Johns Hopkins Medicine to Collaborate with Leading Brazilian Health Care Institution

Dear Colleagues:

We're delighted to let you know that yesterday, Johns Hopkins Medicine International (JHI) and Hospital Moinhos de Vento (HMV) of Porto Alegre—one of Brazil's leaders in health care delivery and innovation—signed an exciting new agreement that focuses on enhancing HMV's existing clinical strengths, improving nursing practices and patient safety and exploring the potential for collaborative research.

While we already have a number of collaborations in Latin America—Clínica Las Condes in Chile, Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey in Mexico, Fundación Santa Fe de Bogotá in Colombia, Hospital Punta Pacífica in Panama, and Pacífico Salud in Peru—this is JHM's first relationship in Brazil, a country with a population of nearly 200 million. For the first time, we'll be able to have an impact on the health care delivered to that population.

As with all our international collaborations, the intention is to expand Johns Hopkins Medicine's mission: to improve the health of the world by creating and transmitting innovative knowledge and fostering discovery. This affiliation with a like-minded institution presents countless opportunities for both large- and small-scale improvements. HMV is well-known in the country and region as a premier, Joint Commission International-accredited health care institution; its leaders have engaged JHM to help maintain and advance their organization's status.

This agreement touches on several of our strategic priorities: promoting our work in patient-centered care, expanding education opportunities for HMV's clinicians and exploring opportunities for biomedical discovery. In addition, it qualifies as a new source of revenue for Johns Hopkins Medicine, necessary for meeting the mandates laid out in the $150 Million Performance Initiative.

During the initial years of the collaboration, HMV will tap Johns Hopkins Medicine's expertise in several specialties: neurology and neurosurgery, imaging, cardiology and oncology. HMV's leaders also want to improve efforts to prevent and treat locally prevalent, chronic conditions. One of the most intriguing parts of the agreement is a joint exploration of opportunities for a research center that could help Brazilian health care experts advance their research and facilitate knowledge exchange between the two nations. 

In the field of nursing, HMV's leaders aim to expand capacity for training, leadership development and research. They also want to adapt and implement Johns Hopkins' renowned Comprehensive Unit-based Safety Program (CUSP). This is particularly exciting because JHM has already witnessed the tremendous impact this program has made at a hospital in the Middle East and another in Europe.

Our expansion overseas is about more than growth for growth's sake. Johns Hopkins Medicine International uses the term "knowledge transfer" to describe much of the activity that takes place within the boundaries of our international agreements. Transfer implies a two-way exchange: Each time a Johns Hopkins Medicine expert shares our best practices with a new audience, there's potential that the ensuing conversation will spark a new innovation or refinement—that we'll learn something along the way by teaching what we already know.

The initiatives we'll undertake with our colleagues at HMV have the potential to forever change the health of a nation. Please join us in celebrating this important milestone for our organization and in congratulating our colleagues at Johns Hopkins Medicine International for making it possible.

Sincerely,
Paul B. Rothman, M.D.
Dean of the Medical Faculty
CEO, Johns Hopkins Medicine

Ronald R. Peterson
President
The Johns Hopkins Hospital and Health System
EVP, Johns Hopkins Medicine