South Nassau Opens Emergency Department In Long Beach To Serve Barrier Island Residents & Visitors

OCEANSIDE, N.Y. - Aug. 14, 2015 - PRLog -- South Nassau Communities Hospital Emergency Department at Long Beach opened Monday (8/10/15) at 9 AM after receiving final regulatory approval to restore around-the-clock emergency medical care to the residents of Long Beach and the barrier island.

The opening comes more than 1,000 days after SuperStorm Sandy struck the region, forcing the closure of the former Long Beach Medical Center (LBMC).

         The New York State Department of Health issued the final approvals for the facility to open earlier this week and South Nassau has been working since then to arrange staffing for around-the-clock physician and nursing coverage. As of Monday morning (8/10/15), the newly renovated facility will operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week and will be able to receive ambulances via the 9-1-1 system. This weekend (8/8-8/9), the facility will continue to operate as an Urgent Care Center.

         South Nassau’s Emergency Department at Long Beach is Long Island’s first off-campus, hospital-based emergency department.  Its opening fulfills a promise made by the Board of Directors and administration of South Nassau Communities Hospital (SNCH) after it acquired the assets of LBMC to re-establish 9-1-1-ambulance receiving emergency medical services for the residents of the barrier island.

“This brand new emergency department includes the latest diagnostic equipment and will be staffed by South Nassau trained emergency department physicians and nurses,” said Richard J. Murphy, president and CEO of South Nassau. “It will offer residents and visitors to the barrier island convenient and high quality   emergency medical care.”

         South Nassau had planned to begin operating the Emergency Department at Long Beach beginning on July 1 and completed an $8 million renovation of the facility on time. But federal and state regulatory issues prevented the July 1^st opening. The last of the regulatory approvals was recently obtained, clearing the way for the opening of the Emergency Department, located at 325 E. Bay Drive. The facility will immediately begin receiving ambulances from across the barrier island.  The facility opens less than a year after South Nassau closed on the purchase of LBMC’s assets on October 15, 2014. South Nassau has operated an Urgent Care Center at the same location since July of last year.

         The extensive renovation of the Urgent Care Center to an Emergency Department took a little more than eight weeks to accomplish.

        “At any hour, day or night, this emergency department will be ready to stabilize medical emergencies,” said Joshua Kugler, MD, FACEP, FAAEM, chair of the department of emergency medicine at South Nassau.  “It is equipped with leading emergency medical technology and an experienced staff of board-certified emergency medicine physicians as well as registered nurses with advanced training in emergency medicine. We have been working closely with the EMS community across the barrier island to insure that there is good coordination between those in the field and our Emergency Department both in Long Beach and in Oceanside.”

         The renovated facility has received high marks from all those who have toured it, including from the Long Beach Chamber of Commerce, local elected officials and civic groups.

         The Long Beach Emergency Department has six private treatment rooms, including an observation unit with three beds where patients can be held for up to 23 hours, a special room for infectious disease cases, a medical laboratory, a triage area, a behavioral treatment area, a decontamination room, a trauma room and advanced medical imaging department that includes an X-ray machine and a 64-slice CT scanner, which is the only operational CT scanner of any type in Long Beach and on the barrier island. The 6,300-square-foot facility has the capability to surge to meet increases in volume if needed. South Nassau also has ambulances stationed at the Long Beach facility, ready to transport patients to its main campus in Oceanside as the need arises.

         The Emergency Department at Long Beach replaces South Nassau Urgent Care Center (SNUCC), occupying the same address: 325 East Bay Dr., adjacent to the Komanoff Nursing Home and Rehabilitation Center.  As per existing New York State Department of Health protocol, all acute strokes, heart attacks and trauma patients transported by the 9-1-1 Emergency Medical System will by-pass the Long Beach Emergency Department and be brought to the appropriate state-designated hospital.  Patients treated and stabilized at the Emergency Department who require hospital admission or advanced levels of treatment will be transferred by on-site ambulance service to South Nassau or the appropriate hospital. South Nassau, which services some 900,000 residents of the South Shore, from Queens to Suffolk County, is a Level II trauma center and advanced cardiac center.

         South Nassau’s efforts to establish the emergency department began in March 2015, when it submitted a Certificate of Need (CON) to the New York State Department of Health to upgrade the Urgent Care Center to an off-campus, hospital-based emergency services department.

         The $8 million cost of the renovation is in addition to the $5 million South Nassau invested to build the Urgent Care Center.  In order to meet state requirements for certification as an off-campus, hospital emergency department, the facility required significant upgrades including (but not limited to) a 600-square foot expansion to include the observation suite as well as an emergency generator, wider corridors and a new ventilation system.