Beth Israel, a Harvard Medical School teaching hospital,
is among the finest research and teaching medical centers
in the United States and has a long history of concern and
attention to the human aspects of patient care. This case statement,
written in 1995, develops Beth Israel's caring approach as the
lasting reason to believe in and contribute to the $55 million campaign.
The story is told in alternating black & white and color layouts,
bookended by very brief text. The testimonials of BI trustees and
donors are presented in B&W. The engagement of the hospital
in today's health care, in color.
Beth Israel HealthCare™
A Look at Our Future
Virtually every advance
IS AN ANCHOR TO WINDWARD
IN AN INCREASINGLY
STORMY SEA.
Many institutions pursue excellence
as they define it.
What sets Beth Israel apart
is a great sense of our institution
as a community.
Our tradition is allied with our patients.
We must maintain our
high standard of service
so the public can always
count on us.
Mitchell T. Rabkin, M.D./President
in clinical patient care at
Beth Israel has been preceded by
a significant strengthening of
research capability.
RESEARCH NORTH,
OUR NEWEST FACILITY.
Seven days a week,
24 hours a day. 
Why is Beth Israel different?
For generations, Beth Israel care has been special, composed equally of medical science and bedside manner. The patient's needs have always come first. The result has been an intimate bonding of patient, doctor, nurses, and support staff. For thousands, Beth Israel is, simply, "Our hospital."
As health care has evolved, increasingly toward prevention, outpatient care, and technological sophistication, Beth Israel has remained steadfastly focused on the patient. Now, Boston's Beth Israel Hospital is taking the lead in articulating its view of well-being, going beyond the hospital to encompass patient care in all its facets, including the education of patient and family in the lifelong promotion of health, backed by biomedical research and the training of those responsible for guiding care.
Amidst the rapid changes of American health care, BI's approach promises a future of sensitive and capable response to patient needs. In fact, the BI model is what many, including those you will meet in this brochure, hope will be secured even more widely through health care reform. The Campaign for Beth Israel gives us each an opportunity now to help bring about a caring future we can call our own.
concierge desk often provide
the first institutional
contact with our patients
and their families.
REACHING OUT
WITH THE
WARMTH,
CONCERN, AND
PERSONALIZED
SERVICE
found throughout
Beth Israel,
a welcoming beginning to
the patient's first step into
the hospital.
come to my "house" each week.
And that's the way Beth Israel
views its patients.
EACH IS A FAMILY FRIEND.
It begins with distinguished
hospital physicians
who establish long-term
relationships and continues
with the confidence and caring
of the nurses and staff
at a state-of-the-art campus.
My four sons were born there,
and I think of them as
children of a great institution.
Roger A. Saunders 
What impresses me most about
Beth Israel
is its commitment at every level,
TO STAY ON THE LEADING EDGE
of health care and research
—to be a leader,
not merely to survive.
William F. McCall, Jr.
is to be prepared.
For our physicians, nurses, and
staff to act swiftly, skillfully,
and compassionately
under pressure.
TO RISE TO
EVER CHANGING
DEMANDS.
WHAT A TREASURE WE HAVE
IN BETH ISRAEL.
There isn't a more caring, selfless, talented team
of doctors and nurses to be found anywhere.
This unique institution looks to us
for reciprocal support
and we must respond.
Herbert C. and Mildred Lee
***
Each year 675 interns, residents, and fellows further their
medical training at BI. Outstanding patient care, highly skilled staff physicians,
up-to-date treatments, and state-of-the-art equipment,
working together in an academic context to create
THE OPTIMAL LEARNING ENVIRONMENT.
the Beth Israel caring attitude—the warm,
friendly culture among our
staff and employees—as major changes
occur throughout
the health care industry.
OUR NEW FACILITY
IS DESIGNED
TO BE A PLACE
WHERE MEMBERS OF THE
BI FAMILY
CAN CONTINUE TO PROVIDE
QUALITY HEALTH CARE
IN OUR
TRADITIONAL MANNER.
David Chapin, M.D.
Our nurses.
COMPETENT, INTELLIGENT,
COMPASSIONATE.
Dedicated to a professional clinical program
that keeps nurses at the patient's bedside and patients'
needs at the center of health care delivery.
***
For us,
BETH ISRAEL IS FAMILY
ACROSS THE GENERATIONS.
My father and I have been trustees
and now my son Richard
continues the tradition.
