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Baystate Merger Is a Lifeline for Mercy —
but Poses Some Risks, Too

At a recent community forum where leaders of Baystate Health and Mercy Medical Center discussed why Mercy will be absorbed into the vast Baystate system later this year, Dr. Robert Roose positioned the move as a matter of survival.

“Mercy treats a population with the greatest proportion of Medicaid and Medicare patients of any hospital in the entire Commonwealth of Massachusetts,” said Roose, president of Community Hospitals for Trinity Health Of New England.

“That’s a community that needs care, but it’s one where the reimbursement does not match the cost of care,” he went on. “Medicaid reimburses, on average, about 62 cents on the dollar, Medicare about 85 cents. So there’s a financial equation that can be difficult to sustain. In addition to that, we know, with federal funding cuts and other changes to payments, that revenue will continue to decrease while costs continue to rise.”

Dr. Robert Roose

There’s a financial equation that can be difficult to sustain. In addition to that, we know, with federal funding cuts and other changes to payments, that revenue will continue to decrease while costs continue to rise.

At the same time, he said, Mercy has struggled with recruitment of critical specialties of providers — a reality that played out late last year when Mercy shuttered its obstetrics services, with most of those patients moving to Baystate Medical Center.

“So really, for the last decade, there have been questions around the long-term viability of Mercy Medical Center,” Roose went on. “Even as part of a large system like Trinity Health … it makes sense to strengthen the network of care here in Western Massachusetts.”

For Baystate, having a facility the size of Mercy — with its 191 licensed beds, 7,800 discharges per year, and 45,000 emergency room visits per year — simply close its doors would put far too much strain on other Baystate facilities, said Dr. Scott Lichtenberger, chief operating officer for Baystate Health.

“Springfield needs two hospitals, full stop,” he noted. “If Mercy Medical Center didn’t exist, Baystate could not absorb — not only at Baystate Medical Center, but even across our system — that kind of volume. So, to preserve services in the community and to be able to provide that kind of access, we have to have two hospitals.”

Those, in effect, are the arguments for a merger scheduled to take effect on Nov. 1: if Mercy can’t survive on its own, and if Baystate Health believes bringing a fifth full-service hospital into its system makes economic sense from a scale and efficiency perspective, then the move simply makes sense.

Not everyone is sure, however. Michal Horny, assistant professor of Health Policy and Management at UMass Amherst, told BusinessWest that there’s a good amount of evidence from across the U.S. that, when two hospitals very near each other merge, and are no longer in competition with each other, costs inevitably rise for patients.

“Any health plan that operates primarily in the Springfield area, before the merge, they had some leverage over hospitals — if you don’t strike a deal with one hospital, you can go to the other,” he explained. “After the merger, with two main hospitals in Springfield now part of a single system, no health plan can afford to operate in the Springfield area without having a contract with both those hospitals. So that gives the hospitals some very good bargaining power when negotiating prices.

“So what starts to happen is prices, on average, at both hospitals go up. I don’t know how much, but we’ve seen in other markets an average increase of about 6%. So that affects everyone with private insurance,” Horny explained (more on that later).

Dr. Scott Lichtenberger

“If Mercy Medical Center didn’t exist, Baystate could not absorb — not only at Baystate Medical Center, but even across our system — that kind of volume. So, to preserve services in the community and to be able to provide that kind of access, we have to have two hospitals.”

At the same time, while Baystate and Mercy leaders tout potential efficiencies, he noted, “as far as quality of care, the argument from the hospitals is that there’s better coordination and shared resources. Economists have studied this; it’s theoretically a valid point — but the evidence is not there. There doesn’t seem to be any improvement in quality.”

But for proponents of the merger, the survival of Mercy and its services in a community that needs them is an overriding positive.

“I am pleased that Baystate Health and Trinity Health have reached an agreement that will allow these two vibrant hospitals to continue serving our communities,” U.S. Rep. Richard Neal said, noting that, at a time of serious federal spending cuts, “this acquisition will expand access to healthcare and improve services throughout the Pioneer Valley and beyond.

“Together, these institutions represent more than three centuries of service to Western and Central Massachusetts,” Neal added. “Ensuring their viability and continued success is vital to the health of our families and our local economies, and this announcement represents a critical step in strengthening our regional healthcare system for generations to come.” 

Local Impacts

In their announcement on April 28 that Baystate Health and Trinity Health Of New England had signed a definitive agreement to transition Mercy Medical Center, its joint venture affiliates, and medical group entities in Massachusetts to Baystate Health, pending regulatory approvals, they made it clear that Trinity Health will continue to own and operate Brightside for Families and Children, Mercy LIFE, Mary’s Meadow at Providence Place, Beaven Kelly Home, and Saint Luke’s Home.

They also asserted that “Baystate Health will preserve Mercy’s nonprofit mission, community commitment, and legacy of high-quality care.” Both entities will continue to operate independently until the transition is complete this fall.

“Mercy and the Sisters of Providence have been a fixture in our community since 1874,” said Peter Banko, Baystate Health president and CEO, in a statement on April 28. “This is an investment in both the past and the future of healthcare and economic development in Western Massachusetts. Today, access forces too many patients to leave the region to seek care, and we need to ensure that care is compassionate, high quality, affordable, and local. We have been and will continue to be a pillar of our community — rooted here, serving here, and helping generations thrive here.”

One topic raised at the May 12 community forum — and one discussed at length in the article on page 22 about the region’s workforce outlook — is the difficulty recruiting people into a healthcare system that desperately needs them, and how the Baystate-Mercy merger will impact that equation for both institutions.

During the forum, Tania Barber, president and CEO of Caring Health Center in Springfield, asked what Baystate expects to happen when the most severe impacts from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) come to fruition next year and area residents start losing health coverage.

“The health safety net cannot absorb it. We know that there’s going to be an influx of individuals that will be coming to the hospital, coming to community health centers, and we know there will be staffing shortages — provider shortages, nursing shortages, it goes on and on,” Barber said. “Recruitment continues to be a challenge, so I’d like to learn a little bit more about how you will address the enormous amount of individuals who are going to utilize hospital services because they’re losing their insurance.”

Lichtenberger countered that frontline staffing levels are up at Baystate despite a recent series of high-profile layoffs, mostly administrative, throughout the system. “And as we get bigger, I think it becomes a more attractive place to recruit physicians. We’ve just got to make sure that this remains a destination place that people want to work and that people are proud to work.”

Despite a challenging landscape for healthcare staffing, he noted that Baystate plans to keep Mercy’s critical services operating — and having two hospitals within a mile of each other will bring advantages of efficiency — and even grow them.

For example, “the emergency room at Mercy Medical Center — again, pending regulatory approval — will remain open 24 hours, seven days a week,” Lichtenberger said. “And about half of the beds at Mercy are now available — we want to fill those beds. We want to grow services so that we keep more care here locally. And when we talk about filling those beds, that’s creating jobs.”

But the cost issue for patients — again, when health plans lose leverage in a less competitive environment — is still a matter of concern, Horny said.

“Even when insurance pays for a portion of their healthcare, if prices are higher, that inevitably translates to higher premiums. Insurance doesn’t absorb the increased costs — it shifts them to consumers. So eventually, you can expect premiums for plans in the Springfield area to go up.”

Drawing on data from the Health Care Affordability Lab, a Yale University-based group of economists who study healthcare markets and translate their research for various audiences, Horny noted that, while healthcare consumers and payers initially absorb health cost increases, it eventually hits employers as well.

“Employers usually don’t cut wages, but they’ll cut the number of available positions, so one of the downstream effects is fewer employment opportunities,” Horny said, which eventually translates to decreased state and federal revenues, and more uninsured people going without care — which could increase mortality.

Challenges Continue

Dean Sanpei, chief administrative officer and chief strategy officer for Baystate Health, also addressed the community forum, noting that virtually all Mercy employees that work specifically for that
hospital, and not in an administrative role at Trinity, will come over in the deal.

“We do think this can improve community care and our provision of care in the area,” he said. “There are synergies that are created when institutions are able to come together. You’re able to create more hubs and spokes. You’re able to create centers of excellence and places where you can focus higher specialties of care and get better outcomes. And you’re able to distribute services as needed, and effectively. So we’re hoping to bring all these synergies together and create a better process and better care for our community.”

Michal Horny

“No health plan can afford to operate in the Springfield area without having a contract with both those hospitals. So that gives the hospitals some very good bargaining power when negotiating prices.”

Sanpei also agreed with Lichtenberger that the expanded Baystate footprint in Springfield will make the system more attractive and an easier place to recruit physicians.

“As we recruit more physicians, we can open up more beds, and we can have more capacity,” he went on. “And as we’re able to do that, it enables those who live here, who want to have care here, to get care here — which helps all of us. It helps residents locally, but it also helps the health system because those dollars are not going to go east, they’re not going to go south; they’ll stay here. So that’s an opportunity for us as well.”

That said, Baystate certainly continues to face headwinds, like an expected $150 million impact from the OBBBA.

“This transaction doesn’t occur for us until November. Until that time, we will continue to have the challenges that we’ve had to date, and we’re going to continue to have to do the efficiencies that we’ve done to date. Those things, in many ways, are separate. Those challenges are going to continue,” Sanpei said.

To that end, he continued, “we’re going to have to continue to increase our operating efficiency. We’re going to continue to have to look at our expense structure, and that won’t necessarily change overnight. Once we have the joint entity, the synergies we have then will come into play, and it will be better moving toward the future.” ◆

Baystate Health to Acquire Mercy Medical Center

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Daily News

SPRINGFIELD — Baystate Health and Trinity Health of New England have signed a Definitive Agreement to transition Mercy Medical Center, its joint venture affiliates and medical group entities in Massachusetts to Baystate Health, pending regulatory approvals.

Trinity Health Of New England will continue to own and operate Brightside for Families and Children and will continue to own and provide continuing care services in Western Mass., including Mercy LIFE, Mary’s Meadow at Providence Place, Beaven Kelly Home, and Saint Luke’s Home.

Baystate Health will preserve Mercy’s nonprofit mission, community commitment, and legacy of high-quality care. Both organizations are committed to ensuring a smooth and collaborative process for colleagues, patients and partners. Until the transition is complete and receives all regulatory approvals, Mercy Medical Center and Baystate Health will continue to operate independently.

“Mercy and the Sisters of Providence have been a fixture in our community since 1874,” said, Peter Banko, president and CEO, Baystate Health in a press release issued by the health system. “This is an investment in both the past and the future of healthcare and economic development in western Massachusetts. Today, access forces too many patients to leave the region to seek care, and we need to ensure that care is compassionate, high quality, affordable, and local. We have been and will continue to be a pillar of our community – rooted here, serving here, and helping generations thrive here.”

To aim to preserve local access to high-quality care, Mercy Medical Center explored potential strategic partnerships and collaborations with other providers and determined Baystate Health shared its vision for the long-term sustainability of health care services in the community. Like many other health care providers, Mercy has faced significant challenges and financial pressures that threatened its long-term viability. Despite substantial efforts to improve its financial position, sustainability remained at risk due to inadequate reimbursement for care, industry-wide shifts such as declining payment rates, changing consumer preferences toward outpatient services, and persistent staffing shortages. By transitioning to Baystate Health, both Mercy and Baystate will be better positioned to meet the continued health care needs of the region.

“Mercy Medical Center has long been a trusted source of compassionate care for the people of Western Massachusetts,” said Montez Carter, FACHE, President & CEO of Trinity Health Of New England. “Our decision to transition Mercy to Baystate Health reflects our shared aim to ensuring that patients continue to have access to high-quality care. We are confident that Baystate Health will honor Mercy’s legacy and strengthen its ability to meet the evolving needs of the community.”

This agreement reflects extensive planning, collaboration and a shared vision for the future of health care in Western Massachusetts and it will help address regional access challenges with the aim to ensure patients can continue to receive high-quality care locally.

To keep the community informed, website pages on BaystateHealth.org and TrinityHealthOfNE.org have been developed that include information and updates about the transition:

 www.baystatehealth.org/mercy and trinityhealthofne.org/baystate. These sites will be updated as new information becomes available.

Baystate Leader Sees Momentum Even as Seas Get Choppier

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Peter Banko says that, despite a mountain of challenges, the Baystate Health system has achieved needed momentum.
Healthcare News Special Coverage

Turning the Battleship

Peter Banko says that, despite a mountain of challenges, the Baystate Health system has achieved needed momentum.

Peter Banko says that, despite a mountain of challenges, the Baystate Health system has achieved needed momentum.

Peter Banko was asked if he was frustrated.

He would certainly have good reason to be.

After all, Banko, president and CEO of Baystate Health, had spent the past 17 months or so trying to right the ship at the system — “turning around a battleship in a bathtub,” as he would later tell the audience at a forum on the state of the healthcare sector in the region — and had made a good amount of progress through difficult and unpopular decisions that included layoffs, cutbacks in many departments, and, most recently, buyouts for many employees, resulting in a profitable fiscal 2025.

But by his estimation, provisions within the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (or OB3, as he calls it), signed into law last July, will cost Baystate Health $146 million a year through its specific provisions and their aftereffects, and essentially wipe out all that’s been accomplished and bring the system back to where he started in terms of the size of the hole to dig out of.

“Those reductions wipe out our positive cash flow in one fell swoop,” said Banko, noting that the system exceeded budget expectations for fiscal 2025 and recorded a 3.6% EBIDA (earnings before interest, depreciation, and amortization). “We exceeded our budget expectations by about $50 million; it was the first time we exceeded our budget in six years. But whatever progress we made this year gets eliminated by the One Big Beautiful Bill; we’re down to zero again, and we start from scratch.”

“We’ve got a lot of great work going on behind the scenes that isn’t glamorous and won’t make headlines, but it’s the right work. I feel more optimistic than I’ve felt in a long time.”

So … while frustration would certainly be understandable, and the picture for 2026 is bleak by most accounts (more on that later), he prefers to be upbeat — to a degree.

“That’s because I believe we’ve created some momentum,” he said. “I’m happy with the momentum we’ve created. We’ve got a lot of great work going on behind the scenes that isn’t glamorous and won’t make headlines, but it’s the right work. I feel more optimistic than I’ve felt in a long time.

“I feel like we have the team and the committed board and committed team members that are willing to do the tough work and make the difficult decisions for it to be successful,” he went on, adding that there are certainly more difficult decisions to be made, and more consolidation likely in the healthcare industry — and 2026 is shaping up to be an ultra-challenging transition year for hospitals.

But, overall, he believes the ship has been turned and is positioned to navigate the turbulent seas that are forecasted.

For this issue and its focus on healthcare, we talked at length with Banko about the progress that’s been made, how much of that progress stands to be undone by the OB3, and what happens next as he continues the turn-around assignment he assumed in the fall of 2024.

 

Time of Transition

Banko said the One Big Beautiful Bill Act will result in $1 trillion in cuts nationally and represents “the largest rollback to federal support for healthcare in our lifetimes.”

Most of the impact to the Baystate system will not kick in until October, a month before the midterm elections, he went on, adding that online estimators project that the overall impact to Baystate will be more than $140 million. Broken down, these cuts involve everything from sharp increases to the number of uninsured individuals from Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act to a decrease in funding from Medicaid (MassHealth), to a loss of funds from the 340B Drug Pricing Program.

