TechSpring Community Connect

We need your help! Baystate Health cares for a population of about 1M people in Western Massachusetts. That's a lot of people that depend on us. Our care depends on medical supplies that are sometimes in short supply, around the country, around the world. Plus, there's a whole bunch of new ideas for tools or supplies that can make a difference in our care delivery. 

Western Massachusetts has proud traditions in manufacturing and many highly skilled advanced medical suppliers, makers, and research facilities. Please share this page with others, and contact us through the web form outlined below, if you think you can help. 

Please also see this page on our main web site with further ways you can help: https://www.baystatehealth.org/covid19/supplies

What We Need: Medical Supplies & Technology

Success Stories for Medical Supplies & Technology Community Collaboration

Here we list items we have successfully been able to source through our local community and non-traditional supply channels. We are proud of the support we have received and the resourcefulness demonstrated by our Western Massachusetts community.

Covid testing swabs and Viral Transport Medium (VTM)

Efforts by a large group of people, inside and outside Baystate, have been successful in overcoming this critical bottleneck. Again, it was an all-hands-on-deck commitment by a large group of people that resolved this challenge through non-traditional channels including contributions from UMass, Senator Eric Lesser, and others. 

Face shields

We were able to buy a supply of re-usable face shields from a local, non-traditional supplier. 

Alcohol-based gel hand sanitizer

We received a lead that led to the purchase of multiple pallets of hand sanitizer from a non-traditional local supplier. 

Intubation aerosol boxes

A prototype intubation aerosol box offered by a local partner has been evaluated and initial batch ordered for use during intubation in OR and ICU. Thank you to Elm Electric for their partnership on this. 

IR cameras

A local partner was able to lend us two IR cameras for testing of building entry body-temperature surveillance. We are evaluating at a test location.

Phone booths for mass testing

It has been suggested that 'phone booths' like these could help with safe mass testing. At least one local manufacturer has shown interest and we reviewed preliminary plans. However, at this time, Baystate is not pursuing further given other alternative approaches considered. 

Full-face snorkel masks

As part of a world-wide collaboration, we have been able to adapt standard full-face snorkel masks to fit a N99 filter disk for PPE use. Thank you to UMass Engineering for local contribution to this project. We have our first 100 masks being distributed and scaling up to support further units.

For Baystate Employees - Adding To This List

If you are a Baystate medical provider with things to add to the WANTED list, please email us at: [email protected]. We need ALL of following information to be able to help: 

• Name of item
• Description of what it is and how it is used
• Mandatory requirements
• Optional requirements
• Desired quantity
• List of URL links to normally commercially available examples
• Internal Baystate contacts (will not be made public)

The Finer Details

We will do everything we can to respond to incoming messages, but please forgive us if you don't hear back from us other than our automated reply that your submission has been received. Our entire team is working full out and we will have to focus in on submissions that are closest to helping us, at the scale we need, meeting quality and safety requirements, and quickly. Any submission will sit in our database so we know you are out there. As things change, we may reach out later. 

Keep an eye on this page as things change daily. Realize there may be other teams working on the same item and they may get there faster than you. We will update this page, if we think the need is close to being met so you know. If our need has been met, we will communicate your offer to other healthcare providers in the 413 area. 

Our quality team will review all items and make final determination if items supplied through non-traditional channels will in fact be used in clinical care. Through this process, we will also determine where and how items are used. 

We are looking for new channels that can provide supplies at the scale we need. We will favor collaboration with manufacturers that already have experience producing (medical) supplies or products on a larger scale. Some items needed may be smaller quantity and thus more appropriate for individual makers or smaller shops. 

At the outset, we are looking for donations, but we will consider commercial arrangements for material contributions on a case by case basis.

The items needed occasionally becomes available for purchase on standard commercial terms. If you have contacts or direct knowledge of items available, contact us as indicated below. However, the market is currently overwhelmed with people making promises that we do not have capacity to vet. Also, product may be contracted, but then deliveries delayed indefinitely. Please only forward leads or contacts if you have specific information that make you confident in the credibility of the vendor. 

How to Contact Us

Please contact us here:

• Online web form (strongly preferred; many people look at submissions, we can search among submissions as a database)
• [email protected] - use on exception basis only. We will not be able to reply to many emails.