Dr. Brian Jack named chief of family medicine at Boston Medical Center

By Chelsea Conaboy, Globe Staff

Dr. Brian Jack/Courtesy photo

Dr. Brian Jack will lead the departments of family medicine at Boston Medical Center and Boston University School of Medicine. Jack replaces Dr. Larry Culpepper who left the positions last year and remains with the institutions.

Jack was hired in 1997 as vice chairman of family medicine at the hospital. He led development of Project RED (Re-engineered discharge), a process for standardizing communication between clinicians and patients when they are discharged from the hospital. The project has tested the use of “virtual patient advocates,” like Louise, to teach people about their medications and follow-up care during discharge.

Jack, who lives in the South End, studied medicine at the University of Massachusetts and trained in family medicine at Brown University. He became a faculty member in 1986 at Brown, where he created a maternal and child health fellowship program based in a community health center. Jack has received numerous national awards, including recognition for Project RED from the US Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. He has been involved in a number of programs to develop primary care internationally, including in Albania, Jordan, Vietnam, and elsewhere. He is director of the Lesotho-Boston Health Alliance, which partners with Lesotho government and health officials to build the health care system in that small country in southern Africa.

“Dr. Jack’s commitment to improving the health care experience will be of great benefit to our patients,” Kate Walsh, the hospital’s chief executive, said in a press release. “We look forward to the leadership he will provide to the Department of Family Medicine and to the hospital.”