For the fourth year in a row, Nantucket Cottage Hospital (NCH) will receive a Partner Recognition Award from Practice Greenhealth for its environmental stewardship. The award is one of the Environmental Excellence Awards given each year to honor environmental achievements in the health care sector.

The Partner Recognition Award specifically recognizes health care facilities that are changing their practices to become more sustainable and have achieved progress in areas such as waste reduction, renewable energy adoption, food purchasing, and mercury elimination. They must also have a recycling rate of at least 10 percent for their entire waste stream. Nantucket Cottage Hospital was recognized for its ongoing commitment to improving its environmental performance and realizing a top standard of excellence in sustainability. (more…)

Nantucket Cottage Hospital has implemented a new single, integrated electronic medical record system that will improve patient care, communication, and coordination, as well as the sharing of health information among authorized caregivers across the Partners Healthcare network.

The new system, known as Partners eCare, will provide patients with safer, higher-quality care, and a better overall experience. The Partners eCare guiding principle is “one patient, one record, one team, one Partners statement” enabling a seamless flow of clinical and administrative information about a patient anywhere within the Partners system. (more…)

Nantucket Cottage Hospital honored the recipients of the annual Partners in Excellence awards, which recognize superlative performance throughout the Partners HealthCare system, during a ceremony today at Faregrounds Restaurant.

This year’s individual award winners were patient access manager Amanda Bidlack, and Martha Lake-Greenfield, the nurse manager for the emergency department. The team award went to the Nantucket Cottage Hospital clinical infusion nurse team, including: Jen Boley, Gretchen Buchmann, Kristen Chenard, Libbey Tracey, and Amanda Troy. (more…)

In the latest issue of The New England Journal of Medicine, Dr. Margot Hartmann, president and CEO of Nantucket Cottage Hospital, and Jason Graziadei, public information officer, write about the unique challenges of keeping the hospital’s 24/7 emergency department open and fully staffed through the island’s seasonal population swings and in its remote geographic location. Read the full article by clicking here. 

Small community hospitals throughout the United States are facing threats including low volume, declining reimbursements, and staffing challenges. Nantucket Cottage Hospital, a 19-bed facility and one of the smallest hospitals in Massachusetts, must also navigate the complexity of operating on an island 30 miles offshore, where the year-round population of 15,000 swells to more than 60,000 during the summer months. There is no off-the-shelf staffing model that works in the clinical environment of our emergency department (ED). The ED provides care to more than 10,000 patients every year, but the majority of them present between Memorial Day and Columbus Day.