The Power of Partnership: How MedStar Health and Georgetown University Advance Health Together.

Scottish philosopher Thomas Carlyle gets credit for being the first, or perhaps just the most poetic, to suggest a connection between health and hope: “He who has health, has hope; and he who has hope, has everything.” 

Yet too many people in our city, our nation, and our world suffer from ill health and limited access to care—which can significantly limit hope. 

Solving these problems requires concerted effort, and we can do more collectively than we can individually. MedStar Health and Georgetown University are academic health system partners who are making a difference in our communities and beyond. Together, we are advancing health and creating hope.

By working together, these two [great] institutions are greater than the sum of their parts. The partnership formally began in 2000, and in 2017, we reaffirmed this commitment with a new agreement covering an additional 50 years. The agreement provided for specific and substantive opportunities to expand and deepen our relationship including the creation of the Academic Leadership Council, a framework to help coordinate our joint research and educational endeavors. We’ve also formed the Joint Council on Nursing to determine ongoing strategic opportunities and initiatives for nursing education and research.

Between the two institutions, we engage:

• More than 920 full-time faculty 

• More than half of our third- and fourth-year medical learners to work with residents and fellows

• Approximately $240 million in extramural-sponsored research funding in 2024

• 4,000+ patients enrolled in clinical trials annually

And we conduct our work with a driving ethos of cura personalis, or care for the whole person.

But these facts only say so much. The partnership enables scientific advancements and clinical innovations that can help revitalize the health of our neighborhoods and our global community.

When two respected organizations work together to drive change, remarkable things can happen. 

As MedStar Health’s chief scientific officer and president of the MedStar Health Research Institute President, I am honored that I can work alongside the new executive vice president for Health Sciences and executive dean of Georgetown University’s School of Medicine Norman J. Beauchamp Jr., MD, MHS. In our respective roles, we share a commitment to advancing health and the pursuit of knowledge to bring hope and healing to our communities. 

For this article, each of us offer our perspectives on the power of partnership, and how inspired collaborations can help create a better future.

Dr. Weissman: Reuniting academic and clinical innovation.

The partnership between MedStar Health and Georgetown University is something of a return to the historic core of healthcare advancement.

In the 1900’s forward-thinking institutions brought together clinical care, training physicians, and scientific research to build the first university hospitals and academic medical centers. Over time, as medicine became more complex, most of the patient care moved beyond the walls of the university or academic medical center and into the community. While these academic centers continued with the tripartite mission of clinical care, teaching and research, most patient care was outside of academia and the research at these centers was not always connected with the practicalities of care delivery in the community. In other words, scientific discoveries would often not be available to the vast majority of the population or be so delayed that they became irrelevant. 

Today, the business of medicine is so complicated and filled with challenges that much of the country’s medicine is delivered through large health systems that span many hospitals, clinics, physician offices, and urgent care facilities. While these large, integrated health systems were developed to improve efficiency and efficacy, they also can reunite academics and clinical care and an academic health system, connecting cutting-edge research to care in the community to benefit all of our patients. 

Bench, meet bedside and community.

Research partnerships play a crucial role as we seek to expand our understanding, develop new drugs and devices, and answer the thorny questions that keep doctors up at night.

The process of moving from the laboratory to the clinic and back to the lab is known as translational research, and it is an essential component of the partnership between MedStar Health and Georgetown University. 

In the lab, researchers identify important questions and design studies to get the answers. Moving these discoveries from “bench to bedside” often involves enrolling patients in clinical trials. Testing innovations for safety and efficacy is an important part of securing Food and Drug Administration approval to make new treatments widely available. And there are many times when what is learned at the bedside is returned to the lab so that discoveries can be better refined.

The scope of MedStar Health’s system (10 hospitals and 400 sites of care serving millions of patients per year) means Georgetown’s deep bench of researchers have access to clinical information per a data sharing agreement that ensures patient confidentiality while enabling analysis to identify trends and insights. The bedside data, clinical expertise, and study participants MedStar Health brings are crucial in translating their discoveries into action that can have an impact for our patients and our communities.

However, bench to bedside may only address part of the challenge of advancing health. All too often, new diagnostics, drugs and devices are only available at specialized centers of excellence. Sometimes, non-medical barriers, such as social determinants of health (health behaviors, access, environment, finances, etc.) and their underlying causes (e.g., racism, food insecurity, income inequity, etc.) make access to the latest and greatest of medical advances only available to a few. An academic health system does not stop until scientific discoveries are available across the community we serve. This often involves a different type of research, such as health equity research or implementation science.

Georgetown University and MedStar Health share a mission to care for our neighbors and advance health, and this deep collaboration makes this and so much more possible. 

Related reading: How AI Can Make Clinical Trials More Efficient, Accessible, and Unbiased.

Dr. Beauchamp: Healing, hope, and innovation.

In today’s healthcare landscape, too many people face barriers to health that can dim their hope. To bring health and healing to more people, we’re called to make fundamental changes that start at the patient-care level.

