News and Events

A Message for Integrated Network Clinicians, Practice Managers and Region Council Leaders

Dear Colleagues,

Teams at Tufts Medicine Pediatrics and Boston Children’s have been actively working together to build and support a smooth transition and continued access to care for families.

Please see the message below from Mike Tarnoff, MD and Kevin Churchill, MD for an important update on the progress of this partnership.

Thank you,

Emily

Emily Young

President

Tufts Medicine Integrated Network

A Message for all colleagues across Tufts Medicine

Dear Colleagues:

We continue to meet the milestones we set at the outset in our Tufts Medicine Pediatrics - Boston Children’s collaboration, and we continue to make good progress on our work together.

On that note, we are pleased to share that we have received formal regulatory approvals to continue this work. With this positive news, as a joint pediatric team, we can help more children live their healthiest lives possible and begin to reimagine pediatric care in communities across Massachusetts.

By having secured all approvals needed to move forward with our collaboration we can take our next steps together to:

• Help grow patient access to care and better integrate our care networks
• Expand our ability to care for all populations -- effectively and equitably -- across all communities
• Deepen our connection with patients and families across Massachusetts

We have come a long way since we announced our collaboration nine months ago. Teams at Tufts Medicine Pediatrics and Boston Children’s have been actively working together to build and support a smooth transition and continued access to care for families. Here is some of what we have done to date:

• In a little more than two months, nearly 100 Boston Children’s physicians have been credentialed at Tufts Medical Center to ensure continued coverage of Tufts specialty services including its NICU.  Similarly, certain Tufts Medicine Pediatrics ICU, hospitalists and infectious disease physicians have been credentialed at Boston Children’s and are caring for inpatients, with an additional 50 Tufts Medicine Pediatrics physicians currently going through the credentialing process at Boston Children’s.
• Both hospitals have set up call centers to field patient and referring physician questions and concerns and to assist in care coordination, including a 24/7 Boston Children’s call line for inpatient referrals. Calls continue to come in at a steady pace, with families appreciating the assistance.
• We are executing our work plan for the newly formed Boston Children’s Network Specialty Physician Foundation. Approximately 70 Tufts pediatric faculty will be employed through this Foundation as of January 1, 2023, while maintaining their Tufts University School of Medicine appointments.
• We are actively recruiting and hiring more highly qualified pediatric clinicians. Since January, we have hired four neonatologists, two pediatric hospitalists, one gastroenterologist, and one primary care pediatrician, one pediatric nurse practitioner for primary care/adolescent medicine and six physician assistants for the NICU. We have extended offers to other specialists interested in this model, including neurology. We are beginning to receive more CVs as we enter the traditional recruiting season.
• We received accreditation to reinstate the Tufts Psychiatry Triple Board residency program as a joint Boston Children’s / Tufts Triple Board program. This is one of just nine programs in the country – and the only one in Boston. Graduates of this program are trained in pediatrics, child psychiatry and adult psychiatry.

We want to recognize work being done collaboratively across Tufts Medicine Pediatrics and Boston Children’s. Our progress together would not have been possible without a dedicated and talented team focused on our pediatric patients, faculty and staff, students and each other.

We share particular thanks to the leadership of Geoffrey Binney, MD, Pediatrician-in-Chief and Rachel Wasserstrom, Vice President of Pediatrics on the Tufts Medicine side, who have worked in collaboration with Peter Laussen, MBBS, FANZCA, FCICM, Executive Vice President of Health Affairs, and Marcia Gutsche, Vice President, Massachusetts Alliances, at Boston Children’s.

Thank you all for helping us design pediatrics for the future, with our patients and their families first in mind.

Michael Tarnoff, MD

President and CEO

Tufts Medical Center

Kevin B. Churchwell, MD

President and CEO

Boston Children’s Hospital

Click here to access the briefing sent to our Network

Please join us at one of two webinars on Wednesday, June 22, for an update on Tufts Medical Center’s collaboration with Boston Children’s Hospital. 

Leading the discussion will be Dr. Geoffrey Binney, Tufts Medicine Pediatrician-in-Chief; Rachel Wasserstrom, VP/Tufts Children’s Hospital; and a member of the Boston Children's Hospital transition team.

Topics will include an update on resources available to you and your patients, the status of our pediatric specialty clinics, and operational details, including how to best reach Boston Children’s Hospital for urgent and non-urgent services. Time also will be spent answering questions you may have.

Click here for the message sent to our Network. 

Please click here for the message sent to our Network.

Please click here for the message sent to our Network.

Please click here for the message sent to our Network.

Colleagues:

As previously announced, Tufts Children's Hospital will close its pediatric inpatient units, effective July 1, 2022. After that date, any child who needs overnight hospitalization will be cared for at Boston Children’s Hospital.

Please note that most of our pediatric programs and community-based services remain open and unchanged. To read the full list of these services, click here.

Please call our information line at (866-978-2399) with any questions you may have. We are here to help.