The caring of Jewish families for Beth Israel
is a deep commitment.
Robert Remis
WE ARE VERY PROUD
OF OUR HOSPITAL.
Beth Israel has a fine reputation today—built upon
the people who worked to achieve it.
The devotion of Beth Israel physicians, nurses,
and the entire staff
keeps us involved.
Ruth Remis
***
MEDICAL TREATMENT
BEGINS LONG BEFORE
THE PATIENT VISIT.
A research-intensive
academic medical center,
Beth Israel
is a major recipient of
competitive research grant funding
from the
National Institutes of Health.
It has a point-of-view that puts
the patient in the center.
What does create health?
Different things for different people.
Patient needs are complex—
the illness itself,
the psychological impact,
the social context—
these things are part of
the patient's experience.
THE BI APPROACH
ENCOMPASSES ALL
THE DIMENSIONS OF
HEALTH CARE.
Ann Clarkeson 
IS AN INTEGRAL
COMPONENT OF OUR MISSION.
BI distinguishes itself through
strong collaboration
with community-based initiatives
and with its own efforts
such as the Family Van,
reaching 25,000 patients a year
who would otherwise
not receive medical care.
The marketplace is driving huge changes
in the way hospitals have to do business.
It requires planning for the future, and
BETH ISRAEL HAS CHOSEN
TO BE CONSUMER
RESPONSIVE.
The new Clinical Center will make
delivery of care more efficient than in the past
and meet the needs of the patient
in the quickest way possible.
Stephen L. Brown
***
BI has created a dynamic learning environment for our fellows-in-training.
Clinical care, research, and a diverse faculty combine to produce
A STIMULATING INTRODUCTION TO THE
NUMEROUS MEDICAL SPECIALTIES AT BETH ISRAEL.
***
To take care of people is a traditional philosophy,
taught by those before us.
We must be role models to the next generation
and set an example in philanthropy
about taking responsibility for the future
SO BETH ISRAEL
WILL LIVE ON.
Roberta Weiner
The future of health care affects everybody.
By focusing our charitable efforts in medicine,
and at a hospital always on the cutting edge,
WE ARE DOING WHAT WE CAN
FOR THE COMMUNITY.
Stephen R. Weiner
An extraordinary event
occurring 14 times a day,
100 times a week,
5,235 times a year at BI.
PRICELESS
MEMBERS OF OUR
FAMILY,
from their first waking moment.
There have been four generations of Danas
involved with Beth Israel.
My grandfather saw to it that
the original hospital was built in 1916.
My uncle's trust has contributed to
teaching, research, and facilities.
I was chairman of the buildings and grounds
committee for years,
and my son is now on the committee.
We have always believed this is
the finest hospital in the city.
BI IS A SIGNIFICANT
RESEARCH INSTITUTION,
AND ITS NURSING CARE IS
EXEMPLARY.
At Beth Israel, the patient is not a case,
but a person.
Marshall A. Dana
***
For those outside of Boston,
A CONVENIENT, COMFORTABLE, CLOSE WAY TO
RECEIVE MEDICAL CARE.
Together with Children's Hospital, we have established
The Medical Care Center in Lexington.
A wide range of outpatient services and, best of all, the same world class care
and renowned physicians found at Beth Israel on
Brookline Avenue—both are parts of Beth Israel HealthCare.
The nice thing about BI—
was at age eight, when I visited
my grandfather,
who was Beth Israel's barber.
Both my children were born at BI.
Recently, I helped found the
BI Menopause Wellness Center.
BI HAS ALWAYS
BEEN THERE FOR ME.
Joyce Linde
its humaneness—will become
harder and harder to finance.
In a competitive environment,
WHAT BI BRINGS TO
HEALTH CARE IS WORTH
FIGHTING TO KEEP.
Edward H. Linde 
Construction of The Carl J. Shapiro Clinical Center
demonstrates Beth Israel's long-term commitment to providing
the highest quality health care.
TO ENSURE THAT WE HAVE THE FACILITIES
TO STRIVE FOR EXCELLENCE
well into the 21st century.
***
BI'S RESPONSIBILITY IS TO
CONTINUE DELIVERING
SUPERIOR HEALTH CARE INTO
THE NEXT CENTURY
AND BEYOND.
Project 2000, The Clinical Center,
and Research North mark our
serious commitment
to providing state-of-the-art ambulatory care
and research facilities,
enabling us to remain at the leading edge
of medical research and patient care.
