June 04, 2010 12:50am EST 

Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) is a teaching affiliate of Harvard Medical School located in the heart of Boston’s Longwood Medical Area. Since it was formed in 1980 with the merger of three of Boston’s most prestigious Harvard teaching hospitals the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital, the Robert Breck Brigham, and the Boston Hospital for women, BWH has become one of the top hospitals in all of the nation. It is internationally recognized for its excellence in patient care, biomedical research, and commitment to educating and training health care professionals. It boasts extensive outpatient services and clinics, neighborhood primary care health centers, state-of-the art diagnostic and treatment technologies and research laboratories.
In addition to their impressive history of research studies, BWH has consistently won the recognition of hospital rankings in the United States. For example, for the 17th consecutive year, BWH has ranked on the U.S. News & World Report’s Honor Roll of America’s Best Hospitals as the tenth best hospital in all of the nation. They also boasted number one spots in both kidney disease and gynecology, and placed in the top 10 for Heart and Heart Surgery, Rheumatology and Endocrinology, as well as numerous other distinctions, including patient satisfaction, with 77% of patients rating their satisfaction a 9 or a 10 (with 10 being the highest possible). It was also recognized by the University HealthSystem Consortium for being one of five performing academic medical centers in the nation in a special quality and safety benchmarking study.
Its accolades are impressive, but BWH continues to build on the legacy of its predecessors and is always growing. More and more patients are coming to BWH, with 44,000 inpatient admissions, 950,000 ambulatory visits, and 54,000 patients treated in the Emergency Department. They also employ more than 12,000 people; 3,000 physicians, fellows and residents; more than 1,000 researchers; and 2,800 nurses. It stands as a regional leader in women’s health services, as well as one of the nation’s leading transplant centers, performing simple to complex procedures including heart and lung surgery. Their mission is to serve the needs of the community through providing the highest quality health care to patients and their families, expanding the boundaries of medicine through research, and educating the next generation of health care professionals. BWH will continually strive to be the academic and community teaching hospitals with the most distinguished caliber of physician and professional healthcare staff.

For additional information about Brigham and Women’s Hospital, log on to their website.