The impact to the system — and all providers — will be profound, he said.

Valley Springs Behavioral Health Hospital, one of Baystate Health’s most significant recent projects, opened in Holyoke in 2023.

Valley Springs Behavioral Health Hospital, one of Baystate Health’s most significant recent projects, opened in Holyoke in 2023.

“A lot of people won’t have insurance, so they won’t have access to coverage or financing,” he explained. “They’re going to delay care, and they’re increasingly have to use the ED when things are really serious, so we’re going to have more overcrowding. It would be shortsighted to say that this will most significantly impact the poor and vulnerable in our community; if you have commercial insurance, you can expect double-digit increases in your premiums the next five years because commercial insurance makes up the difference for Medicare and Medicaid.

“If you’re an employer in this state or anywhere in the United States, you’re going to be paying more for your insurance to cover the gaps here,” he went on, adding that, for systems like Baystate, the impact will be felt in the ER, certainly, but in other realms as well.

When asked to make projections on what will happen across the system and its four hospitals — Baystate Medical Center, Baystate Noble Hospital, Baystate Wing Hospital, and Baystate Franklin Medical Center — Banko said it’s too early to do so, with the specific impacts not likely to be known until the provisions of the bill take effect.

And that won’t be until almost a year from now, he went on, adding that, in most respects, 2026 will be what he called a “transition year.”

“It will be like preparing for a snowstorm,” he told BusinessWest before extending the metaphor further. “Everyone is going to be buying milk and bread and snow shovels; there’s going to be a lot of preparation and action in anticipation of next year.”

When asked how a system prepares for the storm that’s coming, he said the system will continue to make additions and adjustments in the ER in anticipation of more people using that front door instead of primary care.

“We’re aggressively recruiting nurses and physicians for the ER, and we’re working on improving our throughput in the hospital, which impacts the ER,” he explained. “We’re working on improving access and throughput, which will help.”

Overall, he said the system itself will manage, but he’s concerned about the human toll for the cutbacks and their impact on the overall health of the community.

“It will be like preparing for a snowstorm. Everyone is going to be buying milk and bread and snow shovels; there’s going to be a lot of preparation and action in anticipation of next year.”

“Let’s consider this from the humanistic end — someone who had coverage now doesn’t,” he said. “They may be in the middle of cancer treatment; they may be in the middle of a pregnancy. A few months from now, they get diagnosed with a condition, and they delay care, or they’re feeling symptoms, and they know they can’t afford care. From a community standpoint, we’re worried about the impact to the most vulnerable people in our community.

“How do we look our community in the face and say, ‘15% to 25% of you no longer have coverage,’” he went on. “This state has worked so hard, going back to Governor [Mitt] Romney, to provide care for as many people as possible — it’s hard to say all because some people fall through the cracks — and now, it’s all being dismantled.”

 

Bottom Line

And it’s unlikely there will be much, if any, help coming from Washington, Banko opined, noting that, for now, both sides consider what’s happening to be a “political win,” which makes action before the midterms unlikely in his view.

“Behind the scenes, I think everyone knows what the right things to do are,” he went on. “But OB3 has become a political football, so the folks left holding the bag are our governor and our Legislature — they’re going to have to fill a huge budget gap, $4 billion to $5 billion, and I don’t envy them having to try to figure that out. And our healthcare systems are left holding the bag because it impacts us most severely. Who gets lost in this are the people losing coverage — I’m not sure they have a voice at the moment.”

As for the Baystate system itself, Banko said that, when it comes to the progress made in 2025, budget-wise, roughly half is attributable to cost cutting, with the other half coming from revenue growth.

“We saw decent growth in our business last year, above what our expectations were,” he noted, adding that this growth came in ER volume, surgical volume, inpatient volume, and other realms. “More than half our financial improvement was solid revenue growth.”

Looking ahead to 2026, he’s projecting revenue growth of 2% to 3%, with expenses growing 6%.

“And in any business, that’s not a recipe for success,” he went on, adding that the system has identified core growth areas, including overall access to care.

“We lose a lot of our patients to Boston because they can’t get in here. So if we can grow revenue by 6% to 8% and trim some of our costs, that will allow us to stay in the game,” he explained, adding that there will be more cost cutting in the year ahead — at Baystate and most other providers.

There will also be some less profitable services cut back or eliminated by many providers, he said, as well as continued consolidation within the industry as systems look for all-important scale in the wake of the rising costs of doing business.

“We’re talking to a lot of organizations, and with each one, I have a confidentiality agreement that I can’t violate,” he said, withholding comment on rumored talks between Baystate and Mercy Medical Center. “So, I would just say this … everyone is talking to everyone right now. There isn’t a week that goes by that I’m not having a discussion with a competitor, someone in an adjacent market, someone in a non-adjacent market.

“Everyone is viewing the changes from OB3 as transformational, so everyone is trying to figure out the same thing,” he went on. “We’re all talking to one another about, ‘hey, how do we manage this?’ Or ‘can we manage this better together?’”

There is some evidence that scale has not worked out in healthcare, at least as much as it has in other industries, he continued, adding quickly that he believes scale does bring advantages; systems just need to seize those advantages.

“Our overhead costs are about 12.9%,” Banko explained. “Without more scale, we can bring that down to 10%, but best-practice health systems are below 8%, and there’s no way we can get below 8% without more scale.”

In the meantime, and as he mentioned earlier, he senses real momentum across the system, progress in many ways overshadowed by large headlines about layoffs and buyout programs.

“What gets published in the media is just the financial stuff,” he told BusinessWest. “So when we do a layoff or cut costs somewhere, that gets all the media attention, and it gets all the attention inside the organization. But I would say that 80% of the work is non-financial, and we’re making real progress.”

Baystate Health Appoints Michael Treash President of Health New England

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Daily News

SPRINGFIELD — Baystate Health announced the appointment of Michael Treash as president of Health New England, effective Oct. 6. Treash will report directly to Baystate Health President and CEO Peter Banko and serve as a member of the president’s council.

The appointment comes at a pivotal time as Baystate Health and Health New England deepen their integration across care coordination, physician alignment, and value-based care. Together, the organizations aim to advance Baystate Health’s growth strategy, enhance member value, and build a healthy, mission-driven future for the communities they serve.

Treash, a seasoned healthcare executive with more than three decades of leadership experience in provider-based health plans and health system integration, will oversee all operations of Health New England. His responsibilities will include strategic planning, sales, product development, actuarial services, provider relations and contracting, health services, and day-to-day operations.

“Mike brings a proven track record of operational excellence, innovation, and consumer-focused leadership,” said Peter Banko, president and CEO of Baystate Health. “At this critical moment, his vision and expertise will accelerate Health New England’s ability to grow, deliver differentiated value, and strengthen the connection between Baystate Health and Health New England. We are thrilled to welcome him into this important role.”

Treash most recently served as chief operating officer and senior vice president at Health Alliance Plan in Detroit, where he led operations, IT, PMO, supply chain, and data insights while developing and executing a multi-year data transformation strategy. His previous leadership roles include vice president of Enterprise Operations at Priority Health in Grand Rapids, Mich., interim CEO of Missouri Health Care Cooperative, chief operating officer of the Outsource Group, and executive vice president and chief operating officer at Mercy Health Plans in Chesterfield, Mo.

He holds a bachelor’s degree in political science from Western Michigan University and a master of public administration degree from Arizona State University.

32nd Annual Rays of Hope Walk & Run Toward the Cure of Breast Cancer

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In partnership with the Baystate Health Breast Network and Baystate Health Foundation, the Rays of Hope Walk & Run raises funds to benefit research at the Rays of Hope Center for Breast Cancer Research, breast cancer programs and services, outreach and education, and awards grants to various community support programs and organizations right here in Western Massachusetts. Since 1994, Rays of Hope has been committed to improving the breast health of people in our communities with quality and compassion. The Walk & Run Toward the Cure of Breast Cancer has grown from 500 to over 20,000 participants and has raised over $17.7 million for our community. The event includes a 2- and 5-mile walk, 8K run, survivor ceremonies, and entertainment, creating a vibrant and memorable experience for all. Breast cancer survivors and supporters are encouraged to register as an individual or as a team to fundraise and help spread awareness for breast cancer care and resources located right here in Western Massachusetts. Please visit our website at www.baystatehealth.org/raysofhope to learn more about the event and to create a fundraising team! This is a great way to engage employees and customers while supporting a cause that is near to so many in our community.

Baystate Health Appoints Dr. Scott Lichtenberger as Chief Operating Officer

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Daily News

Dr. Scott Lichtenberger

SPRINGFIELD — Baystate Health announced the appointment of Dr. Scott Lichtenberger as its new chief operating officer. He started in that role on July 14.

As COO, Lichtenberger is responsible for overseeing health system operations across Baystate Health, with direct accountability for hospital operations, nursing leadership, quality, patient safety, and systemwide operational performance. He will partner closely with senior leaders to guide operational discipline, promote a strong culture of engagement, and ensure high-quality, financially sustainable care across the organization.

“We are excited to welcome Dr. Lichtenberger to Western Massachusetts and Baystate Health, and will benefit from his exceptional and knowledgeable leadership within physician-led organizations,” said Peter Banko, president and CEO of Baystate Health. “He is a collaborator and operational leader, and these skills will help to accelerate us in becoming the preferred destination to work and practice, elevate clinical excellence, and advance a seamlessly accessible care model to grow and expand care for our community.”

Lichtenberger joins Baystate Health with more than 20 years of experience in healthcare leadership. Most recently, he served as a principal in EY-Parthenon’s healthcare practice, where he led enterprise-level integration and redesign initiatives for academic medical centers and large regional health systems. His work focused on developing scalable and sustainable operational models that improved care delivery, enhanced efficiency, and drove organizational growth.

Previously, Lichtenberger held senior leadership roles at Centura Health, including chief transformation officer and president of the Physician Enterprise. There, he led efforts that resulted in very large EBITDA improvements through strategic enhancements in operational throughput, labor efficiency, supply chain, and revenue cycle.

He has also served as partner at McKinsey & Company, leading its Healthcare Provider Operations group, and as chief strategy officer at University of Colorado Health, where he directed enterprise strategy and marketing.

Lichtenberger earned his doctor of medicine degree from Indiana University School of Medicine and completed his residency in internal medicine at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, followed by a fellowship in gastroenterology at Yale University. He also holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from Northwestern University.

Baystate Health Eliminates Another 43 Jobs

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Daily News

SPRINGFIELD — Peter Banko, president and CEO of Baystate Health, today announced that, as part of an ongoing “transformation” at the healthcare system, another 43 jobs will be eliminated, on top of the 7% reduction in the overall workforce that has been implemented since last fall.

In a prepared statement, Banko said the positions eliminated were “selected to minimize impact to direct patient care.” There was no further information on where the cuts will be made.

“This week we will complete one of the most disruptive components of our transformation journey in FY25 — reducing our workforce,” said Banko. “Since November 2024, we have had to make some very difficult decisions to reduce our workforce in total by 7%, and while this directly impacted a significant number of our team members, 60% of the total reductions were realized through attrition, a gradual reduction through resignations or retirements with elimination of those positions by not filling the vacancies.

“Even with this ongoing focus and disciplined approach to attrition, we did have to make the difficult decision to eliminate positions within Baystate Health this week, and as a result, 43 individuals will be leaving Baystate Health,” he went on. “Individual discussions with those impacted will be completed no later than Friday, May 2.”

Eligible team members who are not transitioned to another position in the organization will receive severance pay and other job support, including access to career transition services, he said. “We deeply understand the profound effect these transitions have on our people, their families, and our community as the anchor employer in Western Mass. We continue to aggressively recruit, hire, and retain physicians, advanced practice providers, and bed-side caregivers.”

Banko stressed that Baystate’s transformation is ongoing.

“Since launching our core operations improvement journey in October 2024, we are seeing meaningful and measurable progress — both in the success of our transformation efforts and, most important, in our progress toward long-term consistent and predictable financial resilience,” he noted. “In late February, we met with the Fitch Rating Agency — one of the “Big Three” nationally recognized rating organizations designated by Wall Street — and they affirmed our A+ credit rating with a negative outlook. The rating came as a timely, objective affirmation that Baystate Health continues to be a very high-credit-quality health system with a strong capacity to meet all our financial commitments.

“The rating also attests to the decisions we have made and the new processes we have established regarding our organizational structure, streamlined decision-making, management spans and layers, the efficiency and effectiveness of corporate functions, contract and premium labor, and external spend,” he went on. “The transformation workstreams to date — coupled with a busy respiratory season and increased emergency department volume and surgical throughput — has resulted in four consecutive months of positive operating margin and cash flow for the health system. I am so proud of a true team effort — all our incredible caregivers — individually and collectively contributing quickly to turning the corner toward a renewed, healthy, growing, and independent future for Baystate.

“We have more work to do to achieve sustainable financial transformation and re-invest more than $1.2 billion in our people, services, and technology over the next six years,” he continued. “We are currently actively working on redesigns in supply chain, pharmacy, and revenue-cycle management. This summer, we will start planning for FY26 by focusing on the physician enterprise (Baystate Medical Practices) and care management (including acute length of stay management) across the enterprise. At the same time, we will initiate an intentional implementation of Baystate Health 2030 (our new strategic plan) to grow our hospitals and service lines, integrate Health New England, and more supportively engage, retain, and develop our employees.”

Pioneer Valley Financial Group Supports Baystate NICU

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Daily News

LUDLOW — Pioneer Valley Financial Group (PV Financial) announced a partnership with Baystate Health in recognition of the care provided by the Davis Neonatal Intensive Care Unit staff. PV Financial was inspired to collaborate with the Baystate Health Foundation after Andrea Lebeau, a member of the PV Financial team, experienced an emergency early delivery of her daughter, Blake, who required a 102-day stay in Baystate Health’s NICU.

Since her arrival in late November, Blake has received round-the-clock care. Lebeau and her husband, Shawn, are deeply grateful not only for the support extended to their family, but also for the care given to countless others relying on the Davis NICU. Inspired by this experience, PV Financial felt compelled to give back in a way that would directly benefit the Davis NICU and its families.

Through ongoing discussions with the Baystate Health Foundation, PV Financial has made a $5,000 donation to support the Davis Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. PV Financial staff also volunteered at the Baystate Health Foundation’s annual radiothon, held in partnership with WMAS 94.7. PV volunteers manned the phones during the radiothon, helping to collect donations that will directly support the work being done at Baystate Children’s Hospital. During the event, Lebeau shared her personal journey in a moving interview with the Kellogg Krew, giving the community a glimpse into the life-changing care families receive daily in the NICU.

Looking ahead, PV Financial will continue its support of Baystate Health through participation in the Baystate Children’s Hospital’s 33rd annual golf tournament this June. As part of their contribution, PV Financial will donate a pair of Red Sox-Yankees tickets for the live auction during the event. All funds raised from the tournament will go toward advancing pediatric health research, purchasing child-sized equipment, and enhancing the experiences of children receiving care at Baystate Children’s Hospital.

