The Westchester Medical Center Health Network this week unveiled plans to invest nearly $175 million in expansion and renovation projects at two hospitals in Orange and Ulster counties acquired by the Valhalla-based network in the last 18 months as it extended its northern reach in the Hudson Valley.
In Port Jervis, Bon Secours Community Hospital will be expanded and redesigned as a “health village” offering a wide range of medical and related services in partnership with public and nonprofit agencies in a two-year, $40 million project expected to begin in spring 2017.
In Kingston, WMCHealth and HealthAlliance of the Hudson Valley officials announced plans for a five- year, $133.6 million project that includes a 110,000-square-foot expansion and 70,000-square-foot renovation of the HealthAlliance Hospital on Mary’s Avenue and conversion of HealthAlliance’s Broadway campus into a medical hub. The Mary’s Avenue construction is expected to begin in the second half of 2017 and be completed in two years.
In Port Jervis, the 100-bed Bon Secours Community Hospital’s emergency room will be expanded to 10,000 square feet with a new entrance and waiting room. Other planned improvements include an upgraded imaging center with equipment supplied by Philips, WMCHealth’s technology partner, and the conversion of 36 medical and surgical rooms from semi-private to private.
The Port Jervis hospital will partner with local organizations such as Cornerstone Care and the Orange County Department of Mental Health Services to offer dental, women”™s health, pediatrics, behavioral health and other services, WMCHealth officials said
The Bon Secours project is funded in part by a $24.5 million grant from the state Capital Restructuring Financing Program, a $1.5 billion fund in 2016 that will provide state money to 162 health care infrastructure projects in New York. The same state program will fund $88.8 million of the HealthAlliance project in Kingston, WMCHealth officials said.
Totaling 437,000 square feet, the new HealthAlliance Hospital on Mary’s Avenue will include 141 private patient rooms and a nearly 25,000-square-foot emergency center. Other improvements include a surgical section with an advanced medical imaging center, same-day surgery units, an expanded post-surgical recovery unit and an advanced endoscopy center. The building will also feature a new two-story main entrance and lobby.
“With a soaring lobby and cheerful, light-filled patient rooms, the new hospital will provide a welcoming and caring environment to advance the healing process,” said David Scarpino, president and CEO of HealthAlliance of the Hudson Valley, in a statement on Thursday.
Hospital officials said details of the medical hub at the Broadway campus will be announced later.
WMCHealth became majority owner and active manager of Bon Secours Charity Health System in May 2015.  The system’s former majority owner, Maryland-based Bon Secours Health System Inc. and New Jersey-based Sisters of Charity of St. Elizabeth, remain co-members of the ownership company. The Bon Secours regional network includes the 286-bed Good Samaritan Hospital in Suffern and 60-bed St. Anthony Community Hospital in Warwick.
HealthAlliance of the Hudson Valley operates 315 beds across its regional system, which includes the Mary’s Avenue and Broadway campuses in Kingston and Margaretville Hospital in Delaware County. The largest employer in Ulster County, HealthASlliance lso operates the 82-bed Mountainside Residential Care Center in Margaretville.
WMCHealth took over as sole corporate member of the HealthAlliance network in a deal announced in late March.  With the acquisition, WMCHealth operates 10 hospitals on eight campuses across five counties in the Hudson Valley. The network employs more than 12,000 people and has nearly 3,000 attending physicians.
