Dear Community:
We wanted to provide a brief update on the work in progress regarding our new vision for the care of children together in our collaboration with Boston Children’s Hospital
As you know, there is a regulatory process that Tufts Medical Center will follow in order to close certain pediatric inpatient services as of July 1 of this year. Part of that work is to submit a formal notice to the Department of Public Health that we intend to close the pediatric med/surg, pediatric ICU and pediatric BMT inpatient units. We started that filing process today and our full Notice of Proposed Closure of Essential Services will be filed on or about April 1.
To date, there have been a number of meetings between our pediatric Chiefs and leaders to assess needs and identify key issues and opportunities within each division. Collaborative meetings are also underway between these groups at Tufts MC and the corresponding divisions at Boston Children’s Hospital. In addition, there are a number of internal work groups that are working together on important services for children including outpatient surgery, procedures, pediatric endoscopy, emergency department, child life, transport and IV teams.
We are also standing up a number of joint work groups with Boston Children’s Hospital to focus on issues that need to be addressed by both institutions. Some of the planned groups include:
- Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU), Inpatient, Hematology Oncology
- Information Services (IS)
- Legal
- Financial Services
The Tufts Children’s – BCH Educational Collaborative is progressing at the individual program level - nearly all affected graduate medical education programs have met with their counterparts at BCH and our program directors are beginning to define future state pediatric educational experiences for Tufts Children’s and Tufts Medical Center residents and fellows. Next week the Undergraduate Medical Education work group will begin to solve for the needs of Tufts University School of Medicine (TUSM) students. Solution planning is also underway for Dental School and Pediatric Pharmacy residents.
We will continue to form new internal and joint planning work groups as needed as the transition progresses.
We want to thank all of you who are participating in these important collaborative sessions. It is through these discussions that we are truly redefining our pediatric services and ensuring children continue to receive high quality, compassionate care.
Finally, we provided an update to all Tufts Children’s Hospital families yesterday, by email. That communication is available on the Tufts Children’s website, here.
We appreciate your patience as we continue work through these details.
Sincerely,