Baystate Cuts 98 Corporate Positions

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Daily News

SPRINGFIELD — Baystate Health announced today that it has cut 98 corporate positions as it continues what it calls a “$225 million transformational journey.” These cuts come on top of 134 leadership jobs cut in November.

“This week, we made the difficult decision to reduce 98 corporate positions across Baystate, resulting in a reduction of less than 1% of our workforce,” the system said in a statement issued this morning. “While some of the impacted positions are currently vacant and will no longer be filled, there are individuals leaving Baystate.

“We recognize these transitions heartfeltly impact our people and their families,” the statement continued. “We are working to find alternate positions for those whose roles were eliminated, and eligible team members who are not transitioned to another position in our organization will receive severance pay and other job support, including access to career-transition services. We continue to aggressively recruit, hire, and retain physicians, advanced-practice providers, and bedside caregivers. Baystate Health remains steadfast in our commitment to improve the health of the people in our communities every day, with quality and compassion, while addressing our path forward to return our 141-year organization to strong growth.”

Since October, Baystate has been “leaning into and optimizing our new organizational structure and streamlined decision-making processes to be more efficient and effective,” the statement noted. “Our Baystate Health 2030 strategic planning process has been energizing and enabling in our dialogue with governance, leadership, physicians, nurses, and team members.

“We initiated our $225 million transformational journey in November with our management span of control work,” Baystate went on. “We have active workstreams right now in workforce, supply chain, pharmacy, and revenue cycle management, amongst others. Our disciplined focus on core operations and strategic growth must become part of our daily routine.

“Baystate Health’s path forward is both clear and certain,” it continued. “Our governance and leadership are aligned and steadfast in our pursuits, and our mission and values always guide our work. This path affords us the opportunity to remain an independent system — locally governed and managed — that will be able to invest $1.2 billion over the next six years in our operations and growth.”

Baystate Health Board of Trustees Welcomes New Members

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Daily News

SPRINGFIELD — Baystate Health announced several transitions of its board of trustees for 2025.

Harriet DeVerry, retired senior vice president and group financial officer at Webster, just concluded her two-year term as chair of the board on Dec. 31 and will continue to serve as a trustee on Baystate Health’s board. Bob Bacon, president of Elm Electrical Inc., who served on the board for the past 10 years and as chair of the board from 2021 to 2022, will be stepping down as a trustee. DeVerry and Bacon were members of the board of trustees at Noble Hospital when that hospital became part of Baystate Health in 2015, and they joined the Baystate Health board of trustees at that time.

Colleen Holmes has transitioned to the role of board of trustee chair from her role of vice chair. She is president and CEO of Springfield-based Viability Inc., an organization that partners with employers to meet their business needs by including the workforce of individuals with disabilities. In this role, she builds on her 30-year career in human services, holding leadership roles in human resources, sales, and marketing.

Holmes joined the Baystate Health board of trustees after serving on the quality committee and currently serves on the executive, human resources, and governance committees. She holds a bachelor’s degree from Princeton University and an MBA from American International College.

Dr. Akinyele Lovelace, a partner at Family Medicine Associates in Westfield, has been named vice chair. He is affiliated with Baystate Noble Hospital, Baystate Medical Center, and Holyoke Medical Center, and has served as a Baystate Health trustee for five years. He most recently served as the honorary chair, with his wife, Christina Lovelace, at the 58th annual Baystate Noble Ball in November.

Lovelace spent several years in Texas, practicing internal medicine at Hereford Health Clinic. During his time there, he was the Hereford Brand readers’ winner for Best Physician in 2012 and 2014. In addition to his medical degree from Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine, he holds an MBA from Texas Tech University and a bachelor’s degree from Xavier University of Louisiana.

The Baystate Health board of trustees welcomes its newest member, Keith Nesbitt, senior vice president and Business Banking team leader at Berkshire Bank. He has nearly 20 years of experience in commercial lending, portfolio management, and credit administration in regional and community banking institutions. Presently, he manages a team of commercial relationship managers for the Pioneer Valley (Metro Springfield) and Connecticut (Metro Hartford and New Haven) for Berkshire Bank.

Nesbitt earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of Georgia, his master’s degree from Georgia State University, and his MBA from the Keller Graduate School of Management. He will fill the board of trustees seat vacated by Bacon.

Baystate Calls Off Sale of Health New England to Point32 Health

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Daily News

SPRINGFIELD — Baystate Health has called off plans to sell it’s not-for-profit health insurer, Health New England, to Boston-based Point32Health.

Baystate and Point32Health announced the $165 million sale in February 2024, and it had received approval from state insurance regulators.

“After further analysis, Point32Health and Baystate Health will not be moving forward with the acquisition of Health New England,” Baystate noted in a statement. “Point32Health and Baystate Health will continue their in-network relationship for Point32Health Commercial, Medicare, and Exchange members in the Western Massachusetts region. We appreciate the support and thorough review from the regulators, and both organizations look forward to continuing to serve their respective members, patients, and communities throughout New England and Western Massachusetts.”

The announcement means Baystate Health and the affiliated physicians through Baycare Health Partners remain in network for Point32Health plan members. There is no change to current coverage, benefits, or provider network for members. Meanwhile, Health New England will continue to operate as usual, with no change to current coverage, benefits, or provider network for members.

Baystate Health will retain ownership of Health New England,” the health system explained, adding that “Baystate Health governance and senior leadership will be taking the next few months to evaluate the strategic positioning and performance of Health New England to inform future decisions.”

Opinion: Challenging Times for Pillars of the Local Economy

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Daily News

‘Eds and meds.’

You hear that phrase repeatedly in reference to the local economy. It refers to education and healthcare, two of the largest sources of jobs in Western Mass.

And by education, we mean a broad spectrum, but especially higher education; this region is blessed with more than two dozen colleges and universities in communities ranging from Springfield to Amherst; Chicopee to Westfield.

On the ‘meds’ side, there are, likewise, a wide range of players, but the sector is dominated by its many fine hospitals, including all those within Baystate Health system as well as Mercy Medical Center, Holyoke Medical Center, Cooley Dickinson Hospital, and Berkshire Medical Center.

Both of these sectors remain strong, and they continue to be pillars of the local economy. But they are both being severely challenged, as evidenced by recent headlines and news items in BusinessWest.

Last week, Baystate Health, faced with $300 million in operating losses over the past few years, announced the first step in what it is calling a ‘transformation,’ the difficult decision to reduce 134 leadership positions across the Baystate system. That’s less than 1% of the workforce, but a significant workforce reduction nonetheless.

And it symbolizes the many challenges facing all hospitals today as they continue to recover from COVID-related setbacks that include higher costs, inadequate reimbursements, stern workforce challenges, and the ongoing need to invest in new technology and equipment.

Baystate has been in the headlines, but all area hospitals are struggling, and they are all making adjustments and hard decisions.

It is the same with many education institutions, a reality punctuated by a new organizational business plan announced at American International College (AIC). Dubbed ‘Pathway to Progress,’ it details an expansion of degree options, but also a comprehensive re-enrollment program to engage and recruit former students to return to AIC and complete their degrees, as well as cuts within the athletic program, including the return of the men’s hockey program to Division II and the discontinuation of two women’s programs.

“In an era of unprecedented disruption across the higher-education industry, it is more important than ever that we do all we can to ensure AIC can adapt and evolve to best serve our students — those we serve today, and in the future,” interim President Nicolle Cestero said of the new business plan.

Her comments, and that plan, help drive home the fact that this disruption — marked by demographic changes, the nationwide conversation about the value of a college education, free community college, and other issues — is not an AIC problem. It’s a problem for the entire sector. Indeed, noted institutions such as Brandeis University in Waltham, Lesley University in Cambridge, and countless others have embarked on their own cost-cutting programs and revisions to their business plans.

Most colleges and universities in this region remain on very solid ground and, like the region’s hospitals, remain sources of pride — and good-paying jobs.

But these recent headlines reflect the fact that these are, indeed, very challenging times, during which we hope these institutions can and will make the hard decisions and the needed adjustments to remain vital cogs in the region’s economy for decades to come.

Baystate Health Announces Elimination of 134 Leadership Positions

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Daily News

SPRINGFIELD — In the wake of its decision to eliminate 134 leadership positions, Baystate Health released the following statement on Nov. 13:

“Baystate Health maintains its focus on delivering high-quality care and experience to the communities of Western Massachusetts, while addressing our path forward to return our 141-year organization to strong growth and further our leadership position.

“As a system, we are driving toward transformational change to deliver core operations improvements of more than $225 million over the next two years. Our $300 million in operating losses over the past few years has eroded our balance sheet, including our days cash on hand. This weakened financial position has severely limited our organization, especially our ability to invest in our people and grow to meet community needs. Our transformation will allow us to invest $1.2 billion back into our team members, renovations, growth, access, and our community over the next six years.

“This week, we are taking our first step in our transformation with the difficult decision to reduce 134 leadership positions across Baystate, resulting in a reduction of less than 1% of our workforce. We are significantly decreasing management spans and layers to improve efficiency, reduce costs without impacting bedside care, streamline decision making, and better enable our caregivers. While some of the impacted positions are currently vacant and will no longer be filled, there are leaders leaving Baystate.

“We know these transitions heartfeltly impact our people and their families. We are working to find alternate positions for those whose roles were eliminated, and eligible team members who are not transitioned to another position in our organization will receive severance pay and other job support, including access to career transition services. We continue to recruit and hire physicians, advanced practice providers, and bedside caregivers.

“As we transition into the new year, we are actively engaged in pulling other transformation levers in the areas of external spend and corporate overhead as well as completing assessments of our revenue cycle and real-estate portfolio. Our revenue levers for transformation are focused on improving patient access, streamlining service delivery (throughput), becoming more efficient and effective in revenue cycle management, and strategic growth.

“Our mission and values always guide our work, and we remain steadfast in our commitment to improve the health of the people in our communities every day, with quality and compassion.”

Struggling Baystate Health Puts Transformation Plan in Place

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Baystate Health
Features Special Coverage

Digging Out

Baystate Health

Peter Banko says he wasn’t necessarily looking for a turn-around job when he was exploring options for his next career opportunity, but he found one as the new president and CEO at Baystate Health.

Still, he was quick to note that, these days, there are very few CEO opportunities at large hospitals and health systems that do not involve turn-around efforts.

The one at Baystate certainly does, as was made clear in a press release of sorts — it was more of a statement, actually — issued by the institution early this month. It detailed everything from $300 million in operating losses over the past few years to a Leapfrog Safety Grade of ‘D’; from erosion on the balance sheet (particularly days of cash on hand, which declined from 180 days in FY 2020 to 109 by early October) to the launch of a 24-month ‘focused transformation’ to improve core operations (acute care, ambulatory, and physician enterprise) by more than $225 million.

The statement was issued in an effort to be transparent about the system’s current fiscal situation and the plan in place to return it to sound financial health, and also prepare the ground for steps that may come next, including workforce reductions, said Banko, who arrived in Springfield in June, fully aware of exactly what he was getting himself into.

He elaborated on its various points in a recent round of interviews with media outlets from across the state, including one with BusinessWest, during which he noted that Baystate is suffering from the same affliction as most all other healthcare providers in these post-pandemic years — a situation where revenues are simply not keeping pace with expenses — and will have to make some hard decisions, and many of them, to get back on track.

“We have a clear path, and we’re working on implementing it; it’s a two-year plan to improve our core operations by more than $225 million.”

“We have a clear path, and we’re working on implementing it; it’s a two-year plan to improve our core operations by more than $225 million,” said Banko, noting that the basic playbook in this case, as it does with any struggling business in any sector, calls for growing revenues and reducing expenses, efforts carried out simultaneously.

“We’re leaving no stone unturned,” he went on, noting that the system has already taken several steps, including the termination of its defined-benefit pension plan, sale of its laboratory to Labcorp, and the pending sale of Health New England to Point32Health, a move that will “remove a distraction we don’t need right now” more than it will help the bottom line, he noted.

In the growing-revenues category, he said the system is engaging in a strategic-planning process, one involving the entire organization and community, and one that will define where the system wants to grow. Elaborating, he explained that the system is working on revenue-cycle management, especially billing-and-collection operation, “to make sure we’re collecting every dollar, no more, no less.”

Meanwhile, the system is also working on improving access to physicians as well as the larger issue of throughput — in the operating room, endoscopy, heart and vascular, and more.

On the expense side, the system is looking to reduce corporate overhead, “things that don’t touch the bedside,” he said. “We’re looking at external spends — supplies, pharmacy, the must-haves versus nice-to-haves, what pens and paper we’re using.”

But obviously, the largest item on the expense side is workforce, Banko went on, adding that reductions are all but inevitable, although he could not say where they will come or how many.

Peter Banko

Peter Banko says he arrived at Baystate fully understanding the challenges facing the health system.

“We’re still working on the plans and execution, and we will be transparent as we make those changes, both externally and internally,” he said, adding that the system will start with reducing corporate overhead and improving billing and collections.

As he goes about leading this ‘transformation,’ a word he used instead of ‘turnaround’ to describe what’s taking place, Banko said he will call on his considerable experience with such efforts (more on that later).

Ultimately, he is confident that Baystate can and will pull out of this dive and return to something approaching profitability.

“I have complete confidence in where we’re headed,” he said. “Everyone knows where we need to go; we’re aligned about where we want to go. Everything here is fixable, and there’s a great path forward to be able to invest $1.2 billion over the next six years and get into the fun stuff.”

For this issue, BusinessWest talked at length with Banko about how Baystate Health arrived at this moment, but mostly about what happens now — especially those hard decisions, the turning over of all those stones, and everything else needed to move the system into recovery.

“The light at the end of the tunnel can’t be another train coming — it has to be something better.”

While doing so, he provided some insight into the challenges facing virtually every healthcare system in the region — and the country, for that matter.

 

Numbers Game

As noted earlier, Banko knew exactly what he was facing when he agreed to succeed Dr. Mark Keroack as president and CEO at Baystate Health.

“The board was very transparent, and there have been no surprises,” he said, joking that, while there was a very short honeymoon period as he transitioned into the job, it is long over, and the hard work of returning the system, which includes four area hospitals — Baystate Medical Center, Baystate Noble Hospital, Baystate Wing Hospital, and Baystate Franklin Medical Center — to sound financial health is well underway.

Similar work is taking place almost everywhere in healthcare, especially across the Commonwealth, he said, noting that a recent Massachusetts Hospital Assoc. report noted that, in 2023, 75% of the hospitals in the state lost money, with some losing at a more dramatic rate than Baystate, while most others lost less.

“The American Hospital Association reported that, over the past few years, inflation grew by 12.5%, so let’s say it’s 6.25% per year,” he said, while explaining how Baystate arrived at this moment. “Our revenue at Baystate over the past 10 years has grown 5.3%, and there’s the issue: our expenses have been growing faster than our revenue.

“We have an aging population, so more than 70% of our patient base is Medicare and Medicaid, and we know neither of those cover their costs,” Banko went on. “So we rely on the other 30% to cover the cost of Medicare and Medicaid. We’ve lost commercial market share and key services to Boston and Hartford, including cancer, heart and vascular, and to a lesser extent orthopedics, neurosurgery, and gastroenterology. So all the key procedural areas that are profitable for us … we’ve lost some business to elsewhere, and for a variety of reasons.”

