UMass Memorial Health Care canceled thousands of procedures and faced multi-million dollar drops in revenue, but ended fiscal 2020 in the black.

Massachusetts hospitals are scrambling to open up new surge capacity as more patients seek out medical care from facilities across the Commonwealth.

Dr. Eric Dickson, who oversees the field hospital at the DCU Center in Worcester, says that makeshift facility is quickly filling up with new patients.

"Just over the past 3 days, we've surpassed the number of patients in the hospital than we saw in the spring."

Healthcare workers are no strangers to skipping traditions with family to work a holiday. In 2020, it’s a different experience, especially for those working on COVID-19 floors in hospitals.

“It’s pretty tough in here today,” nurse Shannon Lora told WBZ over Zoom from the CCU at HealthAlliance Hospital in Leominster.

“It’s a horrible day here actually. We have a lot of very sick patients. We have a couple of people dying. It has not been a very good day.”

UMass Memorial Health Care and Harrington Health Care System, seeking to become officially affiliated, have taken another step forward in the process by filing with state regulatory agencies.

The health care systems have jointly submitted the first in a series of required filings for UMass Memorial to become the parent company of Harrington, UMass Memorial said in a statement Tuesday. This would make Harrington Hospital, system employees and the medical group members of the UMass Memorial Health Care system.

UMass Memorial Health Care, the largest employer in Central Massachusetts, plans to have all of its health providers vaccinated against coronavirus by mid-February, a period of roughly two months.

All of the system's caregivers are expected to have at least appointments in place for vaccinations by Jan. 11, according to a memo sent to employees Friday. Those who are providing care directly to COVID-19 patients are going first, followed by those with less contact with virus patients, and then other providers.

Nine months into the pandemic, doctors who have been treating COVID patients say the vaccine is their greatest source of hope.

Dr. Gayle Galletta has anticipated this moment for months. “Excitement would be an odd word, but relief,” Galletta said after she got the shot.

Relief that she’s getting a vaccine that will also protect people around her. Early on, the emergency medicine physician at UMass Memorial Hospitals in Worcester and Clinton worried constantly she’d bring the virus home to her family.

UMass Memorial Health Care expects to receive 1,950 doses of a coronavirus vaccine on Tuesday, with priority given first to frontline caregivers.

The Worcester-based hospital system is among the first anywhere in the country to begin receiving the highly anticipated vaccinations. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued an emergency approval for a vaccination from pharmaceutical company Pfizer late on Friday.

Bloomberg Baystate Business for Tuesday, December 8th, 2020

Bloomberg BusinessWeek editor Bret Begun on the Bloomberg 50

Owner of Zumi Pizza in Southborough Bill Thedorakas on giving away 800 to 900 pizzas to hungry families during the pandemic

Dr. Eric Dickson, the president and CEO of UMass Memorial Health Care, is urging the Worcester-based health system's employees to get the coronavirus vaccine when it's expected to begin giving doses next week.

Dickson said he can vouch for the safety of the vaccine himself — he enrolled in a Pfizer clinical trial at the hospital that took place over the summer.