Nyack Hospital”™s $24 million plan to double the size of its emergency department and renovate other facilities is edging closer to a groundbreaking.
The village of Nyack Planning Board will consider the hospital”™s site plan on Nov. 7.
“They”™re getting close to site plan approval,” village attorney Walter Sevastian said.
When the hospital announced the expansion in March, it said groundbreaking would take place this fall.
For now, spokeswoman Lauren Malone said, hospital officials do not want to discuss the project until it clears the village approval process.
“We”™re working closely with the village,” she said, “trying to get this to move forward.”
Other than some neighbors questioning the impact of the expansion on nearby street parking, there has been little opposition, Sevastian said.
Parking is always an issue, he said, because Nyack”™s streets are tight. But he said the hospital has satisfied the minimum parking requirements for its property.
After the planning board approves the site plan, the hospital can apply for a building permit. Once it gets the permit, the groundbreaking ceremony can take place.
Nyack Hospital wants to build a two-story, 16,300-square-foot addition and to renovate another 23,300 square feet.
The expansion is being financed in large part by a $17.7 million state grant from the governor”™s health care initiative. The Delivery System Reform Incentive Payment Program is meant, in part, to reduce avoidable hospital admissions and emergency room visits by 25 percent by 2020.
Emergency room visits are at the heart of Nyack Hospital”™s expansion plan. Several years ago the administration set a goal of seeing emergency patients within 30 minutes of arrival.
The number of patients doubled to 60,000 a year, making it one of the most active ERs in the region, in a facility designed for 35,000 patients a year.
The hospital wants to double the emergency department to 26,000 square feet, including areas for rapid assessment, behavioral health assessment, trauma bays, imaging equipment, decontamination and urgent care.
The urgent care center would enable the hospital to reduce unnecessary emergency department visits by giving patients with less severe conditions a more appropriate level of care.
The plan also calls for a 7,800-square-foot outpatient center. The “medical village,” as it is being called, would include space for primary and specialty care providers and for local service organizations. The hospital will offer a navigation program to guide patients to services, as well as transportation to appointments.
The idea of the medical village is to reduce costs and unnecessary hospital admissions by giving patients an easy way to get the right level of care at the hospital or in the community.
The new facilities were expected to be completed in 2018, when the project was announced seven months ago.
Nyack Hospital was founded in 1895. It has 375 beds and about 90 percent of its patients live in Rockland County, according to a 2013 health needs assessment.
Revenues totaled $222 million in 2013, the last year of publicly available tax records, and expenses totaled $219 million.
The hospital was affiliated with NewYork-Presbyterian Healthcare System from 2004 to 2014.
In 2015, it joined Bronx-based Montefiore Health System.
Montefiore began expanding into the lower Hudson Valley in 2013. It has acquired or partnered with Burke Rehabilitation Hospital, Mount Vernon Hospital, Sound Shore Medical Center in New Rochelle and White Plains Hospital.
Nyack Hospital is also part of the Montefiore Hudson Valley Collaborative, a group of nearly 250 health care providers, community organizations and local government officials that looks for ways to improve health care in the region.
