Given the new fiscal challenges Brigham and Women’s Hospital faces, and will continue to face, what are some of your innovative ideas that would help the institution continue to advance its mission areas of research and clinical care?

“I think that looking at groups inside Brigham and Women’s Hospital which may not traditionally fall under the umbrella of the disease process or question you are trying to answer will be a key in utilizing limited resources and bringing projects to fruition. As a breast cancer surgeon with a clinical background it was an innovative approach to collaborate with Dr. Nathalie Agar, a scientist in the Department of Neurosurgery with expertise in neurosurgical molecular imaging, to find a way in approaching the vexing question of re-operations in breast conserving surgery. We have the talent and expertise right here at BWH and sometimes it requires looking beyond one’s usual circle of colleagues and collaborators.”

-Mehra Golshan, MD, Breast Surgical Services, Dana-Farber/Brigham and Women’s Cancer Center

“While innovation can cost money up front, innovation also often leads to growth or cost reduction through advances in technology (not necessarily IT).  My innovative idea is to remind clinicians and employees to look for opportunity for innovation and give them a place to log those opportunity areas.

-Melissa Spinks, Brigham Innovation Hub

“It is essential for BWH to maintain the delivery of high-value care, ensuring patients receive reliably high-quality care while also minimizing waste in the system. Achieving this goal will be a process that starts with developing a measurement strategy that allows us to capture efficiency in a clinically meaningful way—using electronic health records to measure our daily activities and understand where opportunities exist to improve our system. This measurement will support a second essential step, to engage all of our clinicians and front-line staff in the responsibility to eliminate overuse through the use of transparency, decision support, and other innovative behavioral economics approaches.”

-Thomas D. Sequist, MD, MPH, Department of Medicine

“To address the fiscal challenges faced by the hospital, the Brigham could implement a process known as Time-Driven Activity-Based Costing (TDBAC), which involves mapping out every step involved in delivering a medical service, from a simple blood draw to complex cardiac surgery. This process, developed by Harvard Business School, allows hospital administrators to understand the true cost of an activity and reduce costs internally by identifying true inefficiencies rather than enforcing arbitrary payment cuts.”

-Pothik Chatterjee, Brigham Innovation Hub