UMass Chan Medical School and Lahey Hospital & Medical Center announced today that they have signed a master affiliation agreement to establish a regional medical campus to be known as UMass Chan-Lahey. Based at Lahey Hospital & Medical Center in Burlington, the new campus will enable a partnership to advance medical education and better meet the workforce needs of the commonwealth by educating physicians to meet the needs of diverse communities. The signed agreement follows an announcement in August of a nonbinding agreement to explore establishment of the campus
With the affiliation agreement signed, the next step includes review and approval of plans to establish UMass Chan-Lahey by the Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME). Pending the LCME’s decision, which is expected around March 2023, it is anticipated that the first UMass Chan-Lahey students will matriculate in the summer of 2024, and that each year UMass Chan would accept approximately 25 students who will be enrolled at UMass Chan-Lahey. These medical students would follow the core curriculum of the T.H. Chan School of Medicine at UMass Chan in Worcester, with all their clinical experiences taking place at Lahey. UMass Chan-Lahey medical students will also have a special focus on leadership, health systems science and interprofessional education.
“The UMass Chan-Lahey regional medical campus will build on the success of our first regional campus at Baystate Health in Springfield,” said Terence R. Flotte, MD, the Celia and Isaac Haidak Professor, executive deputy chancellor, provost and dean of the T.H. Chan School of Medicine. “UMass Chan-Baystate was established in 2015 and is home to the Medical School’s Population-based Urban and Rural Community Health (PURCH) track.”
It is anticipated that over time the collaboration will enable the Lahey faculty to become valued members of the UMass Chan faculty.
“This partnership brings together two organizations with a shared mission to care for our communities,” said Anne C. Larkin, MD, associate professor of surgery and vice provost and senior associate dean for educational affairs. “Beginning in the new year, we will engage the UMass Chan and Lahey communities in developing our innovative curriculum around leadership, health system science and interprofessional education as we build this new regional medical school campus. We look forward to sharing more on the next steps in the coming months.”
UMass Chan and Lahey also seek to form a new research collaboration, together creating a new institute for health care delivery and implementation science and quantitative science research hub, to advance innovation in digital medicine, population health, and health care delivery.
Related UMass Chan news story:
UMass Chan Medical School and Lahey Hospital & Medical Center sign letter of intent to establish regional medical campus