Dear Community,

We wanted to provide you with an update on all the work being done around the Tufts Children’s Hospital and Boston Children’s Hospital (BCH) collaboration.

We are first and foremost grateful to our dedicated pediatric teams who despite this challenging situation continue to provide world class care each and every day and night, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. They are quite simply among the most professional people we have had occasion to work with.

We continue to work closely with each of our teams and with BCH to provide greater clarity on our future direction. Tufts Children’s and BCH leaders continue to meet division by division to work through all that is ahead of us.

We will provide another update when we have more material information to share. Thank you to everyone connected to this important work and thanks again to our pediatric teams for the work they do every day and for working through these changes with us. 

Sincerely,

Michael Tarnoff, MD, FACS                

President and CEO                                                     

Tufts Medical Center and                                           

Tufts Children’s Hospital                    

Michael Wagner, MD, FACP

Chief Physician Executive

Tufts Medicine

Helen W. Boucher, MD FACP FIDSA

Dean ad interim

Professor of Medicine

Chief Academic Officer

Tufts Medicine/Tufts Medical Center

Michael J. Dandorph

President and CEO

Tufts Medicine

Please click here for the message sent to our Network.

Please click here for the message sent to our Network.

Please click here for the message sent to our Network.

A Message for the Tufts Medicine Clinically Integrated Network

Dear Colleagues:

Based on feedback from our physician community, we’ve decided to cancel the webinar about Tufts Children’s Hospital’s plans to enter into a collaboration with Boston Children’s Hospital (BCH).

A Network-wide webinar won’t allow for the kind of conversation and collaboration that we look forward to having with you.

Instead, we will host smaller forums (input sessions) to address your questions and engage you in discussions about the future of pediatric services.

Our goal is to convene local groups of pediatricians and family practitioners, because we know that patient needs and referral patterns differ by region. We also will schedule meetings with Network leadership teams and interested medical practices. Please look for follow-up announcements with meeting dates and times.

In the meantime, please reach out to me – or any member of the Tufts Medicine CIN Senior Leadership Team – if you’d like to schedule an input session with your group right away.

We look forward to connecting with you.

Best,

Emily

Emily.Young [at] wellforce.org (Emily Young)

President

Tufts Medicine Clinically Integrated Network

A Message for the Tufts Medicine Clinically Integrated Network

January 20, 2022

Dear Colleagues:

The Tufts Medicine Clinically Integrated Network’s vision is to build healthier communities as we accelerate the shift to value-based care. Tufts Medicine, as a health system, is leading change in our community in support of that vision. 

Today, we are announcing a major initiative to advance our patient and care team experiences and to expand the reach of our Health System across New England. 

Effective July 1, 2022 and pending regulatory approval, Tufts Children’s Hospital will enter into a collaboration with Boston Children’s Hospital (BCH) and will close its 41 pediatric inpatient beds, transitioning care for children requiring inpatient admissions to BCH.

In addition, we have begun discussions with BCH on how to best structure the future of our subspecialty clinics (Boston, Brockton, Chelmsford, Lawrence and Woburn), our outpatient surgical/procedural services and our pediatric hospitalist network (Signature Healthcare Brockton, Lawrence General, Lowell General, MelroseWakefiled and MetroWest hospitals).

Level III neonatal intensive care services will continue to be offered at Tufts Medical Center, as they serve as a vital component to the growth of Tufts MC’s highly regarded Maternal Fetal Medicine program and the strong network that has been built across eastern Massachusetts by our neonatology team.

As we make this announcement, we also celebrate the legacy of commitment and caring by the Tufts Children’s Hospital pediatric staff from the founding of the “The Floating” to today. That legacy is what enabled this collaboration with BCH.

Concurrently, we will begin the process to obtain regulatory approval to expand our inpatient capacity at Tufts MC. This will enable Tufts Medicine to address unmet demand for care of critically ill adult patients, while assuring that your pediatric patients continue to get extraordinary care, now through our collaboration with BCH.

We recognize that a strategic decision of this magnitude may create disruptions in the near-term that must be messaged and managed. Several helpful communications resources have been developed for you and your patients, including:

• Answers to Frequently Asked Questions for physicians and pediatric families
• Flier for pediatric families
• Resource line to answer physician and pediatric patient questions: 866-978-2339
• Dedicated section of the Tufts Medical Center website to provide key updates and resources: www.tuftsmedicalcenter.org/BCH.

We also plan to host informational webinars for physicians and practice staff to keep you informed about progress to establish the collaboration with Boston Children’s Hospital. Please look for future announcements of dates/times. All webinars will be recorded for “on demand” listening/viewing.

Our collaboration with BCH is a strategic decision that underscores the Tufts Medicine commitment to accelerate change to improve the health of our communities. Over the next several months as the transition is operationalized, there will undoubtedly be questions that arise. We will be intentional about providing you with the information you need in a timely and concise manner to respond to questions from your patients and colleagues. In the interim, if you have any questions, please do not hesitate to reach out to me directly.

With warm regards,

Emily Young

President

Tufts Medicine Clinically Integrated Network

Read full message here.