Devens Federal Medical Center renews correctional health contract

The Federal Bureau of Prisons has awarded a new five-year contract to UMass Medical School to continue coordinating health care services for inmates at the Federal Medical Center (FMC) located in Devens, Mass. UMMS has assisted in managing medical care for approximately 1,100 inmates at the facility since 2001. The new contract is valued at approximately $60 million over five years, and work under the pact began earlier this month.

“We are very proud to be continuing our partnership with FMC Devens,” said Joyce A. Murphy, executive vice chancellor for Commonwealth Medicine, the Medical School’s health care consulting and operations division. “Managing health care for prison populations is both challenging and rewarding for our professional staff and health care partners. This new contract is an indication of our growing expertise at serving correctional populations at both the federal and the state levels.”

UMMS will coordinate both inpatient and outpatient physician services. It will partner with health care providers at HealthAlliance Hospita, in Leominster, UMass Memorial Medical Center in Worcester and Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital in Boston.

The new contract with FMC Devens is the second contract awarded by the Federal Bureau of Prisons to UMMS in the last seven months. In July, the Bureau awarded a multi-year contract to UMMS to manage health care operations at the Federal Medical Center in Butner, N.C.

The Medical School’s correctional health division also manages the medical care at all 17 state prisons in Massachusetts, coordinating care for approximately 11,500 inmates. With the FMC Devens renewal, UMMS now has contracts with two of the six hospital prisons in the Federal Bureau of Prisons system nationally.