Northside Expansion to Fill Emergency Department Need
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio -- In the boardroom at Northside Medical Center, there's a divot in the table where Neal Tishman says he has pounded his fist for years as he pleaded for a new emergency department.
That day came closer to arriving Tuesday with the groundbreaking for a 30,000-square-foot tower to be added to the Northside campus. The $20 million project, which will also involve modernization of 28,000 square feet of existing space in the hospital, will result in long-needed emergency department upgrades.
"The current emergency department, although we provide excellent care, has been a challenging physical plant to work in," said Tishman, medical director of Northside’s emergency department and chairman of its department of emergency medicine. The upgraded ER will feature three "new and very well equipped trauma bays" as well as 21 private patient rooms, he said. The new design will also address hallway and ambulance access issues.
"The dedication and skill of our physicians, nurses and ancillary staff is unparalleled in the Mahoning Valley and its surrounding communities," Tishman remarked. "Finally, thanks to the vision and support of the board, administration and our ownership, we will have a beautiful, state-of-the-art facility to continue to provide excellent emergency care to the citizens of this area."
Tishman was among Northside and ValleyCare Health System of Oho officials who joined civic leaders for yesterday's ceremony.
The three-story addition will provide a new main entrance for Northside, a new lobby with registration area, pre-admission testing, waiting rooms, gift shop and information center; combined surgical services on the second floor of the addition; and endoscopy services with a new waiting area and three new procedure rooms on the third floor.
Kirk Ray, CEO of Northside and ValleyCare, the Community Health Systems Inc. affiliate that owns ValleyCare, said investment in bricks and mortar "gives us an appealing opportunity to take care of patients in a way we haven't been able to before, enhances the ability of our nursing staff and medical staff to take care of patients on a daily basis" and continues to build on Northside and ValleyCare's commitment to quality outcomes and patient care.
"When you look around at what offerings you have within this area, this is still the central part of the Mahoning Valley, and we believe that making a bricks-and-mortar investment here on this campus is critical to having patients within this area access health care," Ray said. With access from Belmont Avenue, Gypsy Lane and the nearby 711 Connector, Northside is “a very accessible campus," he said.
The $20 million project is part of the $50 million Tennessee-based Community Health Systems has spent or pledged to date out of the $80 million it committed to spend over a five-year period when it acquired bankrupt Forum Health Inc. in 2010.
"This is a long time coming," said Sandy Kessler, executive director of the Jewish Community Center and chairman of Northside's board of directors. "This was a need that was clearly identified a few years ago when I first started on the board after CHS bought the hospital."
Kessler, who said he has lived and worked in the Mahoning Valley his entire life, reflected on "the months and years where it seemed like daily, you'd open the newspaper, you'd turn on the TV and some announcement [was] made about the collapse of some iconic institution" in the area. "Isn't it nice, isn't it a pleasure … that today we can stand here together and celebrate something that's a commitment, a visible, tangible commitment to our future and this Valley," he said.
Further spending announcements are expected over the next six to 18 months, including potential expansions of ValleyCare's footprint in the region, Ray said. That could mean operations in southern Mahoning County communities such as Boardman, Canfield or Poland. "We're always looking at patient populations that we can serve better and access better so that's not something that we would rule out," he said.
Copyright 2013 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
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