Listing some of them, he mentioned access to physicians — “if you call us and it’s a month and you call someone in Boston and it’s ‘we’ll see you next week,’ you’re going to go to the place that will see you next week, if you have the ability to get there” — as well as a lack of awareness within this region of the talent and services available at Baystate.

This loss of revenue, compounded by rising expenses, has had far-reaching ramifications, he said, adding that it limited the system’s ability to reinvest back into itself and the community, while also stunting its ability to grow and impacting the balance sheet.

The plan to stem this tide is fundamental, Banko said, adding that it involves both growing revenue and reducing expenses, and, ultimately, growing revenues faster than expenses.

“That means we have to start growing revenue 6% to 8% a year, and we’ve got to transform our cost structure to get below that,” he said. “We’re still early on, so the more we get on the revenue side, it takes some of the pressure off on the cost side, but we’re still early in the process.”

He said Baystate is not interested in cutting back on operations or discontinuing services, in large part because it is a safety-net hospital, and many of those services are not available elsewhere.

 

Bottom Line

As the system goes about putting a plan in place and then implementing it, it will use some consultants, while also drawing on some of the lessons generated by providers who have managed to recover financially from the pandemic quicker than most others.

There are only a handful of those, Banko said, stressing, again, that most systems — in this region, across New England, and across the country — are fighting the same battle, although Baystate has a deeper hole from which to dig out.

“We got hit harder — our fall, post-pandemic, was further than most systems, and our recovery has been slower,” he noted, adding that those that recovered faster made the hard decisions earlier.

As noted earlier, Banko has considerable experience with turn-around projects. He’s confronted them at several of his earlier career stops, including Centura Health in Colorado, and others as a turn-around specialist in New Jersey, Tennessee, Texas, Pennsylvania, and elsewhere.

As he looked around his office at the system’s corporate headquarters on Chestnut Street, Banko said that, somewhere, there’s a book on turn-arounds he read earlier in his career.

He doesn’t have to reread it because he’s lived through many of them now, and also because it isn’t exactly rocket science. It’s about fundamentals, execution, and “not relying on luck,” he noted. “For me, what’s more important than what you do is how you do it.”

Elaborating, he said one key is maintaining morale and getting buy-in on the strategic plan that is developed. This comes through transparency and focusing on the endgame. He noted that the poor Leapfrog score was a “gut punch” for the system, one that doesn’t reflect the work being done and the quality of talent within the Baystate family of hospitals.

“Still, it’s a grade, and it’s how we’re being graded; I said we’re going to be an ‘A’ organization — everyone wants to work for an ‘A,’ said Banko, who said he also serves as ‘chief culture officer’ for Baystate Health, and in that role it’s his job to set a tone and generate optimism for the system moving forward.

“The light at the end of the tunnel can’t be another train coming — it has to be something better,” he noted. “We’ve got a really nice picture of being able to grow the organization and invest a significant amount of money over the next six years if and when we do the plan.

“We don’t have to sell to someone, we don’t have to turn over the keys, we’re not in the same situation as Steward,” he said, referencing the Texas-based health system that filed for bankruptcy in May and has closed several hospitals, including two facilities in the Bay State. “We have a clear path, and if we execute on the path, we’re going to be healthy and growing and thriving for the next 140 years.”

Baystate Health Welcomes Dean Sanpei as Senior Vice President, Chief Strategy Officer

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Daily News

Dean Sanpei

SPRINGFIELD — Baystate Health announced that Dean Sanpei has joined the organization as senior vice president and chief strategy officer.

With more than 20 years of experience, Sanpei is an experienced leader in healthcare strategy and business development, with strong legislative acumen as a former state representative in Utah. Most recently, he served as chief strategy officer at Centura Health, a network of 25 hospitals, 5,000 physicians, and ambulatory-care settings in Colorado, Kansas, and Utah. At Centura, he led enterprise strategic planning and implementation, service-line development, revenue growth, and the crafting and passage of state public policy that significantly expanded health-insurance coverage in the state.

Prior to Centura, Sanpei spent almost two decades working in strategy for Intermountain Health, nationally renowned for integrated delivery-system development, value- and risk-based care, and clinical outcomes. While at Intermountain, he was also a Utah state representative, serving his constituents by leading the appropriations process, including transitioning the Medicaid program to accountable care and population health. He has a bachelor’s degree from the University of Hawaii and a master of public administration degree from Brigham Young University.

“Dean brings valuable experience from within the healthcare industry, as well as in-depth perspective on healthcare legislation from his time as a Utah representative,” said Peter Banko, Baystate Health president and CEO. “Most importantly, he has a passion and purpose for mission and community, and his leadership strongly aligns with Baystate’s core values of respect, integrity, teamwork, and lifelong learning.”

Peter Banko Shapes a Game Plan for Baystate Health

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Peter Banko
Features Special Coverage

Goal to Go

Peter Banko

Peter Banko

Peter Banko earned a bachelor’s degree at Notre Dame in the late ’80s.

And as with most people who attend that university, his connection to it — and its football team — remains quite strong, manifesting itself in many ways.

Indeed, his office on the sixth floor at 280 Chestnut St. boasts everything from signed photos of players from his era — including one of Pat Terrell, who famously broke up that two-point conversion in the so-called ‘Catholics vs. Convicts’ game against the University of Miami in 1988, Banko’s senior year — to a replica of the famous ‘Play Like a Champion Today’ sign that players smack as they exit the locker room. Meanwhile, he has season tickets and goes to most games in South Bend each fall.

But the connections to Notre Dame don’t end there, and they extend, coincidentally, to his eventual arrival at Baystate Health, where he took the helm as president and CEO on June 3.

As Banko tells the story, he was standing in line at the men’s room at Notre Dame Stadium during the game against USC last October when the person two ahead of him in that line, someone who places executives in healthcare systems, started talking about the top position being open at Baystate, and how he might want to think about pursuing it.

“In meeting with the board and others, what came across was a commitment to mission and community. The academic nature, but also the community nature of the system was very attractive.”

“He turned around and said, ‘hey … are you open to looking at something?’ I said ‘yes,’ and he said, ‘Baystate,’” Banko recalled. “I said, ‘in Springfield?’ and he said, ‘yeah.’” (More on this later.)

And then … well, there’s his commitment to taking the Notre Dame family’s philosophy, if you will, about taking care of one another — long after they’ve graduated or stopped playing football — to healthcare in general, and now to Baystate Health.

Baystate Medical Center

Peter Banko says these have been difficult times for Baystate Health and its flagship hospital, Baystate Medical Center, but the system’s goals are “within reach.”

“There’s a way that you’re indoctrinated, that you take care of each other,” he said, referring those who are called ‘Domers,’ a reference to the campus’s famous golden dome. “From a healthcare perspective, this is a people business, and we have to take care of the people who provide the care. That’s the business lesson learned — you take care of the people; the rest works itself out.”

Putting aside all the Notre Dame memories and connections for a moment, Banko said he came to Baystate because he was well aware of its strong reputation within the industry and wanted to be part of it.

“I’m also having fun again. Sometimes big is not great,” he said, adding that he wasn’t having much fun — or, at least, not as much as he used to — at Centura Health in Centennial, Colo. (which he served as president and CEO), which is part of the massive, $4 billion CommonSpirit Health system.

How much fun he has at Baystate will likely be a function of how well the system, which consists of four hospitals — Baystate Medical Center, Baystate Noble Hospital, Baystate Wing Hospital, and Baystate Franklin Medical Center — as well as several neighborhood clinics and other community-based services, fares with the many challenges facing all healthcare systems today.

“I heard someone say I’ve got the toughest job in town, and I said, ‘no, I’ve got the easiest job in town; I’ve got a great group of people.’”

These include workforce issues, which started before COVID and were amplified by the pandemic; inadequate reimbursements from public payers; and, in general, maintaining a healthy bottom line.

Perhaps the biggest of those challenges is building and maintaining a workforce, he said, adding that a number of factors, from retiring Baby Boomers to COVID-induced burnout that prompted many to leave the industry, are conspiring against healthcare providers on this front.

“We’re facing all the demographics — people are retiring, and there aren’t people replacing them,” he said, adding that Baystate’s status as a teaching hospital will likely be an advantage as it confronts these workforce issues moving forward.

As for financial challenges, he takes over a health system that experienced an operating loss of $178 million in FY 2022, lost $63 million on operations in FY 23, and saw operating losses carry over into FY 24. Nonetheless, Banko sees light at the end of this tunnel.

Peter Banko says workforce issues are the biggest challenge

Peter Banko says workforce issues are the biggest challenge facing Baystate Health, and all healthcare providers, today.

“We’re poised and in a good situation, even though we’ve had a couple of rough years,” he went on. “Folks have said, ‘yeah, it’s been really rough here. I said, ‘well, if it was too rough, I wouldn’t have come.’ We’re poised to do some really good stuff.”

Overall, he said his primary goal is to build on the solid foundation put down his predecessor, Dr. Mark Keroack, and take full advantage of the system’s many assets, especially its core of physicians and clinicians.

“As I told the board then and I keep telling people now, I can move mountains with the group of physicians we have here,” he told BusinessWest. “We can do anything.”

For this issue, we talked at length with Banko about healthcare, the challenges facing the industry, his plans for meeting them head on, and, yes, Notre Dame football and all those connections to his alma mater.

 

His Chosen Field

Banko calls it his “week of fame.”

It came in 2006, when he was serving as administrator of the CHRISTUS Spohn Health System in Corpus Christi, Texas, and it started when he got a phone call alerting him that Vice President Dick Cheney had been shot while quail hunting and had been taken to what was known then as Corpus Christi Memorial Hospital, part of the system. Upon arrival, Banko found out that wasn’t the case, and also that, while no one was saying it out loud, let alone officially, it seemed that Cheney had likely shot the person who was in his hospital.

“I did a few interviews with national news outlets that evening on the phone, and I came in the next day at 6:30, and every news outlet on the planet was parked outside the hospital,” he recalled. “I did all the press conferences every day; I had a direct line to the White House.”

And what he remembers as much as those press briefings and his hotline to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. is how his doctors eventually solved the mystery surrounding the victim’s heart-attack-like reaction to the shooting.

“We couldn’t figure out what it was,” he recalled. “We had doctors in from three major teaching hospitals and the White House. I was in the cath lab with seven cardiologists and three heart surgeons on our side, and one of our docs found an obscure article about a Vietnam vet who had shrapnel in his heart, and years later he had the same symptoms. So they treated him based on that one article.”

The rest of Banko’s career has brought considerably less fame, if you will, but myriad rewards and rich learning experiences. And except for one very brief stint in the private sector, as he called it, he’s spent that career in healthcare administration.

He actually got his start in healthcare as a junior volunteer in his home state of New Jersey while attending Notre Dame. His specific assignment was patient transport, which enabled him to meet hundreds of people and compile a large portfolio of stories.

“I had a lot of great conversations, and I learned a lot,” he said, adding that the administrator of the hospital — a Notre Dame football fan — told him he a knack for health leadership.

“Being an academic center has put us in a better position. We can more easily work with the universities and colleges, we can partner more, and we have that academic setting where we can train and keep our own, which puts us in a unique position.”

“I said, ‘I don’t even know what you do,’” he recalled. “She spent a few hours with me and encouraged me down a path. So, other than one week working in a supermarket as a porter, I’ve never worked anywhere other than a hospital or physician group or health plan.”

After earning his bachelor of business administration degree at Notre Dame and his master of health administration degree from the Sloan Program in Health Services Administration at Cornell, where they take their football far less seriously, he worked in a succession of jobs in healthcare administration, starting at Saint Clare’s Health Services in Denville, N.J. Later, there were stints as president and CEO of CHI St. Vincent in Little Rock, Ark.; and at CHRISTUS Spohn in Texas.

With CommonSpirit Health, he spent nearly two decades in various capacities, including vice president of Southeast Operations and national chief integration officer, before becoming president and CEO of Centura Health, with facilities, including 20 hospitals, across Colorado, Kansas, and Utah.

“I was at CommonSpirit for 17 years, and I was ready for a refresh and a chance to do something different,” he said.

Which brings us to that encounter with the executive recruiter in the men’s room at Notre Dame Stadium.

 

New Team Leader

Banko said he was late, as in very late, to the game when it came to Baystate’s search for a successor for Keroack, but, with some additional encouragement from his executive coach, who once worked in the Baystate system and told him he needed to look into this opportunity, he hustled and became part of a large field of candidates. As noted earlier, he said he was familiar with the organization and its strong reputation within the industry.

“And in meeting with the board and others, what came across was a commitment to mission and community,” he told BusinessWest. “The academic nature, but also the community nature of the system was very attractive.”

He persevered through several rounds of interviews, including a lengthy discussion with the board about his vision for the system, and was chosen by the search committee in March.

Summarizing that vision, he said there are several components to it, everything from honoring a mission and legacy that dates back to 1883 to having a “more physician- and clinical-centered system”; from achieving growth and operating at scale to having a healthy balance sheet.

“We want to use our physicians and other clinicians to drive our strategy and what we do going forward,” he explained. “One of the things that impressed me being here and interviewing is that our cadre of physicians is one of the best I’ve seen in the country in terms of training, expertise, skills, and leadership.”

As for the bottom line, that balance sheet, he said COVID and its after-effects have obviously taken a toll on this and every other healthcare system across the country.

“But it’s all within reach,” Banko added. “Financially, our future is easily within our reach; it’s nothing that’s not attainable. I heard someone say I’ve got the toughest job in town, and I said, ‘no, I’ve got the easiest job in town; I’ve got a great group of people.’

“COVID wasn’t great, and the recovery afterwards has been worse, almost,” he went on. “We’re not facing any problems anybody else isn’t dealing with nationally — some more, some less — but I feel our future is attainable and within our grasp; we just have to go for it.”

Elaborating, he noted that, while all healthcare systems are facing the same issues and challenges, the solutions are local.

“The problems are generally the same … the solutions and how you work at them are very locally contextual,” he elaborated. “Workforce challenges in Boston are different than the ones we face here, but we both have them, and our solutions are not the same as what our colleagues in Boston are doing.”

As for those workforce issues he mentioned earlier, he said Baystate Health does have some advantages as it works to attract and retain talent, including its status as a teaching hospital, but also its location and comparatively lower cost of living.

“Being an academic center has put us in a better position,” he explained. “We can more easily work with the universities and colleges, we can partner more, and we have that academic setting where we can train and keep our own, which puts us in a unique position.

“Plus, this is a great area,” he went on. “It’s affordable, you can raise a family here, and that’s not true of a lot of places around the country.”

One of the keys to success with workforce moving forward is taking care of people, which includes the wages paid, but certainly doesn’t end there, he told BusinessWest.

“My view is that, if you take care of people and help them produce a good product, then growth and profitability will take care of themselves,” he said. “That’s where we have to start; we need to make sure that people want to work here and that we’re a workplace of choice and that we’re delivering a quality product for our community.”

Since arriving at Baystate, Banko says he’s been on a listening tour, one involving both internal and external constituencies, which will continue for the next several months.

What he hears, what he learns, and what he shares will all be part of a report to the board on his first 100 days at the helm, one that will update and likely add new layers of specificity to that vision he has for where this system can go in the years and decades to come — and how to get there.

