Lowell General Hospital, part of Tufts Medicine, is the first acute care hospital in the nation to earn Purple Flag Excellence in Dementia Care accreditation. The recognition is tied to the hospital’s MS2 medical-surgical unit, where staff incorporate dementia-sensitive practices into acute hospital care.
According to Purple Flag, Lowell General is also only the second hospital of any kind nationwide to receive the accreditation. The first was Deer's Head Hospital Center in Maryland, a chronic disease hospital that became the first hospital-based organization to earn the distinction. Deer's Head combines long-term care, dedicated memory care, skilled nursing, rehabilitation and services for medically complex patients — a model built around extended stays, unlike Lowell General, which is designed primarily to diagnose and treat acute illnesses and injuries, often during significantly shorter hospital stays.
The distinction highlights a practical challenge for hospitals: dementia-sensitive care must fit alongside the diagnosis and treatment of acute medical needs. At Lowell General, the MS2 unit is the setting for applying those practices during inpatient stays.
What the MS2 Unit Actually Does
On MS2, staff receive specialized education and use individualized “About Me” information to understand each patient’s preferences. Patients may also have familiar items from home; the unit uses additional safety practices and offers purposeful activities and opportunities for social and physical engagement, according to Tufts Medicine.
Myra Dionido-Magat, the MS2 clinical manager, led the effort to develop the unit’s approach, according to the same Tufts Medicine account. She said the Purple Flag accreditation commits the team to dignity, compassionate care and excellent dementia care in acute settings.
Amy Hoey, Lowell General’s president, said the accreditation recognizes the care team’s commitment to safe, dignified care that sees each person beyond their medical condition, according to the Purple Flag announcement. Applying the standards in acute care has the potential to extend dementia-sensitive practices across emergency and inpatient care, diagnostics, rehabilitation, case management, discharge planning and transitions to home, skilled nursing or rehabilitation.
How the Accreditation Standards Work
The Purple Flag program assesses providers against 10 best-practice standards. They address staff competency, safety, meaningful engagement, supportive environments, family involvement, quality of life and continuous improvement. The program says its aim is to recognize excellence and encourage improvement in services for people living with Alzheimer's disease and other dementias.
Christopher Carter, Purple Flag’s founder and CEO and president of the Connecticut Assisted Living Association, said Lowell General brings the organization’s dementia-care standards into an acute-care setting. He said the accreditation illustrates how person-centered dementia care can be integrated into that environment.
Why Hospitals Are Paying Attention Now
The push for dementia-sensitive hospital care comes against a backdrop of rising need. An estimated 7.4 million Americans age 65 and older are living with Alzheimer's disease in 2026, according to the Alzheimer's Association, a number projected to climb to nearly 13 million by 2050. The association also projects health and long-term care costs for people with Alzheimer's and other dementias will reach $409 billion this year alone.
Hospitals in particular face an outsized version of that challenge. Around half of people over age 70 admitted to a hospital as an emergency have a cognitive disorder such as dementia, according to the British Geriatrics Society. The organization notes that evidence suggests person-centered care can lead to better experiences for patients, caregivers and staff alike — the same philosophy underlying the standards Lowell General was measured against.
Other approaches to dementia-friendly hospital care
Accreditation is one way to assess a provider’s dementia-care practices; research on specific hospital interventions addresses a different question. A 2018 systematic review indexed by PubMed found lower delirium incidence across 14 studies of the Hospital Elder Life Program (odds ratio 0.47; 95% confidence interval 0.37–0.59). That evidence concerns delirium prevention, not Purple Flag accreditation or outcomes at Lowell General. Massachusetts hospitals have also pursued separate initiatives. Boston Medical Center joined the Age-Friendly Health System program in 2017; early projects included a geriatric order set, a mobility program and use of the Confusion Assessment Method, according to the Betsy Lehman Center.
Lowell General's accreditation is meant to show that dementia-care principles can follow patients across different care settings while supporting safety, dignity, engagement and independence, even within the compressed timeline of an acute hospital stay. As the Lowell Sun reported, the hospital's broader push to weave these practices into emergency care, diagnostics and discharge planning suggests the MS2 unit is meant as a foundation rather than an isolated program.
