• Inpatient rooms get new look
  After months of planning and anticipation, a makeover of the MGH inpatient units currently is underway. Beginning in February, the hospital began to receive the initial deliveries of new furnishings for patient rooms, which will replace mismatched and outdated pieces, create a more uniform look and will allow for easier moving of furniture between rooms.

• Students showcase science skills
  The Main Corridor was filled with the discoveries of young scientists March 9 as students from the James P. Timilty Middle School presented the science fair projects they had developed with the help of their MGH mentors from the MGH/Timilty Partnership.

• Answering questions about protecting patient privacy
  When the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) was introduced in 2003, protecting patient privacy — already one of health care's most important ethical obligations — became even more complicated. Although the MGH offers continuing education about HIPAA guidelines, privacy breaches do occur — sometimes accidentally. To help employees and staff avoid breaches, MGH Hotline regularly publishes questions and answers about patient confidentiality. The questions are answered by Eileen Bryan, MGH HIPAA compliance specialist.

• MGH career development series
  MGHers will have an opportunity to explore careers in health care with the help of a series of career development workshops to be held April 26 through May 18. The workshops will highlight jobs in Nursing, Pathology, Radiology, Radiation Therapy, Surgical Technology, Medical Assistance and Coding. Open to all MGH employees, the workshops also will offer information about applying for the Support Service Employee Grant (SSEG) and information about other career development options.

• MGHers learn about strategic planning from Leadership Academy course
  On March 9, the six participants in the MGH Leadership Academy's year-long strategic planning class gathered for the last time — for a dinner out to celebrate their successful completion of the Academy's inaugural course. Under the guidance of Allison Rimm, vice president for Strategic Planning and Information Management, the graduates spent a year learning methods of strategic planning and applying their skills to local nonprofit agencies and programs in need of organizational support.

• MGHers graduate to healthier, smoke-free lives
  As any person who has attempted to quit smoking knows, ending the addiction to cigarettes can be one of the most difficult journeys they ever undertake and often requires an enormous amount of support to be successful. Recognizing this need, MGH Human Resources — in collaboration with the MGH Quit Smoking Service and MGH Community Health Associates — launched an eight-week, smoking cessation pilot program this past January to help employees stop smoking and begin healthier, smoke-free lives.

• The power of apology
  One of the most difficult career situations a clinician may face is communicating with patients about errors or adverse events that occur during their care. Handling these sensitive situations was the topic of the most recent seminar sponsored by the Stoeckle Center for Primary Care Innovation held March 24. The guest speaker was renowned patient safety expert Lucian Leape, MD, of the Harvard School of Public Health, who discussed his work on patient disclosure and how to apologize to a patient after a medical error.

• What's Happening

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