 

Passing Thoughts

Getting back to those season tickets Banko has had since 2017 … there are four of them for each game, and he likes to share the wealth. And that includes work colleagues.

Which means some of his new team members will be journeying to South Bend in the autumns to come as the Irish pursue their first national championship since … well, Banko’s senior year.

They’ll also be contributing to another journey, one in which they’ll help write the next chapters in the history of this institution — a game with much higher stakes, and one for which he believes the winning formula is already in place.

As they say in football, it’s a matter of execution — and that will be a big part of Banko’s new job.

Baystate Health, MassMutual Partner to Build New, State-of-the-art Community Health Center

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Breaking News Daily News

SPRINGFIELD — In an effort to improve health equity and meet the growing needs of the Springfield community, Baystate Health announced a plan to build a comprehensive community health center in the heart of the city, made possible by the support of its longstanding partner, MassMutual.

MassMutual is donating approximately 10 acres of land valued at an estimated $5 million in the southeast corner of its Springfield campus, as well as providing financing and other support for the project. In addition, the MassMutual Foundation is donating $5 million over five years to support the new, state-of-the-art health center that will be owned and operated by Baystate Health.

The expected total cost for the project is $45 million to $50 million.

The proposed 90,000-square-foot community health center, which will be accessible at the intersection of Wilbraham Road and Alden Street, will centralize services, creating a medical neighborhood caring for children, families, and adults and providing comprehensive primary care, integrated behavioral health, and ancillary services for the Greater Springfield area. The new center will have greater access by public transportation, ample free parking, and easy access from major thoroughfares.

Prior to conveyance to the Baystate Health Foundation, MassMutual will clear the site of the existing buildings, and the lot will be subdivided into its own parcel, separate from MassMutual’s headquarters. Construction is expected to begin sometime in 2025 and be completed in 2027.

“Thanks to the generous donations and substantial support provided by MassMutual and the MassMutual Foundation, Baystate Health’s vision to create a comprehensive, integrated community health and wellness center to serve the most vulnerable populations in Greater Springfield can advance towards realization,” Baystate Health President and CEO Dr. Mark Keroack said.

With the new community health center and wellness hub in place, Baystate Health will consolidate services from four of its existing Springfield health centers to the new building, where they will continue to provide services, plus more, for adult and pediatric patients at the new location. These centers will remain open and fully functional until their services can be transitioned to the new health center, and Baystate Health is committed to engaging the community and local leaders during the planning phase of the project.

The centers and their services that will be transitioned to the future Wilbraham Road location include Mason Square Neighborhood Health Center, Baystate High Street Health Center, Baystate High Street Pediatrics, and Wesson Women’s Clinic.

These existing community-based facilities are limited in size and scope with many infrastructure challenges that require significant upgrading and capital investment to  allow for growth and expansion of services. The new center will provide Baystate Health with a state-of-the-art, modern facility to provide robust care for patients as well as attract top providers.

“We intend to co-locate four of our existing Springfield community health centers into a larger, modern facility to create this unified healthcare delivery wellness hub,” Keroack said. “Several convergent factors have informed our vision. The positive outcomes we have demonstrated in our Medicaid accountable care organization, involving more than 50,000 of the region’s most underserved patients, have provided value to this population, improved health, and allowed us to begin to address health disparities and inequities. We could not do this without the generosity of MassMutual and the MassMutual Foundation.”

In addition to MassMutual’s support, the project will also benefit from some expected state and federal grants. The land that will be donated to Baystate Health represents roughly 10% of MassMutual’s approximately 100-acre Springfield campus. The company’s move toward digitization and bringing its employees together in its iconic main office building on State Street has left a portion of its property underutilized, including two vacant buildings. Rather than leave this space unused, the company wanted to find a better, more long-term meaningful use for the land, one that would serve the community MassMutual has called home since 1851.

“Throughout our long histories in Springfield, both MassMutual and Baystate have had an enduring commitment to each other’s success as we’ve worked toward our own respective, yet similar pursuits, helping people live better, more fulfilling lives,” said Roger Crandall, chairman, president, and CEO of MassMutual. “We are incredibly proud that a portion of our property will serve a more meaningful purpose and a greater good, expanding access to high-quality medical care to improve the health and well-being of our community for generations to come.”

Combined, the four existing community health centers planned for the move currently serve 125,000 patient visits annually. In the envisioned community health center campus on the land to be donated by MassMutual, Baystate Health expects patient visits to increase to 145,000 annually by 2028.

Baystate Health Names Peter Banko Its Next President and CEO

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Daily News

Peter Banko

SPRINGFIELD — The Baystate Health board of trustees announced it has appointed Peter Banko as Baystate Health’s new president and CEO. He succeeds Dr. Mark Keroack, who previously announced his plans to retire after serving as the system’s leader for 10 years.

An executive experienced in leading multi-faceted health systems in markets throughout the country, Banko was chosen after an extensive national search by the board of trustees. Banko will officially join Baystate Health at the beginning of June.

Banko most recently served as president and CEO of Centura Health in Centennial, Colo., which was part of the national CommonSpirit Health system. The $3.8 billion hospital and health-services system comprised more than 20 owned and affiliated tertiary and rural hospitals, an extensive network of physician partners, and numerous community-based services and clinics across Colorado, Kansas, and Utah.

“Among a slate of high-qualified candidates, Peter stood out for both his commitment to our community-based healthcare mission and decades of experience leading complex health systems in diverse and competitive markets. He offers a proven track record of strengthening programs and services, growing revenue and market share, improving operations and operating discipline, and serving as a workforce champion,” said Harriet DeVerry, chair of the Baystate Health board of trustees. “We look forward to him joining the organization.”

Banko, a native of New Jersey, started his calling in healthcare as a junior volunteer and has served in CEO-level roles for several health systems for nearly two decades. He has an industry reputation of leading innovation, transformation, integration, and partnerships with hospitals, physician groups, and health plans. He earned his bachelor of business administration degree from the University of Notre Dame and his master of health administration degree from the Sloan Program in Health Services Administration at Cornell University.

“Baystate Health has a stellar reputation around the country, and I greatly appreciate the immense responsibility that comes with joining such a truly mission- and values-driven team,” Banko said. “I am beyond excited to embark on an exciting new era of healthy growth with my fellow 13,000 caregivers — in care for our patients, in community, in business, and in spirit. The possibilities for us together are endless in redefining health and healthcare in Western Massachusetts and beyond.”

In his role, Keroack was a leading voice during the COVID-19 pandemic for the region, offering public-health information and partnering with public-health officials to address the crisis. A native of Springfield, he joined Baystate Health in 2011 as chief physician executive and president of Baystate Medical Practices and was appointed to the CEO role in 2014. He has had a long career in both medicine and health administration, serving in leadership roles at UMass Memorial Medical Group and the University HealthSystem Consortium.

“We are immensely grateful for the contributions of Dr. Mark Keroack as an exceptional leader and clinician who has successfully led the organization for the last 10 years with a deep commitment to Baystate Health and to our community,” said Colleen Holmes, vice chair of the Baystate Health board of trustees. “We congratulate him on his upcoming retirement.”

Baystate Health Names Dr. Seth Gemme Chair of Department of Emergency Medicine

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Daily News

SPRINGFIELD — Dr. Seth Gemme has been named the new chair of the Department of Emergency Medicine at Baystate Health. Upon approval by the provost and dean, he will also chair the Department of Emergency Medicine at UMass Chan Medical School-Baystate. He most recently served as vice chair of Clinical Operations for the Baystate Health Department of Emergency Medicine.

Gemme earned his MD degree from the University of Buffalo prior to completing his residency training in emergency medicine at the Alpert Medical School of Brown University in Providence, R.I. He joined the Department of Emergency Medicine at Baystate Health in 2017 and has held progressive leadership positions since that time, including associate chief and Education director, Emergency Department, Baystate Noble Hospital; chief, Emergency Department, Baystate Wing Hospital; system vice chair of Clinical Operations for Emergency Medicine, Baystate Health; and as board member of Baystate Medical Practices.

Gemme has earned several scholastic and teaching awards in his career to date, including the prestigious President’s Excellence Award in 2022 at Baystate Health. He has continued to serve for more than a decade as a member of the clinical policy committee of the American College of Emergency Physicians, contributing to the development of national consensus guidelines in emergency medicine. Most recently, he led the design and successful implementation of the ‘vertical model’ of care at Baystate Medical Center. This model of care utilizes oversized leather recliners for patients who can sit upright during their care while in the Emergency Department.

“Dr. Gemme is a team builder, and I am confident that he will leverage his leadership experience and informed perspective to advance the aligned visions of the Department of Emergency Medicine and Baystate Health,” said Dr. Andrew Artenstein, chief physician executive and chief academic officer for Baystate Health and president of Baystate Medical Practices.

Gemme will start in this new role in early January 2024. Dr. Niels Rathlev, who has held the position of chair, Department of Emergency Medicine, Baystate Health for the past 15 years, will be staying on as a faculty member.

Baystate Health Launches $70 Million Fundraising Campaign

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Daily News

SPRINGFIELD — Baystate Health announced a $70 million comprehensive fundraising effort. “Healthier Tomorrows: The Campaign for Baystate Health” is the largest fundraising goal in Baystate Health’s history and focuses on raising money for three critical areas: capital needs, program support, and endowment development.

“This campaign changes the face of healthcare in our region,” Baystate Health President and CEO Dr. Mark Keroack said. “Our vision is to improve the health of everyone in our community by recruiting top-tier medical providers, building cutting-edge spaces for them to practice in, enhancing our services to meet the changing needs of the people we serve, and ensuring Baystate Health is here to stay for the long haul.”

The $70 million goal aims to fund several initiatives, including a state-of-the-art surgical facility and a Center for Nursing Excellence at Baystate Medical Center, a renovated Family Medicine practice and teaching space at Baystate Franklin Medical Center, and support for the endowment, with the purpose of increasing fiscal resilience for the organization.

Community members and Baystate Health providers and staff gathered on Sept. 18 to celebrate the campaign’s launch. The event, originally planned to be held in the Bolduc Family Courtyard at Baystate Medical Center, was moved inside due to inclement weather. The courtyard was made possible by a recent gift from the Bolduc family and its Hope for Youth & Families Foundation.

Lead donors have already contributed generously toward the $70 million goal. In addition to funds for the Bolduc Family Courtyard, campaign support includes a grant from the Irene E. & George A. Davis Foundation in support of the new operating and interventional procedural rooms at Baystate Medical Center, two named endowed clinical chairs, program contributions toward the Family Medicine residency program and mobile health, and support of annual giving and events that reach system-wide.

“Baystate Health has been providing high-quality, compassionate healthcare to this community since the 1880s,” said Dr. Andrew Artenstein, chief physician executive and chief academic officer at Baystate Health and president of Baystate Medical Practices. “It is our sincere hope that our promise to advance care and enhance lives will continue for the next century and beyond. This campaign helps us secure our mission well into the future.”

Baystate Health’s last campaign concluded in 2012. The $23 million raised supported building the shell of the Hospital of the Future wing, including space for a new Emergency Department and the Davis Family Heart & Vascular Center. The new campaign will help complete much of the shell space as intended to accommodate new technology and meet the growing needs of the community.

Baystate Health CEO Dr. Mark Keroack Announces Plans to Retire in July 2024

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Daily News

SPRINGFIELD — Dr. Mark Keroack announced his plan to retire as Baystate Health CEO in July 2024 after 10 years of leadership of the region’s primary health system. The board of trustees will launch a national search for his successor.

“It has been and continues to be the privilege of a lifetime to serve as CEO of Baystate Health and partner with the amazing people who provide such outstanding care to our communities,” Keroack said. “While I look forward to spending the next chapter of my life with my family, I plan to be fully engaged in both day-to-day leadership and our strategic efforts to address the challenging dynamics in healthcare today in a way that prioritizes the health needs of our communities and continues our role as an employer of choice.”

Keroack joined Baystate Health in 2011 as chief physician executive and president of Baystate Medical Practices and was appointed to the CEO role in 2014. He has had a long career in both medicine and health administration, serving in leadership roles at UMass Memorial Medical Group and the University Health System Consortium. A specialist in infectious diseases, Keroack was a leading voice during the COVID-19 pandemic, offering public-health information and partnering with public-health officials to address the crisis.

“Baystate Health plays a unique role as a major employer, community asset, and safety net for our most vulnerable community members and their health needs. Mark leads with a focus on mission; even though the financial environment has been challenging, his decisions always prioritize local health needs,” said Harriet DeVerry, board chair. “While Mark’s strengths, vision and commitment to the community will not be easy to replace, the board recognizes this transition as an important opportunity to plan for the future needs of Baystate Health and the patients, families, and communities at the heart of our mission.”

The board has established a search committee and identified a search firm to help conduct a nationwide search for a new CEO. It is expected to take several months to a year to identify a candidate and finalize the next CEO. During this period, Keroack will continue in all aspects of the CEO role.

“I have great admiration for Dr. Keroack and the work he has done in serving the Pioneer Valley for more than a decade,” U.S. Rep. Richard Neal said. “His roots in the city of Springfield run deep, just as they do in the medical community. Growing up in a household where his mother was a nurse and his father a doctor, Dr. Keroack has always had a profound sense of service. His partnership during his time as president and CEO over the past nine years, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic, has been irreplaceable. He is a true advocate for the Greater Springfield community, and he is a true believer in facts, always following the science to achieve the best possible outcome for his patients. This, along with his measured approach and good-hearted nature, has earned him the respect of his colleagues in the medical community and those of us who have been fortunate enough to work with him over the course of his distinguished career.”

Massachusetts Broadband Institute Awards $5.1 Million to Baystate Health for Digital Equity

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Daily News

SPRINGFIELD — The Massachusetts Broadband Institute (MBI) awarded $5.1 million to Baystate Health on behalf of the Alliance for Digital Equity in Western Massachusetts.

“Baystate Heath, along with the Alliance and MBI, share the purpose and primary goal of the Digital Equity Partnerships Program to ensure that low-income communities and households in the Western Massachusetts region, including those in Hampden, Hampshire, Franklin, and Berkshire counties, have access to a wide range of digital equity support and services,” said Frank Robinson, vice president of Public Health at Baystate Health.

The mission of the Alliance is to assure digital equity for all people, including access to the skills, computer equipment, and reliable high-speed internet needed to operate in the digital world. The Alliance believes that digital equity is necessary for people to fully participate in modern society. It plays a vital role as part of overall personal and community equity because all major parts of life — including health, housing, food, education, employment, childcare, banking, transportation, and civic engagement — have gone online.

