For more than a century, Johns Hopkins physicians and scientists have investigated the roots of wellness and made countless advances in medicine — developing breakthrough treatments that change lives.
These men and women pioneered surgery for breast cancer, developed CPR, invented the first implantable pacemaker, described the role of Vitamin A to prevent blindness and identified the enzymatic mechanism of aging. Our researchers — Nobel Prize laureates and winners of the Lasker Award (the “American Nobel”) — push the boundaries of biomedical discovery. Today, they assess genetic, biologic, clinical and lifestyle data to develop health solutions that are more personalized and precise.
Our investigators are examining how Big Data can reveal broader trends to expand preventive care and improve disease management. They have made the greatest strides in understanding how to individualize cancer treatments using novel biologic inhibitors and immunotherapy. Led by Hopkins' “bench to bedside” approach, we are entering the era of individualized tumor therapies.
Johns Hopkins has evolved into an internationally recognized and well-resourced powerhouse for research. Of all U.S. academic medical centers, we receive the most federal funding and were the first to receive more than $2 billion. We also dedicate the most in total research and development spending, according to the National Science Foundation.
Why is research so important to us? We conduct innovative research, improve diagnostics, make technological breakthroughs, and advance patient safety and quality for one reason: to improve the health of the community and the world.
Exponential Benefits
Our record and resources help us provide the best care for patients who travel to Johns Hopkins from all over the world. Patients benefit from our deep sources of data, cutting-edge diagnostics and technological advances, such as minimally invasive, robotic and laparoscopic techniques.
Our clinicians draw upon the latest research to coordinate and deliver the top-quality care to patients here and at our global affiliates. And we don’t confine our research to the basic science laboratories; we also conduct investigations on the clinical wards. For example, we connected researchers from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and two of our affiliates — Al Rahba Hospital in the United Arab Emirates and Hospital Moinhos de Vento in Brazil.
Together, they investigated how they might be able to customize and use HopScore, an electronic triage tool that Hopkins developed. Their joint research shows that HopScore works well in diverse settings — and could work at any emergency room in any hospital across the globe. Sharing this technology has great potential to reduce subjectivity and inform clinical decision-making that will get patients the right care faster.
Besides sharing information so affiliates can apply our medical advances directly at the local level, we also provide training and work with them to develop their own research programs.
At Fundación Santa Fe de Bogotá (FSFB), our Colombian affiliate, we are involved in a collaborative emergency medicine residency that not only is training the next generation of ED physicians at the hospital, but also increasing the capacity for independent research while improving clinical operations and patient safety.
FSFB residents teamed up and selected a research topic related to clinical operations or quality improvement that became the focus of a one-year research project. Their projects yielded valuable insights related to bed occupancy, resident burnout, treatment guidelines for specific conditions and lab processes that will help enhance patient care in an in-demand department.
Experts from Johns Hopkins and Johns Hopkins Aramco Healthcare co-lead a clinical research course and workshop that is helping realize JHAH’s goal to launch its own research program and advance medical discovery in Saudi Arabia. More than 30 physicians, nurses and pharmacists participated in the interactive course, titled “Introduction to Clinical Research Methodologies,” and began developing research projects they then presented at JHAH’s first Research Day held last December. A follow-up course was offered earlier this spring at the second annual JHAH Research Day.
At Johns Hopkins Medicine International, we bring together the best minds to conduct research that may lead to important health discoveries and move medicine forward. We see that firsthand through research collaborations made possible through our global affiliations.
