May 7, 1999

Each year patients from around the globe travel to Boston for medical treatment at the city's world-renowned hospitals and medical centers. The MGH and Partners, along with other area hospitals, now are collaborating with Logan Airport to provide a new service to help make travel easier, more accommodating and hassle-free for patients traveling from abroad.

The Logan Airport Medical Patient Assistance Program (LAMPAP) is an initiative between Massport and Boston HealthCare International — a consortium of the international programs of local hospitals. The new program will offer a variety of services, such as providing ambassadors and interpreters to escort medical patients and their companions, expediting patients' passage through customs, overseeing prompt luggage check-in and reclamation and arranging ground transportation services.

"Having trained, multilingual airport ambassadors greet and assist patients will help to ease the confusion and stress of arrival and departure in a foreign country," says David Jones, executive director of the Partners International Program. "The launch of the airport assistance program is an important step in enhancing the experience of international patients coming to the MGH. We are very grateful to Peter Blute at Massport for helping make this program a reality."

In addition to the MGH, the Partners-affiliated institutions participating in LAMPAP are BWH, Dana-Farber/Partners CancerCare, McLean Hospital and Spaulding. Other medical centers include Joslin Diabetes Center/Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, New England Baptist Hospital, Children's Hospital, Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary and New England Medical Center. For information, call the MGH International Patient Center at 6-2787.

Launching LAMPAP at a recent presentation held at Logan Airport's Harborside Hyatt Conference Center, James J. Mongan, MD, MGH president, far right, joined, from left, Alan Robbins, MD, New England Baptist Hospital's president; Alan Jacobson, MD, senior vice president for Strategic Business Initiatives, Joslin Diabetes Center; Deeb Salem, MD, chief medical officer and chairman of Medicine, New England Medical Center; and Peter Blute, executive director and CEO of Massport. The hospitals donated wheelchairs to be used by medical patients traveling through the airport.