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Prakash Chandran: Harrington Healthcare System board members voted in early 2020 to begin steps to pursue an acquisition agreement with UMass Memorial. And on July 1st, Harrington officially became a part of the UMass Memorial Health System. The acquisition brings 1400 Harrington employees to UMass Memorial Health swelling its ranks to more than 15,000 caregivers. We're going to talk about it day with Ed Moore, President of UMass Memorial Health Harrington.

This is Healthy Takeout, the podcast from Harrington Hospital. My name is Prakash Chandran. So Ed, it's a pleasure to have you here today. You know, I know you'd been the president and CEO of Harrington Hospital for many years before this acquisition, so maybe let's get started by you telling us a little bit more about how these plans started out.

Ed Moore: Sure, Prakash. Happy to do so. I started at Harrington in 2007 as president and CEO, been here now just finishing up my 14th year. And about five years ago, while independent, the board and I discussed the idea of should we remain independent or should we consider other options?

So looking at our strategic plan in around 2016, looking out five years, we decided that it was worthwhile to consider what would be best for the community for the long-term and decided to look at all of our options, including staying independent, including merger acquisition or any other type of affiliation. And by 2020, right before COVID, we signed a letter of intent with UMass Memorial Health to consider becoming acquired by them after speaking with approximately 11 organizations. The opportunity to become part of the system was delayed slightly through UMass Memorial's focus on COVID as well as ours, but we went to definitive agreement in the end of '20. And we culminated, as you said on July 1st, '21 our acquisition by UMass Memorial.

Prakash Chandran: Yeah, that definitely sounds amazing. So now that Harrington has become a part of the UMass Memorial Health System, has your reach in the community to provide care grown? Maybe talk about some of the benefits that people can look forward to.

Ed Moore: Sure. Well, as part of the arrangement, first of all, there's several major commitments. Some have to do with the service offerings that have to stay anywhere between five and eight years. Others have to do with commitments of capital and electronic medical record as part of that. So there's going to be investment over the first five years of up to about a hundred million dollars. It will become part of their Epic electronic medical record in the next two to three years. And I think those are really great advantages for the community.

In addition, one of our objectives was, and we certainly found it by becoming part of UMass Memorial Health, was to rebrand ourselves into their campaign where we really can have the community feel even better about the services we offer, the quality and services of that nature. Our goal has always been to keep the care local. And now with the UMass name behind us, I think we can offer even more services locally to meet that need.

Prakash Chandran: Yeah, absolutely. So expanding on that a little bit, now that Harrington has access to these additional resources, are there any that you're particularly excited about?

Ed Moore: Yeah. So we right now, for example, have one construction project, for example, underway. I'll describe that briefly. And then we also have a major one in the planning stages that we wouldn't have been able to do if it wasn't for this new arrangement with UMass Memorial.

One, the first one I mentioned is we have a major commitment to psychiatric and substance abuse services, so our behavioral health patients. Currently, we have two inpatient units, one on our Webster campus, one in South Bridge. The Webster one is only three years old. The South Bridge is probably 40 years old. And we are moving that unit to the Webster campus to have both units on that campus to the cost of about $5.1 million. With that, UMass is very supportive and that includes allowing us to expand by 10 additional beds, which are very much needed in this central Mass market and throughout the state for that matter. So that's one example of their being behind us with more resources to allow us to do that project.

The other major capital commitment will be towards relocating and expanding our intensive care unit, which clearly during COVID was stretched pretty hard and we anticipate the need for more beds. So we'll be going from a six-bed unit to an eight-bed unit where we can see higher acuity patients in a really state-of-the-art unit. So those are just two examples on the construction side.

When we look at other aspects, they made a major commitment to help us on physician recruitment. So we right now are looking for a new primary care physician, which they are going to be very supportive. We have some needs in endocrinology that they've already helped us with creating a center of excellence in endocrinology. And then beyond that, I think we will have continued needs in other specialties as well as psychiatry. So we look forward to their support in both recruitment.

One of the aspects of that will be we're beginning to engage in a medical staff manpower study with them to fully identify what those needs are based on our population. And they will support, hopefully I would imagine at the conclusion of that, the results of where we can expand our medical staff.

