Doctors perform the robotic, one anesthetic diagnosis and treatment (RODAT) procedure on a lung cancer patient.
The president of UMass Memorial Health last week expressed to staff that “all hands-on deck” were required to help with COVID-19 testing sites both in Worcester and Marlborough as the omicron variant continues to surge within the region.
Last Friday, President and CEO Dr. Eric Dickson explained the urgency of the situation in a message sent to UMass Memorial Health’s Core Management team, the organization said.
The evidence of the capacity crisis was everywhere — with patients in hallways and placed in any spare room. Dr. Eric Dickson, CEO and president of UMass Memorial Health, said one patient, a 90-year-old woman, was placed in a pediatric trauma room.
Virtually all COVID-19 cases in Massachusetts are now resulting from the omicron variant. It took over in hospitals in late December, according to an analysis from Cambridge Health Alliance. It’s still early in the omicron surge, but it’s coming on fast, so we asked several doctors and nurses what they are seeing with omicron, to get a sense of how patients are faring and how this surge compares to prior waves of COVID.
Starting Monday, Massachusetts hospitals will differentiate between patients they admit primarily for COVID-19 and those admitted to be treated for something else who end up testing positive.
The idea is to give the public a better understanding of how many people are in the hospital because of the virus. But while that data began to be collected Monday, it won't be released by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health until January 17, officials said.
Worcester, Massachusetts (CNN) - An incoming tide of patients is slowly drowning UMass Memorial Medical Center, and the US military's National Guard is working to plug the gaps. In wave after daily wave, the emergency crews pull up to the ambulance bay, dropping off patients for which there is no room.
"It's just the perfect storm for a nightmare here in the emergency department," says Dr. Eric Dickson, the CEO of the hospital and an emergency physician.
UMass Memorial Health President and CEO Dr. Eric Dickson is pleading with his team leaders to voluntarily redeploy administrative staff to support the system’s coronavirus testing sites at the Mercantile Center in Worcester and the New England Sports Center in Marlborough, according to an internal memo circulated mid-afternoon on Friday.
WORCESTER, Mass. — A COVID-19 testing site in Worcester made an emergency call for staffing help Friday night
The UMass Memorial Health President and CEO Dr. Eric Dickson said the Mercantile Center in Worcester and the testing site at the New England Sports Center in Marlboro, both need more workers to help run the operations.
WORCESTER, Mass. — Massachusetts health care workers are exhausted as they try to navigate the unprecedented number of COVID-19 cases fueled by the omicron surge.
It's one reason why Dr. Eric Dickson, chief executive at UMass Memorial Health in Worcester left his office, put on protective gear, and got to work.
Hospital officials in Massachusetts are warning that intensive care unit (ICU) beds are nearing capacity as the state's positivity rate nearly doubled in a week due to the highly contagious Omicron variant.
"I was searching for an ICU bed for one of our patients, and every single facility is full. They are at full capacity. They have no ICU beds left," Dr. Melisa Lai-Becker, the medical director for the emergency department at Cambridge Health Alliance's Everett Hospital, told WGBH on Monday.
WORCESTER — Wednesday marked a grim record in the city's ongoing battle with COVID-19.
With 3,513 new cases since last week's press conference, the city is shattering records for transmission.
WORCESTER, Mass. - In just one week, the City of Worcester has reported its highest one day increase, one week increase and seven-day average of COVID-19 cases since the start of the pandemic.
Since last week, Worcester reports 3,513 new confirmed positive cases, adding to the city’s total of 38,342 cases since March 2020. On Wednesday alone, the city reported 1,094 new cases.
Dr. Melisa Lai-Becker, the medical director for the emergency department at Cambridge Health Alliance's Everett Hospital, spent much of Monday afternoon urgently calling hospitals all over the state.
"I was searching for an ICU [intensive care unit] bed for one of our patients, and every single facility is full," she said. "They are at full capacity. They have no ICU beds left."
The website for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention includes scores of bullet points and lists on how best to protect friends and family from COVID-19.
Regardless of the tab or sections, the information boils down to the same thing: get vaccinated.
“I think it’s the right move,” said Dr. Eric Dickson, CEO of UMass Memorial Health. “I support their decision. And we are actively considering it …. Once we’re through this latest surge — the worst of the three — we will likely follow suit.”
WORCESTER, Mass. — Hundreds of people in Massachusetts waited for hours outside in the cold in order to receive a COVID-19 test following the New Year's holiday weekend.
Sky5 was able to capture the long, snaking line that formed outside the Mercantile Center in Worcester on Monday.
Bay Staters are having their patience tested to kick off the year as thousands of people on Monday waited in massive lines — some shivering in the bitter cold for hours — to get tested for COVID amid the omicron surge.
As sites get overwhelmed following the holidays, local officials are pleading with Gov. Charlie Baker’s administration to add more locations to address the coronavirus testing “log jam.”
WORCESTER, Mass. - Monday marked another day of long lines at the Mercantile Center COVID-19 testing site in downtown Worcester.
Hundreds of people lined up to get tested following the holiday season, including 250 people tested in the first hour the clinic was open on Monday.
WORCESTER (CBS) – The president of UMass Memorial Health Care says this month is going to be “rough” for hospitals in the state.
Dr. Eric Dickson told WBZ-TV’s Christina Hager Monday that the “crunch time” for this latest surge of COVID-19 will be in the next two weeks. He said the positivity rates are so high because the Omicron variant is a “hyper-infectious virus.”
“Patients like being in their home, where they’re happier and sleeping in their own beds, surrounded by loved ones, their favorite cat and TV,” said Dr. Taki Michaelidis, medical director of the program at UMass Memorial Health. “In your home environment, you just recover better.”
WORCESTER — When Ashley Rivera chooses names for her children, she tries to pick something unique.
"I pick names that will make them stand out in the world," she said.
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