We are so excited for our Program Director of the Four Directions summer program, Tom Sequist, to begin his new role as Chief Medical Officer at Mass General Brigham. Please view a message from Anne Klibanski on Tom’s new role:

Dear Colleagues,

Our patients motivate us to work harder and solve the seemingly unsolvable. We have come far in the past three years toward becoming the integrated academic healthcare system of the future with patients at its center, and we should all be so proud of the work we do every day to make the lives of our patients better.

As we continue on this journey, we are committed to delivering a consistent experience and the world-class care for which we are known to every patient across the system. To achieve this, we must be nimble and able to respond to advances in clinical medicine, and our patients’ needs, in real time.

With this in mind, I have asked Tom Sequist, MD, MPH, to take on an expanded role as chief medical officer (CMO) of Mass General Brigham. For the past few years, he has been responsible for much of the work that will now formally fit into his new role, including currently serving as co-chair of both the systemwide Chief Medical Officer Council and Chief Quality Officer Council. I am grateful to Tom for taking on this expanded role. He will continue to manage the responsibilities associated with his previous role as chief patient experience and equity officer.

Tom is also leading the development of a comprehensive patient experience strategy that will prioritize opportunities to enhance patient interactions and patient engagement in care plans. With nearly 20 years of experience in innovating for improved patient experiences, he will ensure high-quality care remains at the heart of our patient care mission.

Under Tom’s leadership, we will accelerate our progress toward providing uniform patient experiences and clinical outcomes and broadening our impact on patients and communities.

The CMOs and chief quality officers (CQOs) systemwide will report directly to our hospital/entity presidents, ensuring local accountability. Tom will lead and facilitate collaboration across all CMOs and CQOs in establishing consistent patient experiences and quality goals and ensure adherence to related system policies through ongoing monitoring and measurement. By aligning the work of all CMOs and CQOs, we will streamline decision-making on the strategies, policies and metrics that support the best and safest care regardless of where care is delivered. Health equity and community health will also remain key system priorities for Tom in this role.

In addition to most recently serving as Mass General Brigham’s chief patient experience and equity officer, Tom is a professor of medicine and professor of health care policy at Harvard Medical School and a practicing general internist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. These are critical responsibilities for our system that will continue to be part of his focus moving forward.

Tom has a long history of successful leadership across our system. Throughout the pandemic, he has led our most important work aimed at making more rapid decisions for patient care, helping communities and taking care of employees. Prior to the pandemic, he led challenging work such as redesigning what is now Mass General Brigham Urgent Care and driving innovation in quality and safety, building an international reputation for Mass General Brigham in patient-reported outcomes and electronic clinical quality measures. He also led the launch of a unified systemwide survey platform now being used to measure patient experiences and drive real-time improvement.

Few in our organization have championed the role Mass General Brigham must play in confronting systemic racism and improving health outcomes like Tom. A key architect in the development and deployment of our successful United Against Racism platform, he has led our system in making tremendous strides to remove race in clinical protocols, increase screening and resources to reduce health gaps, and improve access to care for patients locally and across the state.

An internationally recognized researcher in healthcare quality, health policy, equity and Native American healthcare, Tom has received continuous federal funding for his research since 2005. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine and has been named a Top 25 Minority Leader in Healthcare by Modern Healthcare. In addition, he has published more than 100 peer-reviewed articles in prominent publications including The New England Journal of Medicine, the Journal of the American Medical Association and Health Affairs.

I am very excited to welcome Tom into this expanded role. By bringing the strategic system priorities of patient experience and quality together under his leadership, we will continue to bring the best of Mass General Brigham to every patient.

Sincerely,

Anne Klibanski, MD