Health Story Collaborative

Organization Overview:

Health Story Collaborative (HSC) is a Boston-based nonprofit organization founded by Harvard trained internal medicine physician Annie Brewster, MD. Dr. Brewster is also a patient, living with Multiple Sclerosis since 2001. HSC is a response to Dr. Brewster’s experience as both a patient and a provider, and aims to heal the disconnection that is rampant in healthcare today.

 Fundamentally, HSC works to empower patients and their loved ones, to build community and to strengthen patient-provider connections. HSC is founded on the belief, supported by research, that storytelling promotes health. Moreover, HSC is working to transform the culture of medicine through stories, by keeping patients and their loved ones at the center of the healthcare experience.

 HSC creates online content and offers direct service programs to allow for story sharing. Programs include a continually growing Audio Stories digital library, a Healing Arts program, a Community Voices program, live storytelling events called Healing Story Sessions and SharingClinic, an interactive hospital-based storytelling kiosk. 

 Finally, HSC team members believe in community engagement through teaching and service and work frequently with college and medical students, the medical providers of our future, in addition to addressing real-world problems, such as the current opioid overdose epidemic.

 HSC believes in interdisciplinary collaborations and innovation to improve healthcare today.

 Having an illness is scary. The medical system can be isolating and alienating. Fear breeds anger and disconnection. Stories heal, individually and collectively, and must be kept alive and celebrated. 

Mission Statement:

The mission of Health Story Collaborative is to keep the patient voice alive in healthcare and to harness the healing power of stories.

By collecting, honoring and sharing stories of illness and healing, we strive to make the process of navigating illness less isolating and to empower individuals and families facing health challenges.

Our belief, supported by research, is that storytelling is healing for both story sharers and listeners. Stories have the power to transform individuals as well as the healthcare system.