UMass Memorial creates digital hospital to centralize care and provide patient assistance throughout Central Mass.

Two desks with multiple computer monitors with people standing/sitting in front of them

Photo I Courtesy of UMass Memorial Health UMass Memorial Health's Digital Hub is located at 100 Front St. in Worcester.

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In response to the rise of telehealth post-COVID, Central Massachusetts’ largest healthcare system has established a new Digital Hub, looking to centralize remote medicine and streamline operations at all its campuses throughout Central Massachusetts to better treat its patients.

UMass Memorial Health in Worcester launched its Digital Hub in September, merging the system’s remote patient monitoring; patient transfer and access; and management on in-home care under one roof.

Bringing UMMH’s digital services together was a strategic move to allow those within the divisions to collaborate more effectively and share resources in a way that wasn’t as readily accessible before, said Dr. Eric Alper, senior vice president, system chief quality officer and chief clinical informatics officer at UMMH.

“The feeling was that if we could take all of these new, different services that we were creating and put them in the same place, then we'd have a lot of like minded people who are sitting in the same place, working together, that would inspire one another, that would help to push the boundaries,” Alper said.

As part of UMMH’s remote patient monitoring, the system's electronic intensive care unit is now located within the Digital Hub. The eICU utilizes two-way video communication to constantly survey UMMH’s most critical patients.

The program's staff monitor up to six patients each, observing patient behavior or actions that could put them at risk, such as a fall-risk patient attempting to walk on their own. If appropriate, staff will use verbal communication to redirect or assist patients, alerting nurses on the floor if a patient is in need of immediate attention.

The hub is staffed 24/7 with a physician, who can guide nurses through patient issues.

The eICU monitors approximately 150 ICU beds within the UMMH system and those at other hospitals throughout Massachusetts. The UMMH system includes hospitals in Worcester, Marlborough, Leominster, Milford, Clinton, and Southbridge.

Next door, the hub’s transfer and access team works with the eICU, overseeing patient bed management and facilitating patient transfers from hospital to hospital. The team works with UMass Memorial Life Flight, which provides nurse-and-paramedic-staffed helicopters to patients throughout New England.

The Digital Hub houses UMMH’s Hospital at Home, Subacute Rehab at Home, and other specialty care at home services. The division’s remote patient monitoring team provides guidance in between visits to patients receiving in-home care. The team works to prevent hospitalizations, tracking patient blood pressure, weight, and blood sugar while a provider isn’t present.

Alper acknowledges that digital services like these may not be what all patients prefer, potentially harming patient experience.

“There's certainly a risk there. I think that telehealth in general has created some of those types of dynamics where people do feel like not having that in-person interaction does create some challenges,” he said.

At the same time, Alper sees digital services as being able to better support patients. Unlike reaching out to an on-call doctor who may not be as awake or on their game, providing remote physician care in conjunction with in-person nurses can lead to better outcomes.

“Being able to press a button on the wall in the ICU and getting someone who appears right away, who's fresh, who has access to all the information, that's been overall something that has been a real satisfaction for all the teams,” he said.

This goal of elevated care has turned into a long-term focus of the Digital Hub. With four months of operations under its belt, Alper sees the hub building off of its initial vision of enhanced collaboration to further improve patient outcomes.

“The longer term is that this continues to adapt and morph into a tightly integrated set of services that ultimately delivers even better care to the people in Central Massachusetts by having this digital hospital concept available to them,” he said. “It's going to continue to morph and grow and to solve additional problems that we haven't even gotten to yet.”

Mica Kanner-Mascolo is a staff writer at Worcester Business Journal, who primarily covers the healthcare and diversity, equity, and inclusion industries.