Prakash Chandran: So, you know, we talked about some of the construction commitments and recruitment that they're going to be able to help facilitate. I'd love for you to expand a little bit more on the electronic medical record piece of it. I know there's going to be a massive investment in Epic over the next couple of years, but what exactly are patients going to get out of that investment?

Ed Moore: Sure. Good point. There'll be over $50 million, 5-0. I always like to clarify that. Fifty million dollars spent on installing Epic here. And the benefit really is multiple benefits. First of all right now, Harrington has two electronic medical record systems primarily. We employ a large number of physicians over 75 or 80 providers. They're on Allscripts. The hospital itself is on Meditech. That's not unusual for a community hospital. But the thing of it is, those two systems do not talk to each other very well, if at all. The beauty of being on Epic, it's one system for all the employed physicians and the hospital services. So they'll be able to see each other's information live and look back and make sure we don't duplicate orders, make sure there's good flow, et cetera.

The other benefit related to that for the patient as well, 90% of our tertiary referrals go to UMass. And right now, it's not easy for the record to be used by both organizations. It's hard for them to see anything we've done in Meditech or Allscripts, like I said, and it's not simple or easy for us to access the patient's information at UMass in Epic. So this way, it'll be seamless where our providers can see what they did up there at the tertiary center and the tertiary folks can see what they've done here locally, when they receive the patient for that referral. That should avoid unnecessary testing, duplication. And I think it's the premier system in the country for that matter of which folks like Harrington would never have access to or really be able to afford. So that was a key part of this arrangement to have electronic information, electronic health information, be able to be shared and give us state-of-the-art information like that. It was really a great part of the arrangement when we finalized the acquisition.

Prakash Chandran: Yeah, absolutely. And just kind of with that shared data, you know, as you mentioned that there is that efficiency and cross collaboration that's introduced, but I think there's also like the MyChart component too, that I know that is a part of Epic, that gives a patient better direct line communication with their healthcare providers. Are you going to be able to facilitate that as well?

Ed Moore: Yeah, that'll be part of it. And the nice part is one of the things we measure ourselves on is a variety of quality metrics. And what's critical is that we help our patients take advantage of the services they should be getting, like getting the mammogram on the right frequency, getting colonoscopies and all that is tracked very efficiently in the Epic system, of which we'll be able to help our patients meet those quality metrics and then, I think, provide added value services to the community. So I think some of those features will enhance our ability to be the best possible provider in this region.

Prakash Chandran: Okay. So outside of the electronic medical record that we were discussing, are there any other critical changes that patients should be aware of now that you are united with UMass Memorial Health?

Ed Moore: Well, number one, I think, you know, like we said, the name changed, so there's a recognition that we're no longer Harrington on our own, but the beauty, I think that the public should be aware of is some of the benefits that Harrington has had over the years and done to make it a real community hospital feel, and I've been told many a time, I feel like it's going to be part of a family. And I think that's the aspect that I think the community should feel good about, that shouldn't change, that the size that we are, the caregivers, the employees who work here, the staff are not in a, you know, thousand-bed hospital. We are still a small to medium-sized community hospital, but offering a broader array of services, but with a family community feel to it. And I think that's one of the things that over the years was able to differentiate us and UMass fully respects that should continue, that the local community should feel an affinity and feel good about coming to this environment rather than to a major city downtown-like environment, because I think that's what makes people feel loyal and committed to getting the right care locally.

And to be honest, our community wants to stay local. So it's our desire for the things we can do and appropriate to do in a high quality way really well locally, we intend to keep it that way in the environment and culture that they're comfortable with.

So I think that's what the community should be looking forward to is more services, you know, continued high quality, but really in a good atmosphere, a good environment that they should feel happy to still come to.

Prakash Chandran: Yeah, absolutely. And you obviously touched on some of this, but just as you look forward over the next five to 10 years at UMass Health Harrington, now that you have these additional resources and support, what is your vision of how things will unfold and what patients can look forward to?

