South Nassau has eyes on the future

Expansion plans for Long Beach and Oceanside are developing

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Like many hospitals regionally and nationwide, South Nassau Communities Hospital is adjusting to the changing face of health care delivery and accommodating patient needs. 

Along with a Medical Arts Pavilion to be built on the former Long Beach Medical Center site, South Nassau also has plans for its Oceanside campus, including expansion of its emergency department, critical care unit and operating rooms.

The Medical Arts Pavilion in Long Beach will be a two-story, 30,000-square-foot building that will include a 24-hour emergency room and the capacity to house other health service departments. Completion is expected in 2017. 

SNCH’s Oceanside emergency department was last expanded and renovated 10 years ago. It currently has 16,000 square feet of space with 35 treatment bays and seven “fast track” stations. The need for expansion and upgrading is due in part to the increase in the volume of patients in 2014, up 8.5 percent since Long Beach Medical Center closed after Hurricane Sandy. A $60 million expansion plan, from SNCH capital funds, would expand that space to 30,000 square feet capacity and allow for 75,000 annual visits. Currently, there are 65,000 visits, according to the latest statistics from 2014. 

Dr. Joshua Kugler, the hospital’s emergency services director and Emergency Medicine Department chairman, said that the treatment bays and resuscitation rooms in the emergency department are equipped with accessible technology such as X-ray and CT scan machines to get the best treatment as fast as possible. 

The hospital is also planning to have designated behavioral health, geriatrics and pediatrics treatment areas in its emergency department, and will expanded waiting areas. “We are also thinking about a different treatment environment for geriatrics,” Kugler said. “For example, we don’t put pediatrics in with geriatrics or other adults with care. Both have very different needs.”

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