My responsibility as Chair of the Board of Directors
is to help guide BI to this end.
I am honored to be able to play such a role
in this important venture.
Stephen B. Kay
The Future of Health Care
As the 1980s drew to a close, well before the most recent call for health care reform, Beth Israel trustees set in motion a long-range planning process called Project 2000. It provided a framework for Beth Israel to think ahead to the needs of the 21st century. Nearly 200 doctors, nurses, administrators, and employees participated, together with a group of trustees known as the Client Team.
As these teams envisioned the health care future, four factors dominated: the rapid advancement of medical research, dramatic changes in the methods of paying for health care, increasing emphasis on outpatient care, and the importance of strengthened ties to the neighborhoods and communities that make up Greater Boston.
Seen together, these factors urged a reassessment of the traditional role of the hospital and impelled Beth Israel to move toward a more comprehensive view of health and well-being as the proper domain of an institution that sees itself as both an academic medical center of national stature and a community hospital on which its neighbors can rely.
Today, Beth Israel's commitment is to go beyond hospitals and hospitalization into services centered on the prevention of illness and promotion of health, integrating scholarship and service in a multifaceted approach to good health over a lifetime. As a major health care resource affiliated with the Harvard Medical School, Beth Israel seeks to ensure superlative care for Boston, expand our understanding of the fundamentals of illness and health, prepare physicians and others in the health professions to meet the demands of the future, and create national models for efficient health care systems supportive of both patients and those who care for them.
The Patient's Experience
An intense caring for the human spirit flows through Beth Israel.
It is a long tradition. The hospital's first mission statement, in 1916, declared that BI would serve "the sick and disabled of any race, creed, color or nationality." The hospital was the nation's first to issue a Statement of the Rights of Patients, a document that has served as the model for similar statements in many hospitals, hospital associations, and government agencies. For nearly 20 years Beth Israel has championed Primary Nursing-now an internationally recognized program of professional clinical nursing that keeps nurses at the patient's bedside and patients' needs at the center of health care delivery. In Boston and throughout the nation, Beth Israel is a model for care.
Today, outpatient care is the watchword. Patients want it, to speed recovery and return to their lives as rapidly as possible. Insurers demand it, to reduce costs. And medical advances are leading there as well. The average length of inpatient stay has been declining for six years. Already, Beth Israel performs more than 60 percent of its surgery on a same-day basis. By 1999 outpatient care will rise to 80 percent or even more of total hospital services.
Current facilities—added to intermittently since 1928 and designed primarily for inpatient care—make seamless delivery of outpatient care difficult. Beth Israel's clinics and doctors' offices are scattered across its campus. If tests or surgery are involved, a single visit may shuttle patients back and forth to different floors in different buildings. Meanwhile, families and friends wait, separated from their loved ones.
Meeting patient's needs for better outpatient care is Beth Israel's first priority for the 1990s.
Care in an Outpatient Setting
The solution is a user friendly environment focused on the patient experience. The solution is Beth Israel's new Carl J. Shapiro Clinical Center.
Consulting with patients, Beth Israel doctors, nurses, administrators, and architects have been able to design The Clinical Center from the ground up, bringing fresh thinking to the question of how best to deliver care.
Patient-centered design begins at the parking level-a convenient new underground garage beneath the building. Elevators will lead directly from the garage to the main reception level, an airy and welcoming atrium. The upper floors will have the ambiance of a private doctor's office. Laboratories and specialty services will be close by so that patient needs can be met quickly and efficiently. Shared clerical systems will reduce costs and streamline paperwork. A computerized appointment system will ensure prompt, often immediate referrals.
Still greater patient convenience comes from the clustering of outpatient specialties. Disciplines that work together or in similar patterns for patient care will sit close to each other in the new building. Orthopedics will be adjacent to rehabilitation. The Cardiovascular and Medical Specialties services will be next to surgical specialties. Such clustering will ease consultation, further collaboration, and foster more timely and effective clinical response.
At the same time, a special advantage of the new building is that young physicians-those who will care for our children and grandchildren-can be trained in state-of-the-art methods of outpatient health care delivery.
The Central Role of Research
Caring for patients comes first. But it is not enough. Historically, advancements in clinical care—that is, the hands-on methods of caring for individual patients—have always been preceded by significant progress in research. Medical research is truly the key to uncovering further the knowledge of how the human body functions, combats illness, and heals.