A network of collaborating organizations (NCOs), all of which are sub-award grant recipients to Baystate, the primary grant recipient, will implement digital-equity solutions. NCOs include the Public Health Institute of Western Massachusetts, Tech Foundry, the Community Foundation of Western Massachusetts, Holyoke Community College, Way Finders, the Springfield Housing Authority, the Berkshire Regional Planning Commission, Community Action Pioneer Valley, Springfield Partners for Community Action, Viability, the New North Citizens Council, the Center for New Americans, Stavros, the Greenfield Housing Authority, Common Capital, and Western New England University. These organizations will establish and administer projects in one or more of the following four program areas:

• Digital Literacy Initiative: $2,299,235 for NCOs to establish digital-literacy training programs to ensure that target populations have the requisite skills to use devices, online resources, and digital tools;

• Connectivity Initiative for Economic Hardship: $689,313 for broadband connectivity to vulnerable populations through the provision of Wi-Fi cellular hot spots, such as jetpacks, to individuals lacking stable housing and are unable to have a fixed broadband internet subscription;

• Public Space Internet Modernization Initiative: $813,221 for NCOs to make improvements to inadequate broadband infrastructure and digital use in public spaces and increase daily use and services; and

• Outreach and Enrollment: $1,347,693 for breaking down barriers to broadband adoption, which involves increasing the number of Western Mass. residents participating in the Digital Equity Partnership Initiative programs and the Federal Communication Commission’s Affordable Connectivity Program.

NCOs will work with target populations to ensure that effective outreach, education, and adoption assistance is available in concert with other project initiatives to ensure their maximum impact. This outreach will involve in-person workshops, call-center phone banking, door-to-door outreach, online or printed communications, public-service announcements, and other media activities as deemed necessary.

Initiatives are intended to provide services and support for residents of the Commonwealth who cannot afford broadband service and/or internet-connected devices or lack the digital-literacy skills needed to utilize the internet.

Dr. Sarah Haessler Named Chair of Baystate Health Department of Medicine

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Daily News

SPRINGFIELD — Dr. Sarah Haessler, whose expertise in infectious diseases has been recognized at the local, state, national, and international levels, has been named chair of the Department of Medicine for Baystate Health.

Haessler, who has served as interim chair of the Department of Medicine at Baystate since 2022, was appointed chair after a highly competitive national search. She is the inaugural female chair of Baystate Health’s largest clinical/academic department. Her tenure begins immediately.

She received her medical degree from George Washington University School of Medicine and completed a residency in internal medicine and a fellowship in infectious diseases at Dartmouth Hitchcock in New Hampshire. She is board-certified by the American Board of Internal Medicine in internal medicine and infectious diseases.

Haessler joined Baystate Health in 2005 and since that time has held progressive leadership roles, including as the hospital epidemiologist for the health system, vice chair of the Department of Medicine, interim chief of the Division of Geriatrics and Palliative Care, and most recently interim chair of the Department of Medicine.

“Her strong work and expert insights have had a tremendous, salutary impact on national, state, and regional preparation and response to several biological threats, including pandemic influenza, Ebola, monkeypox, and COVID-19, serving in critical leadership roles in these events,” said Dr. Andrew Artenstein, chief physician executive and chief academic officer for Baystate Health and president of Baystate Medical Practices.

Active in the field of academics and research, Haessler has trained and served as advisor and mentor for dozens of residents and fellows in the specialty of infectious diseases. She is currently an associate professor of Medicine at UMass Chan Medical School – Baystate. Since 2002, as either principal or co-investigator, she has completed numerous research projects and is currently co-investigator in Reducing Antimicrobial Overuse Through Targeted Therapy for Patients with Community-acquired Pneumonia.

Haessler is the recipient of several honors and awards, including BusinessWest’s Healthcare Heroes Award, the Women in Medicine and Science Impact Award, and the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America’s (SHEA) Speaker Recognition Award and the Women in Medicine and Science Impact Award. She has held several distinct leadership roles in SHEA, including board and committee chair positions.

She has published more than 45 scholarly works in medical literature, including book chapters and peer-reviewed and non-peer-reviewed publications, and has served on several national and state expert panels and scientific review groups. She has been invited to present at international, national, regional, and local symposiums and conferences on a variety of topics, such as the science of hand hygiene for preventing infections, challenging cases in infection prevention, addressing the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on women’s academic and clinical advancement, and many others.

Square One, Baystate Health, Rocky’s Ace Hardware Team Up for Child Safety

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Daily News

SPRINGFIELD — Baystate Health and Rocky’s Ace Hardware are joining forces with Square One to help keep the community’s children safe and healthy. Specifically, they are coming together to respond to the need for electrical-outlet safety, based on the fact that each year, across the nation, more than 2,400 children suffer from severe shock and burns from exposed electrical outlets.

The partnership was prompted by UMass Chan Medical School – ­Baystate student Kendall Burdick, who had the idea to support Square One’s families by providing electrical-outlet safety plugs to all Square One households. From there, the team at Rocky’s Ace Hardware stepped in to donate thousands of outlet plugs to support the safety initiative.

Square One currently provides early-learning services to more than 500 infants, toddlers, and school-age children each day, and family support services to 1,500 families each year, as they work to overcome the significant challenges in their lives.

Ron Bryant Named President of Baystate Health Regional Hospitals

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Daily News

SPRINGFIELD — Ron Bryant, president of Baystate Noble Hospital and Baystate Franklin Medical Center – Northern Region, will extend his role to become president of Baystate Health Regional Hospitals, which also includes Baystate Wing Hospital in Palmer.

His new role becomes effective on Oct. 9 upon the retirement of Molly Gray as president and chief administrative officer of the Baystate Health Eastern Region.

“At Baystate Health, our goal is to continue providing a top-tier patient experience while focusing on safety, quality, and value across our organization. Ron’s proven visionary leadership and business acumen will further our mission of improving the health of the people in our communities every day, with quality and compassion,” said Marion McGowan, executive vice president and chief operating officer of Baystate Health.

Bryant joined Baystate Health in 2015 as president of Baystate Noble Hospital. Previously, he was executive vice president and CEO for the Noble Hospital Health System. In 2018, he was promoted to president of both Baystate Noble Hospital and Baystate Franklin Medical Center.

He brings a wealth of leadership experience and a passion for positive change within the Western Mass. healthcare community. During his time as president of Baystate Noble Hospital in Westfield and Baystate Franklin Medical Center in Greenfield, he successfully developed the strategic and operational plans for the two hospitals, comprised of 200 combined beds and nearly 1,800 team members. He will now oversee three hospitals with nearly 300 combined beds and more than 2,300 Baystate team members.

Molly Gray to Step Down as President of Baystate Health Eastern Region on Oct. 9

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Daily News

PALMER — Molly Gray, president and chief administrative officer of the Baystate Health Eastern Region, has announced her retirement, effective Oct. 9.

“Throughout her 30-plus years with Baystate Health, Gray has been a highly regarded and respected member of the senior leadership team. She has shown unwavering commitment to our mission of improving the health of the people in our communities every day with quality and compassion. Her contributions have made an incredible difference for our work team and our community,” said Marion McGowan, executive vice president and chief operating officer of Baystate Health.

Gray has served Baystate Health and the community for 34 years. She has held seven roles with progressive responsibility, culminating in her role as president and chief administrative officer for the Baystate Health Eastern Region, including Baystate Wing Hospital and Baystate Mary Lane Outpatient Center.

She joined Baystate Health in 1988 as a professional nurse and transitioned to a managerial role as a level IV nurse manager, a unit manager, and then Women and Infants’ manager. An advocate for children’s health issues, Gray assumed the role of director of Women’s Services and Baystate Children’s Hospital in 2003. In 2013, she was promoted to vice president of Baystate Health Children’s Hospital, Women’s Services, Behavioral Health, Observation and Emergency Services. In 2016, she assumed the role of vice president and chief Nursing officer for the Baystate Health Eastern Region and was promoted in 2019 to her current role.

Under her leadership, the team at Baystate Wing has been recognized for numerous achievements, including national recognition by the Lown Institute Hospitals Index for being one of the most socially responsible hospitals in America. Recently, Baystate Wing was also nominated for the National Kenneth B. Schwartz Compassionate Caregivers of the Year award.

Aiming to strengthen and grow essential key health care services in the Eastern Region, Gray and her team worked to consolidate and relocate services. As a result, Baystate Health Wing Hospital, complete with Baystate Health and Wellness Center Palmer, has positioned itself as a centerpiece of healthcare in the Eastern Region.

Kevin Conway Named SVP/CIDO at Baystate Health 

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Daily News

SPRINGFIELD — Kevin Conway, whose IT expertise spans both domestic and global markets, has been named Senior Vice President & Chief Information & Digital Officer (SVP/CIDO) of Baystate Health. 

His appointment becomes effective June 27.  

Conway, a strategic executive with more than 25 years of success in executive leadership, strategic planning, and consulting within large academic multi-facility healthcare IT systems, most recently served as client executive for Tegria Services Group, overseeing the clinical and digital transformation initiative for Northern Ireland. In his role, he was responsible for strategic direction and leadership of Epic Solutions deployment as part of the overall digital health strategy for acute, community, mental health, and social care services.  

Previously, Conway held the role of Chief Information Officer at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) in Pittsburgh, Pa., where he managed all facets of IT operations of clinical and essential service departments at UPMC Presbyterian, UPMC Shadyside, and UPMC Mercy & UPMC Magee-Womens Hospitals. He also served as VP of IT Advisory Services, chief information officer, and director of IT at UPMC. 

Conway received his BA in Business Administration Health Management Systems from Robert Morris University. 

In his new role at Baystate Health, Conway will be a key senior executive responsible for the health system’s information and technology systems. His work will include system interoperability and optimization of IT systems, transformation of business processes, human-centered design, enhancements of patient-centered technologies, and focused work on cyber and information security. 

Baystate Health Announces Changes to Visitor Policy 

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Daily News

SPRINGFIELD —  Baystate Health is announcing major changes to its hospital visitation (also referred to now as care partner) guidelines as the number of COVID-19 cases have begun to climb once again in the region. 

The changes went into effect Monday. 

The health and safety of patients, families and staff members is Baystate’s top priority. Care partner visitation guidelines balance preventing the spread of COVID-19 with the needs of our patients and their loved ones. A care partner may be a relative, partner, friend, or anyone the patient chooses to have at their side during care. The number of care partners welcomed will depend on the area of the hospital and patient circumstances. 

Red, yellow, green and gray tiers (also called zones) still remain in effect for visitation based on the CDC, DPH and state guidelines, but the policy details within the tiers change over time. All Baystate hospitals — Baystate Medical Center in Springfield, Baystate Noble Hospital in Westfield, Baystate Wing Hospital in Palmer and Baystate Franklin Medical Center in Greenfield — have now moved back into the yellow tier as cases climb. 

  

Hospital changes include: 

  

  • Inpatients (Non-COVID): One visitor/care partner at a time for patients who are not in the ICU, unless a designated exception applies. (previously, two care partners allowed)

  

  • Inpatient Obstetrics (Non-COVID): Two designated care partners in room during delivery and up to two hours immediately after delivery. One care partner may stay for duration of hospital stay and come and go throughout the day. One additional care partner may visit following the general visitation guidelines with both at the bedside at any given time during visitation hours. (previously one designated care partner plus two additional support people during labor; previously two additional visitors during postpartum period)

  

  • End of Life/Hospice (Non-Covid): Two visitors/care partners at a time; patient may also have a clergy present. (previously no restrictions on the number of people in the room)

  

There are no changes for non-COVID ICU patients where two visitors/care partners are allowed at a time. 

  

Children ages 5-18 must be accompanied by an adult. Children under 5 may only visit if a designated exception applies.  

  

Visiting hours remain from noon to 8 p.m. 

  

For Baystate Medical Practices: 

  

  • Life-changing diagnosis: One care partner is allowed for regular patients (previously 2)

  

  • Patients with disabilities: One care partner or support person is allowed (previously both were allowed)

  

There are no changes to one visitor/support person allowed and two parents/guardians at a time for patients who are children. (Previously 1 parent/guardian) 

  

All visitors must adhere to Baystate Health infection control practices that are in effect throughout the health system: wearing facemasks at all times whether in the patient’s room or other areas of the hospital, and frequent handwashing. Visitors with a fever, cough, or other COVID-19 symptoms, will not be able to visit. 

  

Baystate Health regularly evaluates its visitation policy in accordance with the governor, CDC, and DPH who are monitoring the constant evolution in our region which guides our updates. Visitation is at the discretion of Baystate Health. Baystate Health will continue to review the county data and CDC/DPH/State guidelines weekly to determine which tier each county will be in. To stay up to date and see exceptions for each tier, including obstetrics, go to baystatehealth.org/patients/visiting.   

BusinessTalk with Mark Keroack, president and CEO of Baystate Health

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Business Talk Podcast Special Coverage

We are excited to announce that BusinessWest, in partnership with Living Local, has launched a new podcast series, BusinessTalk. Each episode will feature in-depth interviews and discussions with local industry leaders, providing thoughtful perspectives on the Western Massachuetts economy and the many business ventures that keep it running during these challenging times.

Go HERE to view all episodes

Episode 112: May 16, 2022

George talks with Mark Keroack, president and CEO of Baystate Health

 BusinessWest Editor George O’Brien talks with Mark Keroack, president and CEO of Baystate Health, about the fifth COVID surge, what he and his team are seeing, and what they are projecting. The numbers are rising, he said, but this surge won’t be like those that preceded it, and for many reasons. It’s all must listening, so join us on BusinessTalk, a podcast presented by BusinessWest in partnership with Living Local and sponsored by PeoplesBank.

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Baystate Health Awards $1 Million in Better Together Grants 

By
Daily News

SPRINGFIELD — Baystate Health has awarded $1 million in Better Together Grants to five community initiatives with partner organizations as part of its Community Benefits Program.  

  “Baystate Health is proud to invest our Determination of Need (DoN) Community Health Initiative (CHI) funding in the communities served by our four hospitals. It is an honor to partner with these very deserving local non-profit organizations over the next three years,” said Annamarie Golden, director, Community Relations for Baystate Health 

  This year’s recipients, who submitted requests for proposals in January 2022 include: Quaboag Valley Community Development Corporation in partnership with the Town of Ware, The Care Center in partnership with Greenfield Technical Community College, Westfield State University in partnership with Springfield Technical Community College, Montague Catholic Social Ministries in partnership with The Brick House Community Resource Center, and the Western Mass. Training Consortium in partnership with the Bridge Program community organizations  — The Recover Project, The Salasin Project and The Wildflower Alliance.  

  “Baystate’s Community Benefits Program, in partnership with our hospital Community Benefits Advisory Councils (CBACs) and Grant Review Teams, is making investments through Better Together grants that will have lasting and meaningful impacts on health outcomes, health equity, and social determinants of health throughout the Pioneer Valley,” said Golden. 

  Funding for the Better Together grants is made possible through the Mass. Department of Public Health’s (MDPH) Determination of Need (DoN) requirements related to the replacement of Baystate Medical Center’s Operating Rooms approved in November 2020. Although this project was unique to the hospital, Baystate Health’s goal is to equitably distribute the Community Health Initiative funds for grant making to all four Baystate Health hospitals. This was an intentional step toward health equity, recognizing that Baystate’s community hospitals historically have lower likelihood of accessing DoN CHI funds. The aim of the Better Together grant opportunity is to develop approaches that by targeting the social determinants of health, will improve people’s overall well-being and make our communities healthier places to live in, while complementing the health care system’s current offerings. In addition to funding the grantees, Baystate Health has also contracted with the Public Health Institute of Western Mass. to provide technical assistance and evaluation support to the grantee cohort over the next three years. 

