Boston Hope is a new 1,000-bed medical center for patients who are recovering from coronavirus infection (COVID-19) and unsheltered individuals who are also infected. The center was built at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center and opened April 10. Its mission is to provide medical care for COVID-19 patients who don’t need hospital treatment in an acute care facility.
Dr. Giles Boland, MD, president of the Brigham and Women's Physicians Organization, is co-medical and operations director of Boston Hope, along with Jeanette R. Ives Erickson, RN, DNP, chief nurse emerita of Massachusetts General Hospital. Boland and Erickson are working under the leadership of Brigadier General (ret.) Jack Hammond. With this team, Boland is the co-lead responsible for converting an empty building to a fully operational post-acute care hospital. The hospital was built and implemented within one week.
Dr. Boland reflects on two aspects of this experience that have been most fulfilling. “First, it’s rewarding to know that Boston Hope allows the Eastern Massachusetts acute hospitals to focus on their sickest patients to give them the best possible opportunity for recovery,” said Boland. “Secondly, it’s gratifying to be part of an energetic, dynamic and creative multidisciplinary team of people from many organizations whose priority is the best interest of patients afflicted with COVID-19.”
Mass General Brigham is leading much of Boston Hope’s clinical operation and working in partnership with Boston Health Care for the Homeless, the Baker Administration, Boston Mayor Martin J. Walsh’s office and regional hospitals. Leaders from all organizations rapidly united to form a leadership and operations team.
Boston Hope health care providers come from Mass General Brigham hospitals, including Brigham and Women’s Hospital, the Massachusetts Medical Association, the Department of Defense and staffing agencies. The Brigham, along with every other Boston-area teaching hospital, has provided resources for Boston Hope. One challenge in creating the hospital was the short supply of some medical equipment. Brigham ambulatory facilities who are treating less patients during the crisis supplied Boston Hope with equipment to support the hospital’s mission and care delivery.
Boston Hope patients get the best treatment for their illness while freeing up capacity at acute care hospitals. Patients from hospitals both within the Mass General Brigham system and outside the Mass General Brigham system may receive care at Boston Hope. These patients are referred from area hospitals, either as inpatient transfers or from emergency departments.
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