On an island where the average house costs $4.4 million, 70% of the staff at Nantucket (Mass.) Cottage Hospital experience housing insecurity — a situation that prompted hospital leadership to treat housing as a clinical strategy.
The 70% figure comes from an annual housing survey the hospital conducts, according to Amy Lee, president and COO of Nantucket Cottage Hospital.
The 14-bed hospital, which is part of Somerville, Mass.-based Mass General Brigham, was founded in 1911. To keep pace with local healthcare needs more than a century later, the facility fundraised $120 million to construct a new expanded building in 2019. Ms. Lee told Becker’s the $120 million was generated all through private donations, from “lemonade stands” to the island’s “very rich” residents chipping in.
For Nantucket Cottage Hospital, another multi-million dollar campaign is underway: a nearly $70 million project to build a physical therapy and medical office plus 48 housing units for staff.
The physical therapy and medical building will consolidate “three currently inefficient and inadequate locations” into one facility, according to the hospital’s website.
The latter goal is a planned, three-story residential building with 34 one-bedroom apartments and 14 studio apartments on the garden level — all furnished, ranging from 291 to 740 square feet. The hospital currently owns 37 multi-bedroom homes; the new units are designed to rebalance that portfolio, freeing larger homes for families while adding smaller, dedicated options for individual staff members.
About two years ago, the hospital hired a full-time housing coordinator, whose job is to work on housing solutions for staff. Last year, he helped about 120 employees navigate lottery-based housing programs and secure lease arrangements with local homeowners.
The need for the housing coordinator role is compounded by the short-term rental market, Ms. Lee said. Nantucket’s rental market squeezes an already-scarce housing supply alongside home prices that are out of reach for most healthcare workers.
Nantucket Cottage Hospital staffs up by about 60 people each summer to meet a population surge that swells the island from approximately 16,000 year-round residents to as many as 130,000. To build a more stable seasonal pipeline, the hospital has developed staff-sharing arrangements with mountain resort hospitals that run on an inverse schedule: employees spend six months on Nantucket and six months in Colorado or similar destinations, avoiding the need for locum staffing.
Ms. Lee said those cross-hospital relationships — built largely through informal networks and community connections — also inspired the hospital’s upcoming summit this October. The gathering will bring together leaders from rural and seasonal community hospitals to share solutions on housing, workforce development, care coordination and emergency management.
“We are the second largest employer on the island, and so it’s incredibly important that we have a workforce that can support the hospital [and] we’re also supporting the community,” Ms. Lee said.
At the Becker's 11th Annual IT + Revenue Cycle Conference: The Future of AI & Digital Health, taking place September 14–17 in Chicago, healthcare executives and digital leaders from across the country will come together to explore how AI, interoperability, cybersecurity, and revenue cycle innovation are transforming care delivery, strengthening financial performance, and driving the next era of digital health. Apply for complimentary registration now.
