UMass Memorial asks admin staff to redeploy, help run testing sites

Photo | Grant Welker A line for coronavirus testing at the Mercantile Center in Worcester

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UMass Memorial Health President and CEO Dr. Eric Dickson is pleading with his team leaders to voluntarily redeploy administrative staff to support the system’s coronavirus testing sites at the Mercantile Center in Worcester and the New England Sports Center in Marlborough, according to an internal memo circulated mid-afternoon on Friday.

“Please start by asking for volunteers, and if we don't get enough, we will need to start reassigning people,” Dickson wrote in a message to his core management team. “It's crunch time.”

The notice was sent just days after the network’s main campus, UMass Memorial Medical Center in Worcester, began strictly limiting visitors due to an ongoing surge that is wreaking havoc on hospitals.

Dickson wrote on Friday he was looking to immediately fill a variety of non-clinical roles, including registrars, test kit makers, couriers, and crowd management.

“During the past two weeks, administrative staff at Biotech, Physician Concierge Services and Marketing [sic] have been redeployed to help both sites, but it's not enough,” Dickson said, referring to several departments within UMass Memorial.

He asked his staff to support UMass Memorial’s clinical areas as they prepare for what he called the peak of the current case surge, which he predicted would take place over the next two weeks.