(October 26, 2021) – This year, Nantucket Cottage Hospital invested 1.1 million dollars to nine local non-profit entities aimed at improving community health concerns as part of its 5-year community health initiative.

This funding was made available by the Massachusetts Department of Health’s Determination of Need process regulating community investment as hospital capital improvement projects are approved. As part of the process, hospitals are required to allocate a mandatory 5% of capital improvement funds toward community health projects.

“Nantucket’s lack of affordable housing and behavioral health resources have been issues for our community for many years,” said Gary Shaw, President and CEO of Nantucket Cottage Hospital. “These kinds of issues require long-term, sustained investments, which is exactly what this investment is about”

Since its inception in 2015, Nantucket Cottage Hospital’s community health initiative has provided nearly 4.3 million dollars to local non-profits with goals ranging from increasing access to healthcare, to housing, women and children’s health, and most recently, a new collaborative behavioral health initiative.

“Our community has changed in the five years since this program began, COVID-19 has brought to light some of the hidden needs in the community, like food insecurity and behavioral health, both of which are things we can address now and in the future by making strategic grants, many of which we’ve done through this funding,” said Margaretta Andrews, Executive Director of the Community Foundation for Nantucket.

As part of the five-year process, Nantucket Cottage Hospital was able to identify and allocate nearly 4.3 million dollars for projects impacting the communities physical, mental and emotional well-being. Throughout the process, leaders from Nantucket Cottage Hospital worked with the Community Foundation for Nantucket to administer funds to dozens of local community health projects.

“These funds have completely transformed how the community is able to access services,” said Sunny Daily, of Nantucket Health Imperatives. “Now we can offer something in addition to what the hospital offers, which means that now there’s a place for everyone to access healthcare, now individuals have access to information, support, treatment and care. That leads to us having a healthy community, where people can not only take care of their own lives, but their families, neighbors and whole community.”

Each year since the initiative began, the hospital sought project proposals in four major areas: behavioral health; women’s and children’s health; access to healthcare; and access to housing.

“Our priority at the hospital over this last year has been to significantly expand the community’s ability to access high-quality medical care on the island,” said Shaw. “Anytime Nantucket Cottage Hospital can work with our local non-profit partners to expand access to care, the community wins.”

The 2021 Nantucket Cottage Hospital Community Health Initiative grant recipients include:

Artists Association of Nantucket

Behavioral Health Initiative Fund

Fairwinds

Habitat for Humanity

Health Imperatives

Housing Nantucket

Nantucket Community School

NAMI on Nantucket

Small Friends

Debbie Dolan thought she had seen it all when after 30 years as a nurse, she was asked to step in to briefly support a hospice program in North Central Pennsylvania.

“I remember being so resistant to the idea of working in hospice, thinking ‘oh no I don’t want to do that!’” said Dolan. “But the first day I was there, I loved it. It was like being hit over the head and realizing I found what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.”

Now, after 15 years working in palliative care and hospice, Dolan has been selected to lead Nantucket’s Palliative Care program supported by PASCON, as the program’s newest director. As the new director, Dolan will lead a team of health care specialists dedicated to providing physical, psychological and spiritual care to individuals on Nantucket with life-threatening illness as well as their families, at no cost to the patient.

“This position really is a gift. It took me 30 years to find this passion, and now I’m here with an opportunity to give back to the community, to hear people’s stories, to protect them, respect them and carry their legacy on. That’s an honor,” said Dolan.

For Dolan, joining the organization in the wake of a global pandemic has presented a number of opportunities she hopes to capitalize on moving forward.

“We’ve seen so much of our lives transition to online platforms over this last year, and it’s provided us with a new avenue to reach patients and families where they’re most comfortable,” said Dolan. “We’ve created virtual cancer support groups, our clinical psychologist holds regular caregiver and bereavement support groups over Zoom and our clinicians have adapted to meeting patients and families virtually.”

While advances made in virtual communication have helped facilitate many of the interactions Palliative Care has become known for throughout the pandemic, Dolan believes that the core work of Palliative Care doesn’t rely on any one medium, but rather the relationships its staff has been able to build throughout the community.

“Palliative care is about serious illness care. It’s about working with a patient, their family and their care team so that they can realize their goals and live the kind of life they’re looking for,” said Dolan. “So much of that work revolves around face-to-face meetings where a patient lets us into their life and we learn about their values, their hopes and the life they want to live, then having the difficult conversations around how to get our patients where they want to be.”

Regardless of the medium, the central role of Palliative Care and PASCON revolves around one major tenet; ensuring patients are able to plan for and live the kind of lives they desire.

