Departments & servicesExcellence Every Day portalCredo & boundaries

Nursing & Patient Care Services (N&PCS) at Massachusetts General Hospital works hospital-wide to deliver quality patient care, excellence in clinical practice, and cost effectiveness and efficiency.

Our Vision

We are committed to the delivering state-of-the-art patient and family-centered care that is innovative, evidence-based, and equitable.

By creating a supportive, inclusive culture where all staff feel valued and empowered, we attract and retain exceptional people. 

As a nimble, responsive team, we work together to achieve hospital and system-wide goals.

Guided by strong, visionary leaders, we put the full measure of our efforts to "BE the change we change we want to see in the world." (Ghandi)

Guiding Principles

Maintaining the highest standards of patient care delivery is a never-ending process that involves the patient, family, nurse, all members of the care team and the community at large.

The values we want to uphold as we strive toward our vision:

  • We are ever-alert for opportunities to improve patient care; we provide care based on the latest research findings.
  • We recognize the importance of encouraging patients and families to participate in the decisions affecting their care.
  • We are most effective as a team; we continually strengthen our relationships with each other and actively promote diversity within our staff.
  • We enhance patient care and the systems supporting that care as we work with others; we eagerly enter new partnerships with people inside and outside of Mass General.
  • We never lose sight of the needs and expectations of our patients and their families as we make clinical decisions based on the most effective use of internal and external resources.
  • We view learning as a lifelong process essential to the growth and development of clinicians striving to deliver quality patient care.
  • We acknowledge that maintaining the highest standards of patient care delivery is a never-ending process that involves the patient, family, nurse, all healthcare providers, and the community-at-large.

Professional Practice ModelProfessional Practice Model

Our Professional Practice Model is based on the following key components:

  • Vision and values that affirm our work
  • Standards of practice
  • Sharing stories to make the often invisible components of practice, visible
  • Professional development opportunities that promote life-long learning
  • Philosophy of relationship-based care that cultivates relationships with patients/families, colleagues and self
  • Reflective practice that guides advancement of career
  • Decision-making that empowers clinicians to advance care
  • Practice that is driven by evidence and grounded in research
  • Commitment to innovation and intra-professional teamwork

Patient Care Delivery Model

The Patient Care Delivery Model (PCDM) illustrates how relationship-based care, domains of practice, the Institute of Medicine’s six aims of quality improvement and empirical outcomes are integral parts of the care-delivery process. These four central components are symbiotically related, each one vital to the effectiveness of care and each one inter-dependent upon the others.

Relationship-based care is at the center of the PCDM, which speaks to the importance of knowing patients in order to provide the highest quality care and service.

Sharing the center are the six aims of the Institute of Medicine: ensuring that care is patient-centered; safe; efficient; effective; timely; and equitable. These objectives have become the pillars of our care-delivery model and the mainstay of our culture at Mass General.

The Domains of Practice hearken back to an earlier iteration of the model and speak to the importance of “doing for” and “being with” the patient in order to create an environment of optimal care and healing.

Finally, Empirical Outcomes refers to the critically important function of how we measure the impact of our work, encompassing clinical outcomes, patient satisfaction, the environment of care, and workforce morale.