South Nassau Unveils Plan to Build a Medical Arts Pavilion on the Barrier Island

OCEANSIDE, N.Y. - March 20, 2015 - PRLog -- South Nassau Communities Hospital  today announced plans to build a two-story, 30,000 square-foot Medical Arts Pavilion on the site  of the former Long Beach Medical Center that would include an off-campus, hospital-based Emergency Department and restore other needed medical services to residents of the barrier island.

In addition to an around-the-clock Emergency Department, the new structure potentially could house suites for family medicine, behavioral health, dialysis, ambulatory surgery and other medical services. South Nassau has commissioned a study – based on discharge and other data – to determine which services are most needed on the barrier island in the wake of Superstorm Sandy, which forced the closing of the former Long Beach Medical Center more than two years ago.

The new Medical Arts Pavilion represents a major investment by South Nassau in Long Beach. It also would help restore jobs to the barrier island.  South Nassau opened a temporary Urgent Care Center on the site in July of 2014 and last month the hospital announced a plan to spend an additional $5 million this year to upgrade the Urgent Care Center to an off-campus, hospital-based Emergency Department by July 1. The new Medical Arts Pavilion, which could be expanded to add a third floor if needed, would become the permanent home of the Emergency Department once the new Pavilion is constructed.

“Our mission is to restore needed medical services that were lost as a result of Sandy,” said Richard J. Murphy, South Nassau’s President & CEO. “This new pavilion demonstrates our commitment to Long Beach, Point Lookout, Lido Beach, Atlantic Beach and residents across the barrier island. It is essentially a ‘hospital without beds’ and will go a long way to addressing the community’s medical needs.”

SNCH Medical Arts Pavilion construction is contingent upon regulatory approvals, including from the New York State Department of Health. Once approved, construction would take an estimated 18-24 months.

To be constructed on the south side of East Bay Drive on land formerly occupied by abandoned houses that were severely damaged when SuperStorm Sandy slammed the Tri-State region on October 29, 2012, the SNCH Medical Arts Pavilion will be the permanent location of a full-service, 16-bay, 911-receiving off-campus, hospital based emergency department. It will also provide a continuum of healthcare programs, including diagnostic imaging suite with CT-scan, MRI, and X-ray capabilities.

The pavilion will also feature central family and patient waiting areas situated around landscaped courtyards, an energy-friendly ‘green’ roof and dedicated lounge spaces in patient care areas that incorporate natural light and exterior views of Reynolds Bay. Some 250 parking spaces will also be available for patients, staff and visitors to the facility. It is being designed by the Blitch/Knevel, an award-winning, New Orleans-based firm that specializes in healthcare facilities.

South Nassau officials have briefed local leaders on the plan and intend to hold additional information sessions throughout the service area during the coming months to solicit community input.

Nassau County Legislator Denise Ford, who represents Long Beach, praised South Nassau for moving to restore services to the community. “I am optimistic with this announcement as we will finally get our emergency room as well as other medical services,” Ford said.  “This will provide a beginning for a renewed and revitalized medical campus that will better serve our community.  The employment opportunities will realize a much needed boost to our economy.”

The Emergency Department at the new Pavilion will be staffed by nurses and physicians trained in emergency medicine and will be able to handle all emergency cases. However, as per existing Department of Health protocol, all acute strokes, heart attacks and trauma patients will be seen at the appropriate state-designated hospital. Even before the Long Beach Medical Center closed, such cases routinely bypassed the former hospital as per protocol. Any patient who requires hospital admission or advanced levels of treatment will be transferred from the off-campus Emergency Department in Long Beach to the South Nassau campus in Oceanside. South Nassau, which services some 900,000 residents of the South Shore from Queens to Suffolk County, is a Level II trauma center.

Since opening its doors to serve the Long Beach community six months ago, South Nassau’s Urgent Care Center at Long Beach (SNUCC) has treated more than 1,550 patients for a wide array of urgent medical conditions.

In mid-November, an expansion to the Urgent Care Center was completed, and it now houses a new 64-slice CT scanner.  This is the only operational CT scanner on the barrier island. No other urgent care facility in Nassau County offers this superior level of on-site hospital-grade diagnostic imaging technology.

South Nassau is the only hospital on Long Island to win four major awards for quality in recent months, including for nursing excellence, patient safety and top rankings from U.S. News & World Report & from the Joint Commission.

Designated a Magnet® hospital by the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC), South Nassau® Communities Hospital is one of the region’s largest hospitals, with 455 beds, more than 900 physicians and 3,000 employees.  Located in Oceanside, NY, the hospital is an acute-care, not-for-profit teaching hospital that provides state-of-the-art care in cardiac, oncologic, orthopedic, bariatric, pain management, maternity, mental health and emergency services.  In addition to its extensive outpatient specialty centers, South Nassau provides emergency and elective angioplasty, and is the only hospital on Long Island with the Novalis Tx™ and Gamma Knife® radiosurgery technologies.  South Nassau is a designated Stroke Center by the New York State Department of Health and Comprehensive Community Cancer Center by the American College of Surgeons and is an accredited center of the Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery Association and Quality Improvement Program.  In addition, the hospital has been awarded the Joint Commission’s gold seal of approval as a Top Performer on Key Quality Measures, including heart attack, heart failure, pneumonia and surgical care; and disease-specific care for hip and joint replacement, wound care and end-stage renal disease. For more information, visit www.southnassau.org.