Southcoast Health was recently featured in Providence Business News (PBN) following the health system’s $112,000 donation to New Bedford Community Health’s effort to expand its primary care services.

The health center is expanding a former Rite Aid pharmacy to boost its primary care services.

PBN quoted Southcoast Health CEO David McCready, a member of MHA’s Board of Trustees, as saying, “Here in our region and across the country, there is an urgent need to expand access to primary care. Southcoast Health continues to invest in our own primary care program and providers as we seek to increase capacity for patients in our region, and we are honored to partner with and support New Bedford Community Health’s own expansion efforts.”

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Aimee Brewer, the president & CEO of Sturdy Health and a member of the MHA Board’s Executive Committee, shared some leadership insights with Becker’s Hospital Review. Speaking of the importance in building a strong leadership team, Brewer said, “At Sturdy Health, we have been and will be focused on developing a C-suite that is intensely focused on strategy and execution, leaders who can see the system as a whole and translate vision into measurable outcomes. We spend a significant amount of time planning for a different model of care that prioritizes innovation, integration and sustainability. We’re also committed to continuous learning, focused on leading change, responsible risk taking, and exploring how technology and AI should be thoughtfully incorporated to enhance patient experience and outcomes, and support our physicians, clinicians and team members.”

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In another Becker’s article, leaders at Massachusetts General Hospital discuss a relatively new short-stay model that has cut ED boarding times by 42%. Like other hospitals, MGH was dealing with ED patients who were technically under “observation” but who qualified for short-term inpatient-level care. Using a new 19-bed space, MGH created a true observation unit next to the ED, which freed up beds in another unit that were then used to create a “short-stay” unit for medicine patients. “These were patients either in the ED observation unit or occupying licensed inpatient beds that we needed for patients currently boarding in the emergency department,” Peter Dunn, M.D., senior vice president of hospital operations told Becker’s. MGH used a model to determine which patients would require a short stay.”

The unit opened in February and gradually scaled up to full use of its 31 beds by April. According to Becker’s, “Nine months in, the unit is helping MGH reduce emergency department boarding times. Within the first six months, the hospital saw a six-hour drop in ED boarding time for general medicine patients — from 19 hours to 13 hours. Among patients transferring to the CDU, boarding time dropped to 11 hours — a 42% reduction.”