BBJ Celebrates Local Healthcare Heroes

From CHEN PR Account Manager Juli Greenwood...

I’ve attended some feel-good industry events but never one quite like this.

Last week’s Champions in Health Care awards breakfast, hosted by the Boston Business Journal, celebrated our local health care heroes: doctors, nurses, administrators, community activists and innovators. I was attending in support of our client, Phase Forward and honoree in the Innovator category, Dr. Paul Bleicher, Phase Forward’s chairman and founder. A physician and investigator at Mass General Hospital, Paul was struck by how inefficient the clinical trials process had become – an idea that led to the founding of Phase Forward almost 10 years ago. Today, and with the technology shaped by Paul’s vision, the company is helping to improve the way clinical trial data is collected and analyzed, resulting in better, safer drugs that hit the market more quickly for the patients who so desperately need them.

And Paul was in good company.

Art Mellor was also honored in the Innovator category – a software engineer who when diagnosed with MS put his engineering and project management skills to work to develop the nation’s only MS Repository, a database where researchers can pool patient samples and research data and work collaboratively to find a cure. Larry Kessler was honored for lifetime achievement for his 20 years running the AIDS Action Committee, an organization that has helped more than 9,000 people in Massachusetts living with AIDS and HIV. Community Servings was honored for its meal delivery program. Since its launch in 1990 and with the help of more than 800 volunteers, it has served more than 2.85 million meals to its clients with life-threatening diseases – and they haven’t once missed a delivery.

While each had its own story, one thing remained consistent: vision on its own is meaningless without action, perseverance and hard work. This year’s honorees not only inspire with their unending desire to help those in need, but with their unrelenting efforts to make it so.

So thank you to the Boston Business Journal for celebrating these inspiring heroes. I was honored to attend.