A major affiliate of Harvard Medical School since 1928, Beth Israel is one of the nation's leading academic medical centers. In fact, it is among the top ten hospital recipients of competitively awarded research grants from the National Institutes of Health. Areas of established expertise include virtually every clinical specialty and its underlying biomedical science. Recent senior staff appointments in orthopedics, neurology, surgery, obstetrics, anesthesiology, pathology, radiology, dermatology, psychiatry, neonatology, radiotheraphy, and medicine promise further discoveries to benefit patient care.
To create sufficient space for exploration of these new fields Beth Israel has purchased and renovated Research North at 99 Brookline Avenue and has negotiated in unison with other Harvard Medical School hospitals for additional nearby laboratory space in the former English High School on Avenue Louis Pasteur. Providing for research is essential to Beth Israel's commitment to both scholarship and service for the coming century.
Leadership for a New Vision of Care
Beth Israel is widely recognized as among the finest of hospitals, long in the vanguard of institutions shaping changes in health care. Beth Israel clinical expertise, biomedical technology, research, nursing programs, and management practices are universally acknowledged. PREPARE/21, a program of participative management involving all employees and staff, is the first ever in a U.S. hospital or not-for-profit organization. Meanwhile, the hospital's commitment to its employees has ranked it among the top ten most desirable workplaces in America. Beth Israel is an institution of which its community can be proud, for it represents the fruition of support that community has generously provided since the hospital's founding in 1916.
The Clinical Center continues this tradition. The underlying goal of this project is to reengineer health care delivery. By meeting the patient needs of an ever-changing world, Beth Israel will sustain its national leadership for a coming generation.
Continued investment in research, through current facilities, Research North, English High School, and future laboratory sites, is essential to advancing medical knowledge, improving the care of patients, offering solutions, and providing hope.
The two avenues merge in a new vision of the role of Beth Israel. Beth Israel's president, Dr. Mitchell T. Rabkin, has articulated it clearly: "Conceptually, we have moved from Beth Israel Hospital to Beth Israel Healthcare-our focus goes well beyond the hospital, toward lifelong well-being through patient care in all its facets, biomedical research, education, and the promotion of health."
You Can Help
The generosity of many created Beth Israel. The gifts of many are needed now.
Beth Israel traditionally has relied first and foremost on the Jewish community. Today, however, its support has broadened and is forged from all who may need Beth Israel care and who believe in Beth Israel's dynamic vision. Beth Israel looks outward to all of Greater Boston and beyond. With the help of the wide community serves and those who identify with its values and stand behind its mission, Beth Israel Hospital will be there always, providing its hallmark-warm, personalized patient-centered care of surpassing excellence.
Join with us in this effort. Your gift is an investment in the health of your family, your friends, you, and your descendants. What could be more important?
***
WE HAVE ALL BEEN TOUCHED
BY THIS INSTITUTION.
It reflects our personal values,
cares for our families, friends, and loved ones,
and is available to people of all
races, creeds, and cultures.
Jordan L. Golding/Campaign Chair
***
THE CAMPAIGN
FOR
BETH ISRAEL
will create and modernize
Beth Israel's facilities
to meet the needs of patients, their families,
and those who care for them.
Beth Israel's goal is
$55 million
to secure
A CARING FUTURE
To contribute to The Campaign
or for information on opportunities
for naming areas of the new facilities,
please call or write:
THE CAMPAIGN FOR BETH ISRAEL
Susan Galler
Vice President, Development
Gregg McCarty
Campaign Director
Beth Israel Hospital
330 Brookline Avenue
Boston, MA 02215
617-735-3600
Boston's
Beth Israel Hospital
is focused on lifelong wellbeing
through patient care,
research, teaching,
and
the promotion of health
Copyright The Beth Israel Corporation 1995. All rights reserved.
Beth Israel is now a part of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
Material may be reproduced with written approval of the vice president
for corporate communications and acknowledgment
to Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston
Written by R. Gordon Talley
Design by Greenwood Associates
Photography by Peter Silvia, Jr.
R. Gordon Talley
Communication for Institutional Advancement
25 Magazine Street
Cambridge, MA 02139-3960
Voice: 617-497-7490
Fax: 617-497-2545
E-mail: info@rgtalley.com
All information on this site Copyright 2002 R. Gordon Talley unless otherwise noted.