“The goal is always to meet people wherever they need us, whether it’s in a clinic, here in the hospital or in their home, and figure out how they want to live their lives,” said Dolan. “Once we can help a patient answer that, we’re on the path to delivering the kind of high-quality, personalized care that everyone in this community deserves.”

Funded by the Palliative & Supportive Care of Nantucket Foundation, the Palliative & Support Care Program is operated as a department of the Nantucket Cottage Hospital. To learn more about PASCON or the Palliative & Supportive Care Program and its free services, please visit pascon.org or call (508) 825-8325.

Most Americans can recall how following the September 11^th attacks, the nation changed overnight. The attacks impacted everything from how we navigated airports, to how Americans conceptualized national security, shaping the 21^st century for the two decades to come.

As Americans reimagined their lives in the face of these new threats, leaders at Nantucket Cottage Hospital were reimagining their role in Nantucket’s emergency preparedness.

“Before 9/11, hospitals used to be isolated organizations, when we thought about emergency management, we planned solely for ourselves, there was no interagency coordination, no system-level thinking for how to respond to a crisis,” said Martha Lake-Greenfield, NCH’s Emergency Department Manager from 1996 to 2020. “In the wake of 9/11 it became evident that we all had a role to play in emergency management, from your government agencies, to local hospitals and even individuals.”

In the years following the attacks, the Department of Homeland Security developed the National Incident Management System (NIMS), a comprehensive approach to coordinating government and private sector partners during disasters and emergencies.

“We had been working to develop a common emergency management language amongst our government partners before 9/11, but after the attacks, as more incidents happened, we began to develop that common language and common mission by using NIMS,” said Lake-Greenfield.

Today, every staff member at NCH undergoes NIMS training through the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), to ensure that in the case of an emergency, all staff members understand their role and responsibilities during a worst-case scenario.

“We always build our plans off a worst-case scenario because that’s when we can identify issues like staffing, stress and resource constraints,” said Georges Beckford, a New York firefighting veteran and Nurse Educator at NCH. “During a disaster, some people naturally respond well, and some collapse, that’s why its so important to train and prepare your team so they have that experience to fall back when a disaster strikes.”

In the decades following the September 11^th attacks, NCH has consistently worked with public and private partners to ensure a high degree of preparedness should a disaster ever strike Nantucket.

“When I first came to NCH, the largest emergency incident we had was a porch collapse, after 9/11 we went from preparing for porch collapses to preparing for plane crashes,” said Lake-Greenfield. “We started to run more and more drills, when there was a major event on Nantucket, we would physically take out the supplies we would need and run through how we would use them during a crisis.”

One of the most significant changes since the attacks, according to Beckford, is the level of interest the public has in playing their part during disasters.

“All the knowledge we were developing as first responders or clinicians we would turn around and give it to the public,” said Beckford. “The public began making emergency kits, learning first aid and had an enormous appetite to learn about what they can do to prepare themselves and their families for an emergency. This preparedness meant that patients could be stabilized well before they arrived in our emergency room.”

Two decades after the September 11^th attacks, Americans are more prepared than ever to respond to a disaster, both through individual desires to stay safe during an emergency, but also through the lessons learned over decades of training and responding complex emergencies. Nowhere is this refined preparedness more evident, than in today’s hospitals, as we emerge from one of the most complex crises demanding interagency support, and public understanding.

“COVID-19 has reiterated this need for preparedness, today, everyone from our housekeepers to our labor and delivery nurses are trained in emergency management, because as we’ve seen during these last 18-months, we expect everyone to play their role during a crisis,” said Lake-Greenfield.

For Nantucketers receiving their COVID-19 vaccinations at the VFW clinic over the past month, the experience has been a mixture of relief and joy. The inoculations have brought a sense of optimism for the future as the island and the country mark a full year living through the pandemic, with hope that it’s nearing an end.

To enhance the festive atmosphere of the VFW vaccination clinic and foster the concept of wellness through whole person care, Nantucket Cottage Hospital has partnered with the Nantucket Community Music Center to bring live music to the clinic.

Performers from the Nantucket Community Music Center, appropriately masked and distanced, will play string instruments and piano for those getting their COVID-19 vaccinations. Following vaccination, each individual is required to stay on-site for a 15-minute observation period to monitor for any adverse reactions, so they will have the opportunity to hear live music from some of the island’s most talented local musicians. The initiative is being generously provided by the Ashley Sanford Music Therapy Program at NCH. (more…)