Pictured above: Norman J. Beauchamp Jr., MD, MHS, Executive Vice President for Health Sciences and Executive Dean of the School of Medicine.

In my clinical work, each day ended with a  ‘gap analysis.’ Specifically, was there a gap between what my patients needed, to preserve or return their health, and what we were able to provide to them. Closing that ‘clinical practice gap’ is what would then define a focus on either finding existing knowledge (that we had not yet brought into practice) or the need to create new knowledge, i.e., research and innovation. It is an innovation cycle that ensures the best care is being made available to every patient every time. 

Studies have shown there is a 15-year gap between discovering new knowledge and putting it to use for patients. Essential is to hasten the pace of moving from discovery to implementing new knowledge to providing healthcare and sustaining health. Academic medical centers provide one-fifth of all clinical care in our country. Hastening the pace of bringing solutions to patients becomes possible in an academic health system. 

It is also imperative to make sure that the solutions we find meet the needs of all people. Medstar Health is an exemplar amongst health systems, in its ability to provide access to care for patients from urban, rural, and suburban communities combined with a deep commitment to addressing health disparities. The MedStar Health Research Institute creates a nucleus for research and innovation across the health system. Combined with Georgetown’s commitment to generating the knowledge needed to address the biggest challenges facing society and to training those able to advance needed change, in our aligned efforts there is an unmatched ability to bring healing and health to our community, nation and world. 

We can do better, and research and discovery are imperative. These are the hallmarks of the university, and delivering those innovations to patients requires a partner like MedStar Health, with a vast and diverse array of clinicians and patients. 

Related reading: Georgetown University and MedStar Health Launch Center To Rapidly Improve the Health and Well-being of Children in Washington and Beyond

Educating the next generation.

The partnership between Georgetown University and MedStar Health benefits our students in many ways, whether they’re enrolled in the Georgetown University School of Medicine, Biomedical Graduate Education, Georgetown University School of Nursing, Georgetown University School of Health, or Georgetown University School of Continuing Studies.  Solving the challenges facing health and healthcare mandates the breadth of expertise our graduates are prepared to provide.

Experiential education best prepares our students to improve human health, and our partnership with MedStar Health makes this possible. Georgetown students get hands-on education in real-life, real-time scenarios, working side-by-side with the people who are making change happen. Working with nationally renowned physicians at MedStar Health gives these students valuable experience and advocacy that serves them well in residency—about 25% of our students stay with the system for residency.

Nursing students benefit from MedStar Health hospitals’ Magnet designation from the American Nurses Credentialing Center. Exceptional future nurses are drawn to competitive training experiences with distinguished mentors like those they find throughout MedStar Health. Students attracted to Georgetown are not only the best and brightest in the nation but also are deeply committed to cura personalis. They also are committed to discovery and innovation that is patient-focused, ‘research with a heart.’ Their opportunity to train in a values-based academic health system is essential in our commitment to train compassionate transformative healthcare providers and leaders. 

Creating new knowledge.

In many ways, Georgetown University remains a hub for creating new knowledge through research, a process that informs our work preparing bright, compassionate, nurses, doctors, and health scientists. Their education, enhanced by unparalleled opportunities for firsthand experience throughout the MedStar Health system, enables them to succeed as leading clinicians. It prepares them to offer hope to people in their darkest hour. 

Related Reading: MedStar Health Hosts Dr. Anthony Fauci as Keynote for the 12th Annual MedStar Health – Georgetown University Research & Education Symposium

What’s next? Shaping tomorrow through partnership.

In the approximately 175 years since the advent of academic medical centers, there have been remarkable reasons to celebrate the achievements of medical science. We formed our partnership creating an academic health system in 2000. We have much to celebrate. We also realize that on our 25th anniversary, there is so much more we can do. 

Together, we intend to:

• Transform health: We will be a top 10 academic health system in the country.

• Advance equity: We will close the gap in persistent health disparities in our region and train a healthcare workforce more representative of the people we serve.

• Research innovation: We will increase equitable access to clinical trials, leveraging research initiatives to benefit all our patients.

• Education expertise: Georgetown University will become a member of the American Association of Universities, the nonprofit organization of leading research universities.

• Compassionate care: We will be known as the place that brings world-class cancer care to people when and where they need it, and we will be nationally recognized for helping people regain function following a stroke, accident, or neurological disease.

• Community collaboration: We will create an innovation district in Washington, D.C., which unites our organizations with commercial partners to create economic uplift, increase access to jobs, and train the next generation of healthcare workforce here in our community.

• Become a national example of the power of partnership of a top-rated university and forward-looking healthcare system. Together, we will redefine academic medicine and demonstrate how academic health systems are driving the changes society needs in the next century.

These are ambitious but attainable goals, and they are just the beginning. Our sense of urgency and pace will be commensurate with the unmet needs of those we serve. By bringing together the expertise of one of our nation’s top universities and best regarded health systems, we’re investing in synergies that benefit our patients and their communities. We’re educating the next generation of leading clinicians. And we’re producing research innovations that improve health care and health for everyone. This is the place and the time is now.