  

Better Together Grant Recipients: 

  

Baystate Franklin Medical Center: $300,000 total budget (over three years); Social Determinant of Focus: Social Environment 

  Montague Catholic Social Ministries & The Brick House Community Resource Center, Director of Policy, Advocacy and Development: $150,000 – 2 years

  

​ Baystate Medical Center: $500,000 total budget (over three years); Social Determinant of Focus: Education 

  The Care Center & Greenfield Technical Community College, Cabot Street College: $250,000 – 3 years

  • Westfield State University & Springfield Technical Community College, Pathways for New Healthcare Professionals: Promoting the Development of a Diverse, Entrepreneurial, and Innovative Nursing Workforce: $250,000 – 3 years

  

  Baystate Wing Hospital: $200,000 total budget (over three years); Social Determinant of Focus: Education 

  Quaboag Valley Community Development Corporation & The Town of Ware, Engaging Youth in Education to Employment: $200,000 – 3 years

  

  For more information about Baystate Health’s Community Benefits Program, visit baystatehealth.org/communitybenefits. 

Jane Albert to Retire from Baystate Health After 20 Years

By
Daily News

SPRINGFIELD — Dr. Mark Keroack, president and CEO of Baystate Health, announced that Jane Albert, senior vice president and chief consumer officer, will retire on July 1, following 20 years of service with Baystate.

“In all of her work for the health system, she has demonstrated a steadfast focus on our communities, transformative and nurturing leadership skills, and a deep understanding of data-driven learning and improvement,” Keroack wrote in a letter to the Baystate community. “She has been a trusted partner to me and enjoys the respect of all across Baystate Health and the communities we serve as a source of timely and trusted communications that promote our vision of advancing care and enhancing lives.”

Albert joined Baystate Health in 2002 as manager of Medical Practices Marketing and developed the first marketing plan to integrate legacy physician groups into the organization known today as Baystate Medical Practices (BMP). She then expanded her scope as manager of Corporate Marketing for the whole health system. She went on to deepen her focus on the external environment in subsequent roles in Public Affairs, Strategic Communications, and Community Relations.

“Her underappreciated background in accounting led her to focus on metrics in these and subsequent roles, helping the organization adopt and embrace the value of social media and other digital technologies as vehicles to gauge the impact and reach of our communications efforts,” Keroack wrote.

Albert then returned to BMP to stand up its first Office of Physician Referral Services, with a focus on improving access to care. She was recruited back to the system level with a promotion to vice president of Philanthropy and executive director of Baystate Health Foundation (BHF). During four years at the foundation, she developed a comprehensive strategic plan that led to a more balanced portfolio of events, major gifts, and planned giving, all tracked by a dashboard of performance metrics. Her work led to significant growth in overall giving and greater diversification of BHF’s philanthropic activities.

She was promoted again in 2017 to senior vice president of Marketing, Communications and External Relations, a role which included the areas of BHF and Government & Community Relations. She brought in experienced leaders for all three areas and oversaw dramatic growth across all her areas of responsibility. Key activities included the “Advancing Care. Enhancing Lives” brand campaign, the growth of more broad and sophisticated governmental advocacy efforts, and continued growth in philanthropy.

The results of all this work, Keroack noted, included a new appreciation by the public of Baystate Health, national and international awards for marketing and communications, dramatic increases in government funding, and record charitable donations of all types to BHF.

“But it was during the COVID-19 pandemic that Jane’s leadership truly shone through,” he added. “The work of our marketing and public-relations teams positioned Baystate Health as a thought leader in a time of great public concern, with thousands of stories featured in local, statewide, and national media.”

During this turbulent period, Albert’s scope was enlarged yet again to her current role. She collaborated with other members of the President’s Cabinet to develop the health system’s 2025 Consumer Strategy with a focus on access to care, a new digital platform, and the importance of recognizing the unique needs of individual patients and families.

“The new structure includes the areas of patient experience and patient relations, with a view to coordinating our efforts across the system in order to take the hassles out and put the kindness in for every encounter with the system,” Keroack wrote. “Throughout her 20 years with Baystate Health and across her multiple and varied roles, Jane has shown an unwavering commitment to our mission of improving the health of our communities every day. She has helped us see that this mission entails recognizing and respecting the uniqueness of every individual, listening to diverse voices in the community, and elevating the experience of patient care to a level on par with our other goals of safety and quality. I will miss the energy and passion with which she advanced these worthy goals, and I will honor her time with us by pursuing the road map she has left for us with vigor.”

Dr. Sarah Haessler

By
Healthcare Heroes

Emerging Leader

Hospital Epidemiologist, Baystate Medical Center; Vice Chair for Clinical Affairs, Department of Medicine, Baystate Health

Dr. Sarah Haessler

Dr. Sarah Haessler

She ‘Stands on a Wall Between the Community and Infectious Diseases’

Dr. Sarah Haessler has already been honored as a Healthcare Hero. Actually, a ‘Healthcare Superhero,’ to be more precise.

That was the unofficial title bestowed upon 76 fully vaccinated healthcare workers from across New England who attended the Super Bowl last February as guests of New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft. The group flew down on the Patriots’ team plane and got to see Tom Brady win his seventh Super Bowl — and promote vaccination while they were at it.

Haessler, hospital epidemiologist at Baystate Medical Center and vice chair for Clinical Affairs in the Department of Medicine at Baystate Health, was one of three from this region to be so honored; she was joined by Baystate colleague Stephen Boyle Sr., senior director of Hospitality; and Cherie Rodriguez, a respiratory therapist at Mercy Medical Center.

Haessler has many memories from that day, with only some of them involving the action on the field.

“It was the quintessential American experience,” she recalled, noting that healthcare workers from across the country were recognized at the game. “It was big. Everything about it was big. The music was loud, there were fireworks for everything, there were military flyovers, the jumbo screens had the president on them … America doesn’t do anything small. This was very big and very American.”

“Her role is to stand watch on the wall between our patients, our team members, our community, and the infectious agents that threaten their health. And she has successfully done this for more than a decade, not only in the face of a global pandemic the likes of which we have not experienced for more than 100 years, but every day of the year. Because in healthcare, those threats never cease.”

Haessler said pairs of tickets to the game were made available to various hospitals, and she was chosen by officials at Baystate to attend; she’s not sure how or why.

Matters are a little more clear when it comes to her being chosen as the winner in the intensely competitive Emerging Leader category for BusinessWest’s Healthcare Heroes awards. She has been chosen in large part for her many efforts to prepare those at Baystate for what was coming in early 2020 and for her ongoing work throughout the pandemic to plan, educate, and help carry out all the operations of a hospital during extraordinary circumstances. But there is certainly more to the story. Indeed, COVID-19 wasn’t her first experience with a highly infectious disease, and she acknowledged, with some resignation born from experience in her voice, that it won’t be her last.

Meanwhile, she has taken on more leadership roles over the years, serving as interim chief medical officer at Baystate Noble Hospital and currently sitting on the board of the Society of Healthcare Epidemiologists of America.

Her work in her chosen field, and her status as an emerging leader in Western Mass. and beyond, is best summed up by Dr. Andrew Artenstein, chief physician executive and chief academic officer, incident commander, COVID-19 Response, at Baystate Health, who nominated her for this honor.

“Her role is to stand watch on the wall between our patients, our team members, our community, and the infectious agents that threaten their health,” he wrote. “And she has successfully done this for more than a decade, not only in the face of a global pandemic the likes of which we have not experienced for more than 100 years, but every day of the year. Because in healthcare, those threats never cease.”

In a candid interview, Haessler talked about that harsh reality, her work at Baystate, her chosen career in epidemiology, and the many kinds of rewards that come with it.

 

At the Top of Her Game

When asked how she chose epidemiology as a specialty, Haessler started by saying that, during her residency at Dartmouth, she was interested — make that fascinated — by all aspects of medicine. It soon became clear to her that she needed to pick something broad that would cross all other specialties.

“When I sat down to pick one, I ultimately decided that the specialty where the cases that kept me up late or got me up early in the morning to learn more and read more and try to figure out what was wrong with this person — these puzzles — were the cases that were most interesting to me, and the most satisfying and challenging. And that was infectious disease,” she told BusinessWest.

Dr. Sarah Haessler was one of many ‘Healthcare Superheroes’

Dr. Sarah Haessler was one of many ‘Healthcare Superheroes’ in attendance at last February’s Super Bowl in Tampa.

“I’ve never looked back — I’ve always loved it,” she went on, adding that, in this field, she does get to interact with specialists of all kinds. “It’s been an interesting career — I’ve never been bored. And the other thing about it is that it just keeps moving. I’m a high-energy person — I keep moving — so it suits me very well.”

Things were certainly moving in the latter days of 2019, said Haessler, noting that the information coming to her from hospital epidemiologists in China, and later the state of Washington, made it clear that something ominous was on the horizon.

“We saw the pandemic potential for it because it was so swift and had created a huge influx of patients in those hospitals in Wuhan,” she recalled. “It essentially overwhelmed those hospitals immediately, and the fact that China’s approach was to put the area in lockdown … that is the kind of organism, like SARS, that causes a pandemic.”

She said Baystate was ready, in large part because it had gone through this before with other infectious diseases and had learned many valuable lessons. And she was at the forefront of these efforts.

“We had been through H1N1, and then we had been through the Ebola epidemic,” she explained. “And this really created an impetus, and a framework, across the United States for preparedness for the world’s most contagious diseases.”

Because of Ebola, Baystate had created a Special Pathogens Unit to manage extremely contagious patients, said Haessler, who manages this unit and the team that operates it. And as part of that team’s work, it created protocols and procedures for how it would manage patients, took steps to ensure that there would be adequate supplies of PPE, put in place scenarios for how patients would be cared for and where, determined if, when, and under what circumstances elective surgeries would be halted, and much more.

In short, as Artenstein noted in his nomination, Haessler was the point person for preparing the medical center for what everyone could see was coming.

“Her work provided great comfort to all, knowing that we had such an expert in such a key role,” he wrote. “Her team’s magnificent work in collaboration with employee health services led to the earliest possible recognition of infectious contacts and allowed us to limit the risks for patients and staff during a time of great uncertainty and fear.”

While the past tense is being used for most of these comments, the work battling COVID is obviously ongoing, said Haessler, adding that the Delta variant brings a new and very dangerous thread to this story.

When asked about what the past 18 months has been like, personally and professionally, she said, in essence, that it’s been the culmination of all her training and hard work.

“It’s been one of biggest events that I’ve had to participate in, and while it’s been challenging, it’s also been very gratifying, because Baystate has been an incredible organization, rising to the occasion in this. I’m so proud of Baystate; I’ve never been more proud to work at this organization and to be part of the leadership team.

“The responsiveness, the focus on what was important and what remains important, has been incredible,” she went on. “It’s been a laser focus on the safety of the healthcare workers, and protecting our patients and our healthcare workers from getting and passing this disease, getting the resources we needed to enable safe management of these patients, and staying really, really focused on what’s important here has been a phenomenal experience and an opportunity for tremendous personal and professional growth.”

 

Passing Thoughts

Returning to Raymond James Stadium and Super Bowl LV, Haessler said she had the opportunity to meet with healthcare workers from across the country who had been, at that time, battling with COVID for roughly a year.

“It was an opportunity to meet with other people, commiserate, and just be among kindred spirits — people had been through so much,” she said, adding that, seven months later, the fight continues, and in some ways, it has escalated.

In the future, there will be other fights against infectious diseases, she said, adding that the best hospitals and healthcare systems can do is try to be prepared, because, as Artenstein noted, these threats never cease.

That, in a nutshell, is what her career has been all about. Her ability to exceed in that role and many others has made her a Healthcare Hero — and a ‘superhero’ — as well as an emerging leader in Western Mass. and her chosen field.

 

George O’Brien can be reached at [email protected]

With COVID-19 Surging at Baystate, Dr. Mark Keroack Encourages Vaccination

By
Daily News

SPRINGFIELD — Despite having just 5.5% of the state’s hospital inpatient beds, Baystate Health’s four hospitals housed 18% of all inpatient COVID-19 cases in Massachusetts on Wednesday — and system President and CEO Dr. Mark Keroack is calling on the community to do its part, through vaccination and other measures, to help slow a recent surge in cases in Western Mass., mostly driven by the Delta variant.

“Baystate Health has really been hit unusually hard by the fourth wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. We went from four cases on the first of July to, last weekend, having over 100 cases,” Keroack said at a virtual news conference on Thursday. “The last couple of days, things have gotten down into the 90s, and we hope that’s a good trend, but we’re really not sure.”

Most of those cases are at Baystate Medical Center in Springfield, and 13 are critical-care cases. About 75% of all hospitalized COVID patients in the Baystate system are unvaccinated individuals; vaccinated cases are typically older people or those with chronic conditions. In any case, he said, COVID cases among the vaccinated are typically milder and lead to shorter hospitalizations.

Part of the local surge, Keroack said, can be attributed to Hampden County’s 52% full-vaccination rate, lowest among the Commonwealth’s 14 counties; the statewide figure is 67%.

For that reason, he has been reaching out to boards of health, civic leaders, business owners, and event organizers to encourage employees and clients to get vaccinated, as well as encouraging masking and social distancing, to reduce the number of cases and the burden on hospitals.

“We are appealing to the community to help us,” Keroack said, noting that Baystate’s hospital beds, especially at Baystate Medical Center, are at or near capacity, and COVID patients often have to wait for beds to open up. “Everybody in the community has a role to try to mitigate the effects of this crisis and to help us be there for everybody who needs us, for COVID or non-COVID care.”

Another problem has been a “reduction in discharge efficiency” because many nursing homes have been closed to new admissions or struggling with staffing, he said. In addition, Baystate has its own workforce issues; of the system’s roughly 12,000 jobs, about 1,400 are currently vacant.

“We filled some with contract workers, but those are hard to find with the intense competition,” he added, noting that the system has adjusted salaries and benefits and offered hiring or retention bonuses as well.

Baystate Health is also implementing a vaccine mandate for all employees, from frontline care providers to back-office workers. Currently, vaccination rates in the system top 85%, but just over 1,600 have yet to be vaccinated. Some have been granted medical or religious exemptions, Keroack noted.

He argued that the best way to blunt the effects of the pandemic is to reduce the spread, and sees vaccination as the best way to do that, as well as taking precautions when gathering, especially indoors.

“It really is unfortunate to see some of the preventable pain and suffering, not to mention expense, that happens when people who have decided to put off the vaccine end up getting sick,” he said. “So we are asking the community to help us reduce the burden of this disease in the communuity and try to get Hampden County closer to where the rest of the state is.”

BusinessTalk with Dr. Mark Keroack, president and CEO of Baystate Health

By
Business Talk Podcast Special Coverage

We are excited to announce that BusinessWest, in partnership with Living Local, has launched a new podcast series, BusinessTalk. Each episode will feature in-depth interviews and discussions with local industry leaders, providing thoughtful perspectives on the Western Massachuetts economy and the many business ventures that keep it running during these challenging times.

