Programs and Services
Programs for Adults
Community Violence Response Team (CVRT)
CVRT clinicians are dedicated to providing individual and family counseling to survivors of violence and family members who have been impacted by violence. In addition, we have case management and family advocacy services to provide additional support and assistance. All services are non-insurance based and are free to the clients and their families.
Domestic Violence Program
The Domestic Violence Program is a resource for patients, employees, community members, and anyone (teens and adults including elders) who is seeking information or help with domestic violence, particularly abuse or violence by a current or former partner. Our Advocates will listen without judgment, without telling you what to do, while offering information and support in the areas you want help with.
Elders Living at Home
Elders Living At Home is at the forefront of ending elder homelessness in Boston. Over the last two and a half decades, ELAHP has touched the lives of 2,500 people, not only clients, but their families, care providers, policy makers, public and private funders and students from a variety of disciplines.
Margaret M. Shea Adult Day Health Program
The Margaret M. Shea RN Adult Day Health Program offers families peace of mind and a support system to help them with decisions involving the care of their loved ones. Since 1980, the program has provided day health services to Boston area adults and seniors.
The Teaching Kitchen
This is a unique environment allows the BMC community to view first-hand how to prepare the foods that they love in a manner that coincides with a healthy lifestyle. Simple, cost-effective recipes are demonstrated while disease and condition specific nutrition education is implemented for weight management, diabetics, cardiac rehab patients, cancer survivors, as well classes for pediatric patients and their families.
Health Leads
Health Leads works to break the link between poverty and poor health. In clinics physicians can "prescribe" food or housing for their patients and their families. Undergraduate volunteers then connect those families to local resources to meet these needs, enabling them to achieve the stability and opportunity that lead to better health for their children.
Lactation Services
The Lactation Service at Boston Medical Center provides 7-day a week lactation care by IBCLC-certified lactation consultants. Our lactation specialists provide services for patients in the BirthPlace Postpartum Unit, the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, the Pediatric Inpatient Unit, the Pediatric Primary Care Clinic and the Adolescent Center.
Medical Legal Partnership
The Medical-Legal Partnership | Boston allies healthcare providers with lawyers to improve the health and well-being of vulnerable populations. Combining the strengths of law and medicine, MLP | Boston ensures that patients' basic needs – for housing, food, education, healthcare and personal and family stability – are met.
Preventive Food Pantry
The Food Pantry works to address nutrition-related illness and under-nutrition for our low-income patients. It fills the therapeutic gap by linking physicians and nutritionists to patients. Individuals with special nutritional needs are referred to the Pantry by BMC primary care providers who write "prescriptions" for supplemental foods that best promote physical health, prevent future illness and facilitate recovery.
Project Assert
Since 1993, Boston Medical Center's (BMC) Project ASSERT has offered alcohol and drug use screening, brief intervention and referral to treatment to patients treated for intoxication in the ED.
Smoking Cessation Program
Boston Medical Center offers a medically supervised Smoking Cessation Program for patients. The program is an eight week, one hour per week classroom model with a curriculum that includes pharmacotherapy, nicotine replacement (gum and patches), stress reduction training, cognitive therapy, social support, and relapse prevention counseling.
StreetCred
For many families, income tax preparation is a challenge as they try to navigate a complicated system. As a result, they often do not receive the tax benefits they are entitled. StreetCred is an innovative program established at Boston Medical Center which offers free tax services to families receiving pediatric care at BMC, who are eligible to receive the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and Child Tax Credit.
Violence Intervention Advocacy Program (VIAP)
Boston Medical Center's VIAP Program helps guide victims of community violence through recovery from physical and emotional trauma. Using a trauma informed model of care, VIAP empowers clients and families, facilitates recovery by providing services and opportunities. VIAP presents options for families that bring hope and healing to their lives.
Programs for Children
Kids Fund
The Kids Fund goal is to provide assistance for children's most basic needs, whether it's a mattress for a family whose home has been burned to the ground, or special formula for a baby suffering from malnutrition, or funds to help send a city-bound kid to summer camp.
Baby Steps
Babies who are born prematurely or are born on time but with complications, are often cared for in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. Baby Steps provides developmental evaluations and nutritional assessments for these children once they leave the hospital.
Child Passenger Safety
One of the most important jobs you have as a parent is keeping your child safe when riding in a vehicle. Massachusetts state law requires that all children under age 8 and less than 57 inches tall be properly fastened and secured in a federally approved car seat or booster seat.
