Collaboration Across the MGH Learning Community

Mass General is dedicated to educating, supporting and mentoring the next generation of local, national and international health care leaders. As the original and largest teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School and the founder of the MGH Institute of Health Professions, education is one of the pillars of the hospital’s four-part mission. It is this commitment to education as part of a shared community of care which first inspired the long-term collaboration between MGH and the Lunder Foundation to create the Lunder-Dineen Health Education Alliance of Maine (Lunder-Dineen).

Established in 2010, Lunder-Dineen – recognizing long-time MGH physician and Maine native James J. Dineen, MD – challenged Mass General to find innovative ways to improve health care in Maine. Among its many offerings was a free Maine Nursing Preceptor Education Program aimed at increasing the number of trained nurse preceptors to orient new nurses in the state. To date, more than 1,250 nurses from 100 organizations have participated in the program.

In 2022, following the success of the Lunder-Dineen program, the Lunder Foundation made a transformational gift of $50 million to MGH to reinvent health care education for the 21st century. Known as the Lunder Learning Initiative, this gift enhances the training of health care professionals in all roles by supporting three educational initiatives: the Lunder Learning Hospital, the MGH Learning Endowment and the Peter L. Slavin, MD Academy for Applied Learning in Health Care. Construction of the Slavin Academy, located adjacent to Mass General’s historic Ether Dome in the Bulfinch Building, is now underway with an expected opening date in September.

“The Slavin Academy will provide collaborative space, infrastructure and resources to support teaching and learning across our entire community,” says James Gordon, MD, MPA, MGH vice president of Education and chief learning officer. “We are committed to investing in education to improve health care for all patients, at MGH and beyond.”

Now, in collaboration with the Slavin Academy, the MGH Institute of Health Professions, and the Norman Knight Center for Clinical and Professional Development, Lunder-Dineen is expanding its free online Nursing Preceptor Education Program to support 200 MGH nurses with the invigorated course in 2024.

“This is a great example of making connections across the MGH to share educational resources more broadly, a founding principle of the Slavin Academy that is rooted in the success of Lunder-Dineen,” says Gordon. “This work highlights the power of MGH collaboration across our remarkable community of learning.”

For more information about Lunder-Dineen, visit lunderdineen.org