Lahey Hospital, UMass Chan Medical School Look To Launch New Campus

BURLINGTON, MA - Lahey Hospital in Burlington may soon be the site of a new UMass Chan Medical School campus following a move by both Lahey and the UMass Chan Medical School this week.

The two organizations announced their plans on Thursday, confirming in a statement that they had signed a nonbinding letter of intent to establish a regional campus of the UMass Chan Medical School at the Lahey facility.

If all goes according to current plans, the organizations said this week, medical students could begin studying through the new UMass Chan/Lahey campus in the summer of 2024.

“Training the next generation of health care leaders and meeting the diverse needs of our patients and communities long into the future require(s) that we approach medical education in new and innovative ways,” Lahey President David Longworth said this week. “UMass Chan is equally committed to redefining the future of medicine and is an outstanding cultural fit to build on Lahey’s commitment to interprofessional, team-based care that is centered on the patient and reflects a culture of inquiry and innovation.”

Lahey Hospital is operated by Beth Israel Lahey Health, which formed in 2019 with the merger of Lahey Health and the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.

The hospital already has academic programs run in partnership with Tufts University. This move would mark a shift, with Lahey moving away from Tufts and affiliating with UMass Chan instead, according to the Boston Globe.

This partnership comes thanks to a recent desire to redefine academic programming at Lahey, the Globe reported.

UMass Chan is based in Worcester. It previously launched a similar satellite campus in Springfield after partnering with Baystate Health.

Now looking to add Lahey to the mix, organizations said on Thursday that they would convene a joint task force to develop programs specific to a regional campus. This would move both Lahey and UMass Chan toward a formal agreement to open this new satellite campus.

As part of their plans, both Lahey and UMass Chan are also looking to form what they describe as a “research collaboration.” The collaboration would add a new institute for health care delivery science as well as a quantitative science research hub focused on “innovation in digital medicine, population health and health care delivery.”

Officials from Lahey and UMass Chan touted the prospect of a partnership this week, citing an ongoing shortage of primary care and specialty care physicians as a critical need that a partnership would help address.

Announced this week, the letter of intent will now go to accrediting bodies for approval while Lahey and UMass personnel continue discussions to finalize their plan.