years of leadership at a symposium where physicians from around the country presented three topics, including “Disorders of Hemostasis Due to Genes outside of the Coagulation System,” “Disease Alleles and Drug Targets in Myeloid Leukemias” and “Defining and Manipulating the Hematopoietic Stem Cell Niche.” The symposium featured speakers who were former Hematology Division trainees of Handin who are now world-renowned physician-scientists at BWH and elsewhere. It was followed with Medical Grand Rounds.