The MIT Medical Department will shift its main hospital affiliation to the Partners Health Care System (Massachusetts General Hospital and Brigham and Women's Hospital), Dr. Arnold N. Weinberg, medical director, has announced.
"We're very pleased to form an alliance with this world-class hospital network," Dr. Weinberg said. "Partners is more than two of the very best hospitals. It is an extended network of high-quality health care centers. Eventually the Medical Department's alliance with Partners will include access to convenient outpatient satellite locations in the greater Boston metropolitan area."
The Medical Department will begin using Massachusetts General Hospital for most adult medical and surgical hospitalizations beginning January 1, 1996.
All current services provided by the Medical Department on campus will continue, and all current physicians are being invited to affiliate with Partners. The Medical Department will continue to use Brigham and Women's Hospital for obstetrics/gynecology admissions, Children's Hospital for pediatrics, and McLean Hospital for psychiatric admissions.
The Medical Department will phase out its affiliation with Mount Auburn Hospital. "We've had an excellent relationship with Mount Auburn for many years," Dr. Weinberg noted. "But to continue providing high-quality care, the Medical Department must find a cost-effective way to provide health care where many MIT people live-in the suburbs."
The alliance with Partners is part of a long-term vision for the future outlined in the recently completed Medical Department Strategic Plan. "The alliance satisfies our need to maintain our separate identity and also be affiliated with a full-service health care network, to continue to provide the very best patient care and to answer MIT community requests for health care near home as well as work," explained Annette Jacobs, Medical Department executive director.
"The arrangement with Partners will also offer significant savings on hospital charges for the Traditional and Flexible MIT Health Plans, and the MIT Student and Affiliate Blue Cross Hospital Insurance Plans," Ms. Jacobs continued.
"We're going to pay very careful attention to the human side of this change," Ms. Jacobs said. "There will be no fleet of ambulances moving patients from other hospitals to Mass. General on January 1. Patients in the midst of a course of treatment will continue treatment at that hospital, unless the patient requests a change. Our physicians will continue to be directly involved, both at MIT and at the affiliated hospitals. We see this as a major step forward for the department and for MIT, and we intend to make it work well for everyone."
A version of this article appeared in MIT Tech Talk on September 27, 1995.