Ed Moore: I think healthcare in central Mass, healthcare in the state, healthcare in the country has gone through some difficult periods of time pre-COVID, then with COVID, now we're facing another surge, we're facing staffing crises, and we're not alone in that. I think just having the support of UMass behind us and I'll quote Dr. Dickson, because I remind him all the time and he agrees to this, you know, now that we're part of UMass, he said, "Your problems are now our problem." And I think the community should be reassured, and this was really the genesis of the deal, which was that the board made a conscious decision that it felt that the preservation of healthcare for this community for the longterm would be best served by being part of a larger, and in this case, academic medical center organization, who has more depth and resources to continue to support us.

And I think we've seen that as I said, I think the community five or 10 years from now should not fear that the hospital is on the verge of closing because other hospitals that are independent have gone through that and it can happen. I think what our board saw in their wisdom was that if we were part of a larger system, there should be minimal or no risk of closure of this hospital, which is so essential to the needs of this community. And that's really what drove us during that three, four-year strategic planning process was the fiduciary responsibility is to make sure healthcare is here for a long period of time, you know, after this board, if you will, goes through its time as board members. But in the end, they should be giving for the future what's best for the community.

Prakash Chandran: Yeah, it's very clear that it was a very thoughtful decision. You know, I wanted to shift focus to something that's affecting our community today, which is this Delta variant surge with the coronavirus that we're seeing. You know, now that you have the additional resources from UMass Memorial Health System, how are you at Harrington thinking about addressing this?

Ed Moore: Yeah. For sure. Thank you for asking. As many people know in the local community, we stood up a very significant effort to provide vaccinations when they first became available last December. And over the course of about six months, administered over 50,000 shots and really took care of our broader community besides initially taking care of our own employees. And to that end, I think we got tremendous feedback from the community and goodwill in that regard.

Having said that, as you mentioned, that Delta variants and potential other variants right now is very concerning. And I think the spike potentially that is coming as we speak needs to be addressed as best as possible. Harrington has seen a greater increase in overall bed utilization and our census is at record highs, including some patients with COVID. But I just want to highlight that the best way to get ahead of this virus is really to get everybody vaccinated. We are still offering the vaccine. We've moved from the armory because the demand slowed down significantly. But I would just encourage everyone to really take a moment and think long and hard, given that the new people who are getting the virus are the ones 90-something percent who have not been vaccinated. We need to as a community rally together, because our rates locally for positivity are three times the state average. We're about almost 9% of people getting COVID in the positivity rate from our testing data and the state as a whole is below 3%. So I would strongly encourage to take advantage of our vaccine offering at this time.

Prakash Chandran: Yeah, and I definitely couldn't agree more. So just before we close here today, is there anything else that you wanted to share with our audience just regarding this acquisition?

Ed Moore: So, so one thing I'd like to share with the community is really the fact that when acquisitions like this occur, they can go one of two ways at the very beginning, they can either be seamless or they could be bumpy, I'd say. And this one has been truly seamless. Every time we met both pre-closing and post-closing, things have gone extremely well. This team at UMass and our team here, we've been very respected and very welcomed as we go through trying to figure out what opportunities lie in front of us. And I look forward to that continuing. I think UMass has been true to its word about wanting Harrington to be successful through this process. And we really think it's going to be a successful transition and then lead to multiple years of continued improvement for the community.

Prakash Chandran: Yeah, absolutely. And made very clear by what Dr. Dixon said that your problems are our problems now.

Ed Moore: Yep.

Prakash Chandran: So thank you so much, Ed. I really appreciate your time today.

Ed Moore: I'm very pleased to have done this interview with you. Thank you very much. And, you know, anybody can inquire if they have any questions, but we continue to look forward to excellent years ahead. Thank you.

Prakash Chandran: Fantastic. That's Ed Moore, President of UMass Memorial Health Harrington. Thanks for checking out this episode of Healthy Takeout. Head to harringtonhospital.org to get connected with the provider. If you found this podcast helpful, please share it on your social channels and be sure to check out the entire podcast library for topics of interest to you. Thanks again for listening. My name is Prakash, and we'll talk next time.