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Boston's Morning Newsletter
Mass General Brigham's two flagship hospitals plan to launch a new cancer institute
Editor's Note: This is an excerpt from WBUR's daily morning newsletter, WBUR Today. If you like what you read and want it in your inbox, sign up here.
Happy Halloween Eve — or as they say in some parts of Massachusetts, Cabbage Night. This week’s weather warmup begins just in time for all your mischief making. But first, the news:
An even more iconic duo? Mass General Brigham’s longtime partnership with the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute is coming to an end in the near future. But the state’s largest hospital system is spinning it as an opportunity. As WBUR’s Priyanka Dayal McCluskey reports, Mass General Brigham is working to ensure it remains a top destination for cancer care with a new institute bringing together specialists from the system’s two biggest medical centers.
- Rewind: Despite collaborating in many other areas, Mass General Hospital and Brigham and Women’s Hospital worked independently on cancer. That was because of the latter’s partnership with Dana-Farber. “We were considered to be too dominant in the cancer market space,” Dr. O’Neil Britton, the chief integration officer for Mass General Brigham, told reporters earlier this week. But last year, Dana-Farber announced it would end that partnership in 2028, and build its own cancer hospital in the Longwood Medical Area with Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. That effectively dropped the firewall between Mass General and Brigham and Women’s. “What really started as a disruptive event a year ago … has now become a new opportunity for us to rethink how we deliver care,” Britton said.
- Zoom in: Unlike the new Dana-Farber cancer hospital, the new institute at Mass General Brigham won’t include a new building. But many of the other details remain unknown, including the official launch date. “There’s an evolution here that will occur over time,” Britton said. “We are disrupting ourselves purposefully to reorganize ourselves to really deliver on what the patients are asking us to do: ‘Can you make this more seamless? Can you make this feel easier?’… That’s the crux of what we’re trying to get to.”
- Zoom out: The new effort comes at a time when cancer is becoming more common and affecting people at younger ages, according to the American Association for Cancer Research’s annual report. At the same time, death rates have declined.
Done deal: After striking for 24 days, hundreds of union workers at Hilton Hotels in Boston have a tentative contract agreement. Their union, UNITE HERE Local 26, announced the deal last night, saying it includes the same wage and benefit standards as the contract Omni hotel workers recently ratified to end their strike.
- What’s next: Picket lines at Hilton Boston Logan Airport and Hilton Boston Park Plaza have been suspended due to the tentative deal, which the union says workers will vote on tomorrow. If they ratify it, they will return to work Friday.
In simple terms: If you or your family makes under $75,000, you can go to any of the UMass colleges for free starting next fall. That’s the new, streamlined pledge from the state university system.
- Leaders say over 90% of students at UMass Amherst, Dartmouth and Lowell from households making less than the $75,000 threshold already had no tuition costs through a combination of state and federal aid. But the maze of Pell Grants, MASSGrant and scholarships can be daunting. UMass President Marty Meehan said he hopes the pledge will help more students and families realize UMass is more affordable than they thought.
Holyoke Public Schools are scheduled to return to local control by next July, after nearly a decade in state receivership. Massachusetts officials announced a “provisional decision” yesterday to remove the district’s “chronically underperforming” status.
- Go deeper: Since 2015, Holyoke schools have been led by a state-appointed superintendent/receiver focused on implementing a “turnaround plan.” Here’s a closer look at the progress they’ve made and the work left to do.
In other hospital news: Reconstruction at Brockton Hospital is making big progress. The 125-year-old hospital, which had a massive fire in February of last year, partially reopened in August, but construction crews have also wrapped up the new outpatient facility and a completely redesigned emergency department. The final phase of work will focus on the maternity, pediatric and behavioral health units, all of which are set to open in early 2025.
P.S.— If you can’t make it to Boston City Hall this week to see the new Green Line “supercar” on display, just head over to our Instagram. WBUR’s Sydney Ko offers a peek inside the trolley in this video.
