BOSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute recently completed a research partnership agreement with Hospital Corporation of America (HCA), a national network of over 160 hospitals that provides nearly five percent of U.S. hospitalizations. The Institute intends to work jointly with HCA to build a broad portfolio of high quality research studies that will influence medical practice nationally.
The agreement is expected to lead to a broad array of research initiatives that build on HCA's clinical expertise, ability to implement interventions at scale, and sophisticated informatics capabilities. The Institute brings research capabilities and investigators to this partnership, which will include both observational studies and embedded clinical research.
This will not be the first time HCA and the Institute have collaborated on research studies. HCA participated in a Harvard Pilgrim Institute randomized trial to evaluate methods for preventing infections in ICU patients, which was published in New England Journal of Medicine in May 2013. More recently, HCA became a research partner in the FDA Sentinel System, a program using electronic health care data to monitor the safety of FDA-regulated drugs and other medical products. HCA joins more than 50 health care and academic organizations participating in the program, which is led by the Harvard Pilgrim Institute.
Through the partnership, the two entities will continue to expand the study of health care associated infections and medical product safety surveillance, in addition to new areas of interest including maternal-child care and pharmacy.
“We recognized the tremendous value of partnering with HCA during our earlier work together on reducing bloodstream infections,” said Richard Platt, MD, MS, professor and chair of the Harvard Medical School Department of Population Medicine at the Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute. “HCA’s extensive hospital network and the quality of its electronic health records can significantly improve our shared ability to answer important research questions. This new research partnership is part of the Institute’s strategic plan to establish and expand local and national delivery system partnerships.”
“Our unprecedented partnership has already yielded information that not only makes preventing MRSA and other serious infections simpler and more effective, it helped set a new standard for responsible infection prevention. Future research projects will advance the learning health care system by making evidence development an expected part of care delivery,” said Jonathan B. Perlin, MD, PhD, MSHA, President, Clinical Services Group and Chief Medical Officer, HCA (Hospital Corporation of America).
For video statements from Dr. Richard Platt and Dr. Jonathan Perlin, please click here.
About Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute's Department of Population Medicine
The Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute's Department of Population Medicine is a unique collaboration between Harvard Pilgrim Health Care and Harvard Medical School. Created in 1993, it is the only appointing medical school department in the United States based in a health plan. The Institute focuses on improving health care delivery and population health through innovative research and teaching.
About Hospital Corporation of America
HCA is one of the nation’s leading providers of healthcare services, comprising locally managed facilities that include 166 hospitals and 113 surgery centers in 20 states and the United Kingdom. Eighty-five percent of HCA’s hospitals reporting core measure performance data to The Joint Commission (TJC) for 2013 are on TJC’s current list of Top Performers on Key Quality Measures®, as compared to 36.9 percent of all TJC-accredited hospitals reporting 2013 data.