Challenging endeavor: Blythedale doesn’t miss a beat with its $27M expansion
How is a pediatric hospital able to conduct a $27 million two-year construction project during the middle of a global pandemic without affecting patient care or otherwise disrupting normal operations? If you”™re Blythedale Children”™s Hospital in Valhalla, how you do it is through meticulous planning, careful management of the construction and ongoing coordination with the medical staff.
The construction that”™s underway continues the multifaceted project that has already added eight beds to the traumatic brain injury unit, giving the hospital the only dedicated post-acute pediatric brain injury unit in New York state.
In addition to creating a new administrative suite, construction includes a new and expanded Therapy Village with its own rock-climbing wall, a pharmacy, an expanded and renovated parent education center and simulation lab and an expanded assistive technology center.
“Our end goal is to improve the patient experience,” John Flanagan, Blythedale”™s vice president of operations told the Business Journal. “This is a challenge always when you have construction in a hospital where you”™re providing care on a day-to-day basis so it takes careful coordination with our clinical team, a lot of time planning the different moves that are involved. We also do very careful risk assessment to ensure that we”™re maintaining and managing our infection control practices.”
Flanagan said the hospital was fortunate to have some space that was underutilized.
“We have multiple layers of regulations that we have to ensure that we”™re meeting,” Flanagan said. “During the planning process we work with our architects and engineers to make sure we”™re meeting all of those requirements.”
Flanagan said that in some respects managing two years of construction is like trying to figure out a Sudoku puzzle.
“It”™s constantly trying to figure out the different pieces and what will work given the plan we have to implement,” Flanagan said. “It”™s careful coordination with our clinical team, very transparent communication about what the work will entail, how long it will need to take to get that work done and being flexible enough to reassess the plan if something doesn”™t work out.”
Flanagan said a good example of something not working out was that they were supposed to start the project in February 2020 and were not able to do so because of the arrival of the coronavirus.
“We had to pause the beginning of the project and work with our contractors, our construction team and put together a careful safety plan first, which affected all of our timelines and so we basically created a new plan,” Flanagan said. He said that all of the Covid safety protocols that were adopted for hospital staff were applied to the construction workers.
“We”™ll end up with a really state-of-the-art beautiful therapy space for our children, both for inpatients and for outpatients. We”™re going to have a new rock climbing wall, we”™re going to have new balance equipment and it will be more open for the patients to get their therapy. We”™re really excited about that. We”™re also really excited about the pharmacy. This will expand the space for our pharmacists to do their work,” Flanagan said.
“The other piece that we”™re really excited about is the simulation lab, so we”™re going to be essentially doubling the space we have for parent education. This is where we teach parents how to care for their kids in a homelike setting and we”™ll also be able to use this space to teach the community and other health care providers how to provide the complex care for the children that we”™re doing here at Blythedale.”
Larry Levine, Blythedale”™s president and CEO, told the Business Journal that the hospital has been working with the company Lendlease, a multinational construction, property and infrastructure company
Lendlease managed construction of Blythedale”™s 89,950-square-foot, 2-story main building and parking areas, along with an outdoor recreation area for the Mount Pleasant-Blythedale School, which is on the hospital”™s campus.
“We”™ve just received a $2 million gift, which is the fifth-highest major gift to Blythedale and that came to expand and modernize our therapy center,” Levine said, adding that the donor is modest and wanted to remain anonymous.
“The rest of the funding will be coming from the hospital”™s capital funds. We have a capital plant fund that we contribute to every year to continue to update and modernize the hospital. We are not borrowing any funds for this project.”
Levine said that the hospital”™s annual revenues have grown fourfold since 2001, recently reaching $90 million.
“We have a management and fiscal dashboard that always looks at how we manage expenses to volume so we”™ve been very successful I think at running a very tight ship here at the hospital while making sure we have the right staffing to meet care needs,” Levine said. “We”™re very careful how we look at productivity standards. I”™m blessed with an excellent CFO and a great finance committee on the board.”
Levine said that the current construction project actually has its roots in a four-phase plan to enhance and expand the physical plant that was put into effect in 2009. He said that the main building was opened at the beginning of 2012 and the hospital has continued to update not only the physical plant, but the technology used within.
“That building is still very new and very modern and that”™s the anchor because our inpatient activities are a major driver of our economic engine,” Levine said. “We built a new center for speech therapy and audiology; we modernized and expanded our day hospital; we built a new pediatric long-term care unit.”
Levine said that part of planning for Blythedale”™s future involves dealing with limitations imposed by the size of its site.
“We”™ve really maxed-out on the physical footprint by which we”™re able to build on the hospital site,” Levine said. “Any real expansion and modernization beyond what we”™ve done really needs to look outside of the four walls if you will of the main hospital campus. Part of our longer-term future is to try to figure out how to scale Blythedale, which is a very unique children”™s hospital.”