Child Witness to Violence Project
The Child Witness to Violence Project (CWVP) is a counseling, advocacy and outreach project that focuses on the growing number of young children who are hidden victims of violence: children who are bystanders to community and domestic violence.
Children's HealthWatch
Children's HealthWatch monitors the impact of economic conditions and public policies on the health and well-being of very young children.
Community Violence Response Team (CVRT)
CVRT clinicians are dedicated to providing individual and family counseling to survivors of violence and family members who have been impacted by violence. In addition, we have case management and family advocacy services to provide additional support and assistance. All services are non-insurance based and are free to the clients and their families.
Good Grief Program
When children and families face any of life's stressors, they can feel overwhelmed, whether it's acute or on-going, due to illness, a disruption in the family, a death or a divorce, a difficult diagnosis or any of life's speed bumps. Based on the premise that with crisis comes an opportunity to develop, strengthen and master coping skills, the Good Grief Program trains adult professionals to support families and scaffold children so that they may become resilient in the face of loss.
Grow Clinic
When children are diagnosed with Failure to Thrive (FTT), parents need a place to turn for help. While medical treatment to assist children is offered, the Grow Clinic goes beyond that, providing social services and visits to wherever the patient is fed (day care, school, etc.) so that families and caretakers can work together to help the child.
Helmet Program
Boston Medical Center works in collaboration with the Boston Public Health Commission and the Play Safe Campaign to provide low cost helmets to the people of Boston. This program in open to the public in addition to patients at Boston Medical Center.
Nutrition & Fitness for Life
The Nutrition & Fitness for Life Program is an innovative clinical and community-centered obesity prevention and treatment program. Through unique interventions, initiatives and collaborations, the Program seeks to support children and families in leading healthier lives.
SPARK Center
The SPARK Center helps Boston's highest-risk children to build brighter tomorrows. SPARK provides therapeutic, medically-specialized programs for children of all ages based on the philosophy that all children are resilient and able to take control of their futures.
Windows Falls Prevention
As a member of Safe Kids Boston, the Injury Prevention Program works collaboratively with the Boston Public Health Commission's "Kids Can't Fly" campaign. Education surrounding window safety and assistance with scheduling home inspections is available through the Injury Prevention Program at Boston Medical Center.
Services
Birth Certificate Office
The Birth Certificate office is located in the basement of the Yawkey Ambulatory Care Center, alongside the Medical Records Office.
Blood Draw
For patients needing to have blood drawn, there are four locations on campus.
Interpreter Services
For those who do not speak enough English to safely receive their medical information and care in English, or those who have visual, speech, or hearing impairments, Boston Medical Center's Interpreter Services Department works to ensure effective communication between our staff and patients.
Medical Legal Partnership
The Medical-Legal Partnership | Boston allies healthcare providers with lawyers to improve the health and well-being of vulnerable populations. Combining the strengths of law and medicine, MLP | Boston ensures that patients' basic needs – for housing, food, education, healthcare and personal and family stability – are met.
Medical Records
The Medical Records Office is available to help you obtain a copy or request that your health information (medical records) be sent to another healthcare facility/provider, insurance companies, attorneys, or another individual, etc.
MyChart
MyChart is BMC's secure, online medical portal. Through MyChart, you can access your test results, communicate with your doctor, and view your full health summary.
Patient Family Advisory Council
The Patient Family Advisory Council is a volunteer committee made up of patients and family members with the goal of enhancing partnerships between the hospital and patients/family members by encouraging patient-centered care.
Patient Financial Services
If you have questions about your health coverage or about paying your bill, please call 617.638.6157. A financial counselor will be available to assist you. You can also go one of the offices, which are located in the Shapiro Center on the third floor and the Menino Building on the second floor.
Pharmacy
Boston Medical Center has three retail pharmacies, located on the first floors of the Doctor's Office Building, Shapiro Center, and Yawkey Ambulatory Care Center. In addition, a Specialty Pharmacy is located on the second floor of the Moakley Building.
Volunteer Services
Volunteer Services assists the BMC community with services that support the hospital's mission while providing an enriching experience for the volunteer.
WIC
The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) provides Federal grants to States for supplemental foods, healthcare referrals, and nutrition education for low-income pregnant, breastfeeding, and non-breastfeeding postpartum women, and to infants and children up to age five who are found to be at nutritional risk.