NEWSROOM

Three years ago, emergency departments across Massachusetts were inundated with patients infected with COVID-19. In my 30-plus years of working in emergency medicine, I had never seen anything like it. No one had. We cared for patients in tents outside the emergency department.

“At about 99 percent of the hospitals in the country, they come in for a bronchoscopy, they have a biopsy and then the diagnosis takes about a week or so,” said Mark Maxfield, MD, a thoracic surgeon at UMass Memorial Health.

Among the Massachusetts health systems announcing an end to mask requirements on May 12 are: Mass General Brigham, the state’s largest health care system; Boston Medical Center, Tufts Medicine; Beth Israel Lahey Health; and UMass Memorial Health, the largest system in central Massachusetts

As the public health emergency declaration in Massachusetts is set to end on May 11, UMass Memorial Health in Worcester is poised to update its masking policy, which will make masking optional in most settings throughout the healthcare system.

BOSTON – The Federal Emergency Management Agency will be sending more than $1.1 million to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to reimburse UMass Memorial Health Care, Inc.

As the leader of more than 17,000 caregivers at the largest healthcare provider and largest employer in Central Massachusetts, Dr.

UMass Memorial Health CEO Eric Dickson, MD, MHCM, details the innovative ways in which the Massachusetts health system has broken down the barriers of care for the communities it serves.

COVID numbers at UMass Memorial have dropped significantly – 29 COVID patients are currently in UMass Memorial hospitals, including four in the intensive care unit as of last Wednesday, according to state public health data.

With Massachusetts being an expansion state, UMass Memorial Health has always made significant efforts toward Medicaid enrollment, said Dr. Dickson. Now those efforts will intensify during the redetermination process. 

Robin is a robot that lives in the pediatric unit at UMass Memorial Medical Center in Worcester. The hospital brought in Robin back in October as a way to provide moral support to pediatric patients — especially those in isolation.

In Worcester, Saint Vincent Hospital is in the process of revising their masking policy to align with the May 11 lifting of the emergency orders. UMass Memorial Health is also anticipating they'll become mask optional once the orders end. UMass Memorial President and CEO Dr.

UMass Memorial Health president and CEO Dr. Eric Dickson said COVID-19 was and still is unchartered territory. People weren't sure what to do, or what was coming ahead. "In emergency medicine, we train in disaster medicine," he said.