Episode 62: May 3, 2021

 George O’Brien talks with Dr. Mark Keroack, president and CEO of Baystate Health

Dr. Mark Keroack

BusinessWest Editor George O’Brien talks with Dr. Mark Keroack, president and CEO of Baystate Health. The two discuss a wide range of topics, including the current pace of vaccinations, strategies for improving those numbers, the challenges facing the country as it strives to reach herd immunity, and expectations for when the region, the state, and the nation might be able to reach something approximating ‘normal.’ Keroack provides keen insight into all these matters, and his takes certainly provide food for thought. It’s must listening, so join us on BusinessTalk, a podcast presented by BusinessWest in partnership with Living Local.

 

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Boston Children’s Hospital, Baystate Health Collaborate on Specialized Pediatric Care

By
Daily News

SPRINGFIELD — Boston Children’s Hospital and Baystate Health have formed a collaboration that will improve patient access to highly specialized pediatric care and strengthen the coordination of care between Boston Children’s and Baystate Children’s Hospital in Springfield.

The collaboration will provide patients throughout Western Mass. with improved access to pediatric specialty care at Baystate Children’s Hospital, and it will streamline care planning among providers at Boston Children’s and Baystate Children’s. The collaboration anticipates that the two hospitals will jointly develop pathways to ensure that children and adolescents get the right care in the right setting. In some instances, Boston Children’s clinicians will be available to provide care at Baystate Children’s.

“As the leading children’s hospital in Western Massachusetts, Baystate Children’s has long partnered with the community to advance the health and well-being of all children from prevention to critical care,” said Dr. Mark Keroack, president and CEO of Baystate Health. “We are delighted to build upon our exceptional care for families through a collaboration with the much-respected Boston Children’s Hospital, which will provide additional clinical expertise when needed for our young patients.”

Dr. Charlotte Boney, chair of the Department of Pediatrics at Baystate Children’s Hospital, added that “this collaboration acknowledges and strengthens the close working relationship with Boston Children’s Hospital that we have enjoyed for many years. This collaboration will facilitate our continued ability to keep specialty care local so that children and families have access to a broad range of high-quality, affordable services right here in Western Massachusetts. We look forward to exploring other opportunities that will strengthen our collaboration to serve our mutual missions of patient care, medical education, and community service.”

The two hospitals already work collaboratively in cardiology, neurology, and dermatology, and by enhancing medical education, remote consults, information technology, and other initiatives, the two institutions will be better able to coordinate care for their patients.

“At Boston Children’s, we are committed to providing comprehensive pediatric care — close to home whenever possible — to patients and families throughout Massachusetts,” said Sandra Fenwick, CEO of Boston Children’s Hospital. “This collaboration will strengthen the ability of two great institutions to improve access to the highest-quality care for the patients and families we look forward to serving together.”

A Q&A with Baystate Health President and CEO Dr. Mark Keroack

By
Economic Outlook

Healthcare

 

Editor’s Note: One of the sectors most impacted by the pandemic — and one facing a great number of questions moving forward — is healthcare. We put some questions to Baystate Health President and CEO Dr. Mark Keroack, who has become a very visible leader during this crisis and was recently named one of BusinessWest’s Healthcare Heroes for 2020.

 

BusinessWest: Dr. Keroack, already we’re seeing a great deal of optimism and expectation accompanying the arrival of vaccines in this nation and this region. What are your thoughts on the impact these vaccines will have on the broader economic picture in this region and when that impact will be seen?

 

Dr. Keroack: The vaccines represent a major scientific breakthrough, and they are the beginning of the end of the pandemic. Economies depend on consumer confidence, and, therefore, I have always seen recovery from the pandemic and recovery of the economy as one and the same. Removing the pandemic will boost confidence and enable the economy to recover. What is less clear is which businesses will have survived the terrible stress test of 2020 to even be able to recover.

 

BusinessWest: ‘Normal’ is a word we hear a lot these days, as in ‘when things return to normal.’ With the vaccines now here, is there any more clarity on when ‘normal’ — as in pre-COVID — may return?

 

Dr. Mark Keroack

Dr. Mark Keroack

“The light at the end of the tunnel is real, but it is still months away, and we are now in a perilous situation with more virus circulating in the community than we had last spring.”

Dr. Keroack: I believe that when a majority of people — more than 70% — receive the vaccine and are immune, case numbers will fall precipitously because the virus will not be able to find new hosts easily. That will enable governmental leaders to lift the restrictions we all have been struggling with these past several months. I suspect that will happen in late spring or early summer.

 

BusinessWest: Dr. Keroack, this has been a trying year for the healthcare system and hospitals in general. Can you in any way anticipate what 2021 will be like — both in terms of providing services and from a business (bottom-line) perspective?

 

Dr. Keroack: I think we should expect consumer attitudes to be changed in the wake of the pandemic. For several months, people have been getting used to different ways of getting their needs fulfilled, whether it is virtual visits, remote working, takeout dining, or online retail. I think this will put greater pressure on traditional bricks-and-mortar enterprises, including Baystate, to revisit their business models.

 

BusinessWest: In many ways, you have been the face of the pandemic in this region, often sending out strong statements on the need to socially distance, wear masks, and take the steps necessary to stem the spread of the virus. What is your message to the community now, 10 months after the start of the pandemic, and with what many are calling a light at the end of the tunnel in sight?

 

Dr. Keroack: The light at the end of the tunnel is real, but it is still months away, and we are now in a perilous situation with more virus circulating in the community than we had last spring. Many people, especially older people, are doing what they need to do to protect themselves, but many more are minimizing or still denying the risks of infection. It is now more important than ever to follow the guidance on masking, social distancing, and handwashing. Furthermore, we need to restrict our visits to indoor spaces that are not our homes, particularly if masks are not being worn.

 

BusinessWest: The governor recently rolled back, if that’s the proper phraseology, many of the restrictions on certain types of businesses. Do you believe further restrictions will be needed before the current situation improves?

 

Dr. Keroack: I think it is likely that the latest restrictions will not be enough to slow down the spread of the virus. We are seeing that some mayors are issuing regulations that go beyond what the governor recently proposed, and I suspect he too will have to roll back things still further before we are through the current crisis.

 

BusinessWest: Continuing with that thought, many businesses have closed over the past several months, and many more are barely hanging on amid the restrictions placed on them. It’s often been said that elected leaders have to choose between saving the economy and saving lives. Is there any way, in your opinion, to effectively do both?

 

Dr. Keroack: There are examples of countries that have done both. They are characterized by high rates of rule following, easy access to testing, and financial support for people who are sick and cannot work. Many Asian countries had great success opening their economies while also driving down infection rates. Other countries, like the U.S., were more likely to object to or doubt the effectiveness of the guidelines, and we saw a lot of people deciding to exempt themselves, sometimes with disastrous consequences. We also are not consistent in terms of sick leave, so many were tempted to go to work while sick. For all these differences, it is fair to say that now nearly every country is sliding backward to higher virus levels, because even the most compliant groups get fatigued by these restrictions.

 

BusinessWest: As a business leader and manager of one of the region’s largest employers, can you talk about the ways this pandemic has changed business and how it’s conducted, and which of these changes may be permanent?

 

Dr. Keroack: I mentioned earlier the importance of flexibility and meeting the customer where they are. We have recommitted to improved customer service and easier access to care. We are still learning in healthcare to be more like more customer-friendly sectors. I also expect that the strains on the economy will cause healthcare to be examined again for being too high in cost. Baystate Health is the lowest-cost large health system in the state, and yet we still need to drive down costs further. We also need to remember that embedded in the pandemic was the George Floyd killing, which led to a reckoning with systemic racism in our country. Baystate Health as an organization has made eliminating racism and enhancing diversity, equity, and inclusion in our health system a top priority. Finally, I think we need to re-examine and improve how we do preventive public health in our state, and I hope Baystate Health can play a role there.

 

BusinessWest: They say adversity makes those who endure it stronger. How will this region become stronger because of this lengthy and difficult battle against COVID-19?

 

Dr. Keroack: If the pandemic has taught us anything, it is that we are all connected to each other. Infections historically have attacked those in lower socioeconomic groups more severely. When those infections spread easily, we all suffer when we have not dealt fully with advancing economic opportunity across all our communities. If we come out of this with a greater sense of community and togetherness, we will have gained something valuable from what was otherwise a terrible ordeal.

 

BusinessWest: Personally and professionally, what has it been like for you to lead a company like Baystate though this crisis? What have you learned about yourself, as a leader, if anything?

 

Dr. Keroack: There have been many stressful days, given the unknowns and dangers of this virus. I worry a lot about protecting our employees and see the stresses they have been going through. I am blessed with a wonderful team that has strong experience in infectious-disease management and epidemic containment. I also am gratified by the can-do attitude from so many on the front lines. They show tremendous commitment, compassion, and innovation. I think the major lessons I learned as a leader is to make sure people understand the reasons behind what we are trying to do and then to trust them to find the solutions. I have not been disappointed in that trust.

 

Mark Keroack, M.D., President and CEO, Baystate Health

By
Mark Keroack
Healthcare Heroes

His Efforts to Coordinate the Region’s Pandemic Response Saved Lives

Mark Keroack

Mark Keroack

Dr. Mark Keroack doesn’t feel like a Healthcare Hero. But he’ll gratefully accept the honor on behalf of everyone who does deserve the award.

In his estimation, that’s a lot of people.

“Whenever some new challenge comes up, it’s been our tradition to step up and play a leadership role in Western Mass.,” said the president and CEO of Baystate Health. “I wish I could convert my award into an ‘unsung heroes award.’ So many things happened behind the scenes to enable us to step up.”

And so many people stepped up. Like Dr. Sarah Haessler, an epidemiologist who has long had a keen interest in emerging infections. “She got us to construct an ebola-treatment unit in 2014, and she put together a small team of people interested in unusual infections,” Keroack said. “That team reassembled this year, in early January, when they started issuing alerts looking out for anyone traveling from China.”

Or Dr. Lauren Westafer, an emergency medicine physician who helped determine, early on, that not rushing to place patients on ventilators actually decreased COVID-19’s mortality rate. “We were far ahead of the curve on that,” Keroack said.

Or Baystate Medical Center President Nancy Shendell-Falik, a former nurse who understands patient flow, he said, noting that Baystate, on an average day, has about 720 patients, but was able to open up hundreds more beds by postponing elective surgeries and finding other creative ways to open up space and redeploy staff.

Or Dr. Andrew Artenstein, the system’s chief physician executive — and, like Haessler, an infectious-disease expert — who led Baystate’s Incident Command Center. In addition to his day-to-day role coordinating the system’s pandemic response, he drew national attention after penning an account of a rendezvous at a small mid-Atlantic airport, where he and his team brought a $3 million check to purchase a large shipment of face masks and N95 respirators — and were temporarily accosted by the FBI.

“We realized we were on our own,” Keroack said of those early days, noting that the health system also received PPE donations from the construction trades and local manufacturers, who had shifted to making such equipment. It was a lesson to the region that local players could produce what they needed and not have to depend on a fractured global supply chain.

“I wish I could convert my award into an ‘unsung heroes award.’ So many things happened behind the scenes to enable us to step up.”

But he mostly applied the ‘hero’ designation to every frontline provider who continued to push past their health and safety anxieties and do their jobs. “They were able to do the right thing in spite of their fears, and are heroes in my book.”

That book includes story after story of collaborations Baystate forged in support of prompt community outreach, testing, education, and information, all with the goal of limiting the spread of COVID-19 and helping make Massachusetts — one of the hardest-hit states in the pandemic’s early days — an eventual model of how to control it.

On the local level, Keroack participated in Springfield Mayor Domenic Sarno’s weekly COVID-19 press briefings, leading the mayor to note that “Dr. Mark Keroack’s leadership and medical insight has truly been a great benefit for our city of Springfield as we have worked together to defeat and mitigate the spread of this virus.” Baystate also tested the homeless population and expanded testing to key neighborhoods in the city at the request of the state and local officials.

Keroack also convened calls with Westfield Mayor Don Humason regarding clusters of positive cases in Westfield’s Russian community and possible spread beyond its borders. Meanwhile, he conducted weekly calls with the Western Mass. legislative delegation and other area hospital CEOs, while crafting a plan with state officials on how Baystate would provide surge beds for the region.

“I set up an independent command center, and every day at 7:30, we’d call a group of people who included hospital presidents, heads of medical groups, people from infection control, supply chain, finance, communications … 15 people got on the Zoom meeting every day,” he said, adding that information from those sessions would be distributed as a bulletin at 11 a.m. “It was the most widely read thing at Baystate. Everyone knew every day where we were.”

Mark Keroack (right) and U.S. Rep. Richard Neal take part in an outdoor roundtable on COVID-19 issues in the spring.

Keroack also served as the only Massachusetts hospital CEO appointed by Gov. Charlie Baker to the state’s Reopening Advisory Board. “The Reopening Massachusetts plan needed to balance restarting commerce while avoiding a surge of virus cases,” said Mike Kennealy, Secretary of Housing and Economic Development. “Dr. Keroack’s medical expertise and healthcare-sector experience, and his perspective as a resident of Western Massachusetts, helped to ensure those dual objectives were addressed.”

For his part, Keroack praises the state’s phased approach, which has understandably been frustrating to business owners.

“We’re using data to move from one phase to another, and we’ve had good coordination between authorities and scientists, as opposed to some states, where they butted heads with each other,” he added. “In Massachusetts, there hasn’t been any daylight between what science is telling us and what local and state officials are saying.”

If there was an unseen ‘hero’ amid all the named ones, Keroack suggested it may have been a public that understood its role, and today still largely adheres to guidelines around social distancing, mask wearing, and other protocols.

“I’m proud of how we worked together and came together as a community,” he told BusinessWest. “Parts of the country were at loggerheads, fighting with each other about masks, getting their hackles up about personal liberties. I look at that craziness and think, thank God we didn’t have to go through that.”

On the other hand, the community’s responsibility was clear. “We had the advantage of knowing what happened in Italy and New York, so we didn’t have to twist people’s arms to take this seriously. The public understood the issue around shutting down.”

At the same time, he’s proud of Baystate’s role in working with local boards of health and the Department of Public Health around contact tracing. “In six months, from the announcement of the first case, we have gone from having to beg to get a person tested to being a regional testing center that does 1,000 tests a day,” he said, with the total tests approaching 100,000 toward the end of September.

About a third of those tests, he added, have not even been Baystate patients, but patients from other hospitals and folks living at nursing homes, assisted-living facilities, and homeless shelters. “We got outside the walls of our own system into the community and really played a role in public health.”

While the pandemic is far from over, Keroack already recognizes some of the changes that might emerge from it, from an expanded role for telehealth to a better understanding of where society’s safety nets have proven inadequate.

“This has kind of exposed some of the shortcomings of our healthcare system and of our social support system, like the number of people in this country who don’t have paid sick time, and go to work even when they’re sick,” he said.

Some of the long-term impacts of COVID-19 are still emerging, he added, but Baystate — and the team of heroes with whom he insists on sharing his honor — will continue to, as he said, step up and play a leadership role.

“Every time a pandemic hits society, people who live through it are changed forever. That’s true of every pandemic throughout history,” Keroack said. “We’ll look at the world differently in terms of healthcare as a right, or childcare and sick leave — we’ll look at these issues very differently than we would have just a few years ago. At least, I hope we will.”

Joseph Bednar can be reached at [email protected]