Hospital & Community Spotlight

The summer has arrived on Nantucket, and as we all enjoy outdoor activities it is important to remain vigilant about preventing tick-borne diseases by conducting regular tick checks.

At Nantucket Cottage Hospital, our clinicians have extensive experience in diagnosing and treating Lyme disease, Babesia, Anaplasmosis, Borrelia Miyamotoi, and other tick-borne illnesses. Many island residents and visitors often seek out treatment after a tick bite by bringing the actual tick in with them to the hospital, asking for it to be tested. They are confused when we inform them that we do not test individual ticks for infection. Here’s why:

In June 2019, Nantucket Cottage Hospital awarded 45 Beinecke Scholarships totaling $44,100 to island students and residents pursuing education and training in medical and healthcare fields.

For many years now, the Beinecke Scholarship Fund has been one of the ways NCH gives back to the community that supports us in so many ways. And in the long run, we hope that these investments in education will benefit both the hospital and our community when students graduate and decide to return to work here or when our existing staff enhance their clinical skills through these scholarships.

Nantucket Cottage Hospital has founded a nurse residency program that aims to assist new graduates transition into their clinical roles within the hospital by addressing nursing competencies and orientation challenges.

We opened Nantucket’s new hospital just over three months ago, and after all the years of planning, fundraising and construction, it has been so gratifying to see our staff provide quality, safe, and compassionate care to patients in a new building that meets their needs and is worthy of our team’s clinical skills and professionalism.  

Once again, we thank the island community for coming together to make this a reality and creating a legacy for future generations of Nantucketers.

Over these past 90 days, we have just begun to fulfill the promise of our new hospital, even as we recognize some of the challenges that come with such a dramatic change of moving out of a 1957 building and into a modern, technologically-advanced facility.

Starting May 13th, all patients must use the new hospital entrance. The physician clinics entrance near Vesper Lane will close.

Nantucket Cottage Hospital will enter the final phase of the new hospital construction next week, bringing us one step closer to completion of this historic project. Demolition of the old hospital will begin on May 14th, but this final hurdle will also require us to close the hospital entrance at the physician clinics to ensure the safety of our patients.

This means the only patient access to the hospital will be at the new emergency department entrance off Prospect Street, effective Monday, May 13th. The physician clinics entrance is temporarily closed during this period, so there is no access to the hospital from the main parking lot.

We recognize having only one entrance for patient access to the hospital, even temporarily, will be a challenge for our patients and staff, but this is necessary to ensure patient safety during the final construction activities on the hospital campus. The hospital will be implementing several measures to assist patients in accessing the hospital during this interim period, including, including free valet parking for patients at the ER entrance 7 days per week.