Open Letter from the Nashoba Valley Medical Center President
Many members of the community have reached out in recent weeks with kind words and expressions of thanks to our dedicated staff as we work to battle COVID-19. Please know that your support means the world to us.
Others have reached out with concerns on how our regional approach to battling COVID-19 – which reaches beyond the walls of our hospital – might impact the local community. So, I wanted to provide you with the facts.
What We Did
As many know, we temporarily suspended inpatient intensive care admissions at Nashoba Valley Medical Center and redeployed resources to communities experiencing increased need as a result of COVID-19. Other services, including the Emergency Department, remain open. In addition, experienced critical care nurses continue to be available at Nashoba Valley Medical Center 24/7 to treat and stabilize anyone in need of immediate intensive care services. We plan to resume normal Intensive Care Unit (ICU) services at Nashoba Valley Medical Center when the statewide declaration of emergency is resolved.
Why We Did It
The year-to-date average daily census in the ICU at Nashoba Valley Medical Center is three patients. As COVID-19 cases have surged across the Commonwealth – and to best care for all patients we serve – we have assembled teams, including critical care staff to Holy Family Hospital in Methuen, to maximize the effect these highly-trained providers could have on patient outcomes, including those from Nashoba Valley Medical Center.
By doing so, we were able to create both COVID positive and COVID negative ICU locations at Holy Family Hospital in Methuen, further reducing the potential for cross-contamination of patients and staff.
Our chief medical officer, Joseph Weinstein, MD, recently addressed why this was the right step in caring for our community’s health. He said: “We saw early on in other geographies that traditional models of care delivery were ineffective in battling the surge of COVID-19. We needed to learn the lessons from Italy and China. And we needed to move fast. Significantly lower infection and mortality rates were achieved in places like Germany and South Korea, where hospitals clustered COVID-19 patients in isolated locations, thus lessening the chance of infection for other patients and staff.”
We Are Here for You
Our mission is to best serve the health needs of our community. Nashoba Valley Medical Center is open and continues to serve the needs of the local community with its 24/7 Emergency Department and medical/surgical beds.
We are able to respond to any case that comes through our door or medical need that arises within our facility. In addition to ICU nurses, we have 24/7 physician coverage in our Emergency Department and our inpatient units. We also have more than adequate resources to care for our patients, including personal protective equipment (PPE), medications, ventilators, defibrillators and medical expertise.
Again, thank you for your support in during this very difficult time.
With Gratitude,
