Area hospitals pumping money into projects
Jan. 12, 2004

MELISSA A. CHADWICK
Observer-Dispatch

From new surgeons to consolidation to massive expansions, the area's five hospitals will see changes this year.

Here's a look at what's planned:

Faxton-St. Luke's Healthcare Center

Faxton-St. Luke's Healthcare is gearing up for a major change to be completed by 2005: consolidating their centers to one acute care, inpatient facility at St. Luke's campus, one primary outpatient facility at the Faxton Campus, and one long-term care facility at St. Luke's Home.

"This allows us to consolidate our resources, skilled staff and equipment and create facilities that we couldn't create on two campuses," hospital President and CEO Keith Fenstemacher said. "We'll concentrate our resources in a certain area without duplicating them on two different sites."

The cost of the projects is about $16 million. They should be completed by late 2005.

"We started consolidation of the two hospitals in 1997 when we formed a

common board. It took a while to develop plans," he said. "This is literally the last piece of consolidation between the hospital campuses."

Construction has already started at St. Luke's to expand the operating room. Construction will continue as they expand the critical care unit from eight to 16 beds.

Expansion of the St. Luke's Home will soon begin which will add 82 beds to the facility. That project should end by early 2005, Fenstemacher said.

St. Elizabeth Medical Center

Sister M. Johanna DeLelys became St. Elizabeth Medical Center's new president and CEO Jan. 1. She succeeds Sister Rose Vincent Gleason.

DeLelys has worked at the hospital since 1965 when she started there as a surgery staff nurse.

Now, her leadership will guide the hospital as it begins to raise funds for a new emergency room and trauma center.

"They see the need to have a new emergency room because ours is pretty old," spokesman Robert Stronach said. "The foundation is in the process of looking at a fund-raising campaign to raise money."

The emergency department sees about 24,000 patients annually, he said.

"Now that we have new Intensive Care Units and upgraded special care units, this is the next logical step," he said.

The hospital has just welcomed four new ultrasound units that will dramatically improve diagnostic capabilities, Stronach said.

The hospital will soon install a new high-tech CAT scan machine.

Little Falls Hospital

The hospital is using grant money to complete roofing and window projects at the hospital, President and CEO David Armstrong said.

They also are installing a new nurse call system in the patient care units that will connect to new patient beds.

"We're working to update our facility more than construct things," he said.

Other updates are to new pulmonary function testing equipment, endoscopic study equipment, computerized equipment for physical therapists, and continuing upgrades to the operating room.

"It's our vision to create new operative suites within the next two years," he said. "Our vision is to work, rebuild and get our surgical volume up."

Armstrong said a renovation of the primary care center in Dolgeville is also a priority.

"We're going through a shift. Less toward growth in inpatient services and more growth in outpatient services," Armstrong said. "We're hopeful we'll be introducing urology and ear, nose and throat surgical specialties at Little Falls."

Little Falls Hospital has recently welcomed three new surgeons and a new pediatrician to its staff.

"We really have had a wonderful year recruiting," Armstrong said. "Now we have to work with them to get established and get some new patients to the hospital."

Rome Memorial Hospital

This year could be a busy year at Rome Memorial with several expansion projects in the works.

Based on a master facility plan study, the hospital expects to file a certificate of need early this year to double the size of its emergency department, built in 1976, Public Relations Director Cassie Evans Winter said. The emergency room provided treatment to 19,165 patients in 2003; an 3.4 percent increase over 2002's 18,538 patients, she said.

"The Emergency Department is the heart of our organization," president and CEO Darlene Burns said. "But, I also know that we struggle with long wait times because of the sheer number of people who turn to us for help."

The hospital will also evaluate expanding its 11-bed Senior Behavioral Health Unit, which provides health care for seniors who have depression, anxiety, dementia and other problems.

"We have been at 100 percent occupancy with a waiting list almost 18 people long," Burns said.

The state Health Department also approved the hospital to provide intensity modulated radiation therapy for cancer patients at Mohawk Valley Radiation Medicine.

The radiation allows very precise treatments which means a higher dosage of radiation can be delivered to the tissue "while minimizing exposure to surrounding healthy tissues," she said.

A launch date for the new cancer treatment has not yet been set, Burns said.

Bassett Healthcare, Cooperstown

In March 2003, surgeons at the new Bassett Heart Care Institute performed the hospital's first heart surgery. This year,

Bassett Healthcare is preparing to complete a $20 million construction project that began in the fall, Vice President for External Affairs Michael Stein said.

The modernization includes addition of a fifth floor to the hospital that will house intensive and special care units expected to be completed this spring, he said.

The rooms are larger and more modern than the former critical care units which was built at a time when there wasn't much monitoring equipment in the rooms.

The $20 million price tag includes new cardiac operating room and a back-up cardiac operating room. Two additional operating rooms should be completed by this summer to "accommodate growth in surgical volumes."

A second cardiac catheterization suite should be completed in July.

"The Heart Care Institute is really a driving force," Stein said. "The need for additional capacity has really driven the need for facility modernization."

He said there are plans for modernizing some of Bassett's regional centers to increase space at those they have outgrown.

How Faxton-St. Luke's Health Care will look by the end of 2005:

ST. LUKE'S CAMPUS

-- Single Emergency Department

-- New pharmacy

-- Two additional surgical suites

-- All critical care beds

-- Addition to St. Luke's Home

-- All medical/surgical beds with a separate Oncology unit

-- All inpatient surgery with two more operating rooms

FAXTON CAMPUS

-- Urgent Care/Fast-Trac Center

-- Acute Care inpatient rehab unit

-- Outpatient rehabilitation center

-- Pain management

-- Expanded outpatient diagnostic imaging

-- Ambulatory surgery

-- Expanded outpatient endoscopy

-- Outpatient cancer treatment

-- Outpatient dialysis center