Massachusetts General Hospital has opened a "discharge lounge" — a new way the Boston-based hospital is alleviating capacity challenges.
The lounge is a designated space in the hospital's lobby for patients waiting to be transported home and enables the hospital to open up beds for new admissions sooner than they would be able to otherwise. The initiative ran as a pilot program during the first few months of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Now, it serves nearly 125 patients per month.