Amid capacity crisis, Massachusetts General Hospital asks state for more beds to ease waits

As Massachusetts hospitals deal with a capacity crisis, the state is stepping in to help free up more beds. 

State healthcare officials sent out a memo this week letting hospitals know health insurers have agreed to waive some prior authorizations that often delay the discharge of patients.  

“This week we took more action to free up capacity so that hospitals and insurers can better work together to get people out of hospital settings right now,” Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey said. 

The state is implementing the measures as respiratory illnesses impact hospital capacity. The same measures were in effect last winter. 

A spokesperson for the state’s executive office of health and human services said it is, “to ensure people are getting the care they need while reducing the strain on the healthcare workforce.”

The effort to fast-track discharges comes as Massachusetts General Hospital officials said they just had one of their busiest days in two centuries.  They said on January 11, more than 100 patients were boarding in the hospital’s emergency department, meaning they were sick enough to be admitted, but did not have a bed. The hospital was forced to use hallways and stretchers to house patients.

That capacity crisis has prompted the hospital to again ask the state to allow it to add 94 more beds to the hospital, saying it cannot treat the number of patients in its emergency department without more space.

Back in 2022, the state Department of Public Health gave the MGH approval to build a new tower to relocate and expand cardiology and oncology services. The move would consolidate them into one building, and close other older spaces. That building, the Philip and Susan Ragon Building, is now under construction and is set to open in two phases, in 2027 and 2030.

But DPH denied MGH’s request to add 94 new licensed beds, an effort, it said at the time, to mitigate cost impacts.

Now, MGH is arguing it has too many patients waiting in the emergency department for inpatient beds, putting a crunch on the available space and increasing wait times for patients to be seen.

The hospital has 50 to 80 "boarders" every night, according to Dr. David Brown, MGH's president. Boarders are patients who need inpatient care but are stuck in the emergency department — many times spilling into hallways — waiting for an inpatient bed.

“This isn't about anything other than taking better care of the patients who are already here,” Brown told the Business Journal in an interview in his office.

Dr. Barbara Spivak, the president of the Massachusetts Medical Society, said adding beds does not solve the staffing shortage the medical industry is facing. She said a shortage of primary care doctors only adds to the number of people in the emergency department. 

“At multiple levels, we have workforce challenges that will not be easy to fix,” Dr. Spivak said. 

After a wave of medical employees left following the pandemic, Dr. Spivak said improving recruiting has to be part of the solution. 

“I think we need ot look at an entire system that is broken. It is going to take some innovative work to get people interested in doing jobs in the healthcare field,” Dr. Spivak said. 

Governor Healey said her administration is investing millions in the Mass Talent program, which connectors workers with training for certain industries, including healthcare. 

“To get more people working and more people brought into the health profession that’s really been starved for workers,” Healey said. 

More on this story from Boston Business Journal