Health

4 HE ALTH • Fall 2019 HealthAlliance CEO leaving UMass system Deborah Weymouth, the president and CEO of UMass Memorial HealthAlliance-Clinton Hospital, is leaving the position for a new job out- side the hospital. Weymouth has led HealthAlliance's Fitchburg and Leominster campuses since 2014, adding oversight of Clinton Hospital in 2017 when the UMass Memorial system merged the two facilities. She joined UMass Memorial Health Care from New Milford Hospital in Connecticut, where she was the executive director. UMass did not say what position Weymouth has taken or where, or announced an interim replacement. Weymouth, who lives in Concord, led the merger between HealthAlliance Hospital and Clinton Hospital, and more recently led the planning of a new emergency department in Leominster, which is scheduled to open next spring. Health Care Br iefs O vercrowding of hospital emergency departments has become a major factor in safety problems or potential ones, according to a new Massachusetts government report. A report released in August by the Betsy Lehman Center for Patient Safety, a state agency aiming to reduce patient harm, estimates between roughly half and four-fifths of what it calls adverse incidents in emergency departments are largely avoidable. That rate more than doubles other areas of a hospital, the report said, and many of those incidents stem from overcrowding. Emergency departments can increasingly be hectic and unpredictable, the report said, often with too few nurses and doctors to A UMass Medical School professor and researcher has been given a president award for his work on skin disorders. Dr. John Harris was announced in July as a recipient of President Donald Trump's Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers. He was also this year's recipient of the Amerian Skin Association's Calder Research Scholar Award in Vitiligo and Pigment Cell Disorders. In Worcester, Harris directs the Vitiligo Clinic and Research Center at the university, which inte- grates a specialty clinic for the diagnosis and treat- ment of patients with vitiligo, a skin disorder caus- ing white patches to develop on the skin. He is a physician at UMass Memorial Medical Center. In a press release from the American Skin Association, Harris is credited for revolutionizing the treatment of vitiligo thanks to his research and development of a new family of drugs to treat the condition. "Dr. Harris is an outstanding leader at the fore- front of dermatologic research, making great strides in the treatment of vitiligo and alopecia areata," said David Norris, president of ASA, in a press release. "ASA has been continually impressed with the progress of Dr. Harris' research, and we are thrilled that he has been bestowed with such an impressive honor." I n n o v a t i o n UMMS professor receives presidential award for skin disorder drugs State: Overcrowding in hospital ERs leads to increased violence treat patients and sometimes too few beds to quickly get patients cared for. Making matters worse, emergency health providers told the report's authors they see patient violence against staff, diagnostic errors and cases of patients left without being seen as major issues. Dr. Martin Reznek, UMass Memorial Medical Center's vice chair for emergency medicine and a panel member for the report, said overcrowding is at the root of many of the issues, with patient demand challenges worsening in the past five to 10 years. Emergency departments are often the first to feel a capacity squeeze, he said. Nationally, more than 90% of emergency departments have reported routine overcrowding, the report said. In Massachusetts, a 14% rise over five years in the rate of emergency department patients with behavioral health conditions have complicated how patients are treated. Hospitals, including UMass, work to recruit more doctors and nurses, Reznek said. But adding more staff or adding space for more beds come with financial costs while many hospitals struggle to keep costs down. "It's not that folks aren't thinking about it," Reznek said. "They are." Changes coming with little or no cost can and sometimes have been adopted, Reznek said, including changing procedures for staff communication. The Massachusetts Department of Public Health has a policy, named Code Help, requiring acute-care hospitals to have plans in place to avoid emergency department overcrowding. August's report, called "Urgent Matters," gives examples of steps hospitals have taken to improve emergency department safety. They include UMass Memorial, which in 2010 instituted clinical guidelines overseen by a committee. In 2013, UMass Memorial began using medical scribes, which are non- medical personnel who accompany clinicians on patient visits and handle documentation to free up time for clinicians to spend more time with patients. The report calls for other steps to address overcrowding, including keeping stable-condition patients in hallways while waiting for beds, instead of waiting in the emergency room, and sending patients home sooner if they're able to, while having providers visit them at home after discharge. H UMass Memorial Medical Center inside UMass Science Park in Worcester. Deborah Weymouth, former CEO of HealthAlliance-Clinton Hospital H PHOTO/TMS AERIAL SOLUTIONS

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