Last year's $208M pharmacy sale helping to pay for UMass Memorial's coronavirus cost

Photo | Grant Welker UMass Memorial Medical Center's Memorial Campus in Worcester

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By Grant Welker

Last August, UMass Memorial Health Care in Worcester sold a pharmacy management joint venture to free up money for equipment and facility upgrades. In the meantime, it planned to invest some of the $208 million it took home from the deal.

Fortuitously, though, the hospital network's investment committee hadn't met in between that time and when the coronavirus pandemic came to Central Massachusetts.

"That probably saved us $50 million or so," UMass Memorial President and CEO Eric Dickson said Friday in an online forum with UMass Memorial employees.

The UMass Memorial system was already showing some financial strain, having narrowed its annual loss to $10 million in fiscal 2019 in part by major cost cuts among its executive ranks over the past decade. Responding to the coronavirus outbreak has been burdensome as well, Dickson said, leaving the system relying on its eventual share of the $2-trillion federal stimulus bill approved Friday.

The bill includes $100 billion for hospitals, an amount Dickson said he hopes to get UMass Memorial's share of in six to nine months.

"We can't go on forever in terms of our current condition, but we don't see any near-term problems," Dickson said.

"We have to get some relief from the federal government to be able to get back on track," he added, citing the continued need to eventually invest in equipment and facility upgrades. "We're going to do what we need to do to take care of our patients right now, and we'll be OK on the financial end."

UMass Memorial officials have previously cited personal protective equipment shortages, including N95 masks and wipes. The hospital system has begun a pilot program to use ultraviolet light to sterilize the N95 masks. Employees have been asked at the end of each shift to place their masks in a brown paper bag in a "used mask" bin on their unit. Clean masks are returned in white paper bags a few hours later.

UMass Memorial has also been requiring employees who work on a hospital campus or in a facility providing direct patient care to receive a face mask upon coming to work. That cautionary step, Dickson said in a staff memo, will reduce the risk of a caregiver who may not have symptoms but be infected from passing the virus to others, or from being infected by a patient who may be infected but not yet have symptoms.

Hospital visitors are also required to complete a screening questionnaire, have their temperature taken and wear a mask. Employees are not yet required to have their temperature taken.

In Friday's online forum, Dickson praised local companies for making medical equipment donations but also criticized the federal government for not playing a larger role. The hospital has been asking for personal protective equipment for nearly a month, he said.

"We haven't received a single mask or a glove," he said. "The federal response to date from the executive branch has been woefully inadequate."