Aging well
White Plains Hospital Center will observe a post-centennial anniversary this year with a series of events promoting the theme, “Celebrating 115 Years of Good Health.”
Fifteen anniversary-year events also will recognize contributions made to the institution”™s success by what hospital officials call its “extended family” ”“ the community, physicians, nurses, technicians, management and administrative staff, donors, volunteers and corporate sponsors.
The celebration will include a health symposium for the community. Banners and posters with the 115th-anniversary logo will be prominently displayed throughout the year in the hospital”™s lobby and other highly trafficked hospital areas
“We”™re pulling out all the stops to mark the incredible accomplishments that White Plains Hospital Center has achieved since 1893 in promoting the health and well-being of the community it serves and to set the stage for continuing this great tradition for at least another 115 years,” said Paul M. Weissman, chairman of the White Plains Hospital Center board, who hatched the idea for the year-round celebration. “One of the major messages we will be communicating throughout the year is the importance of preventive measures such as eating right, keeping fit and getting regular check-ups and screenings that individuals can take to remain healthy and avoid trips to the hospital.”
Chartered in 1893, the nonprofit hospital opened with four patient beds in a converted house on Chatterton Hill. Today the center on East Post Road has 292 beds and a professional staff of more than 700 doctors and almost 600 nurses. With almost 1,900 employees and an annual budget of $250 million, it is one of Westchester”™s major employers. The hospital also has three satellite facilities in Rye Brook ”“ The Women”™s Imaging Center, an outpatient physical therapy center and a home care office.
Among the “firsts” achieved by the White Plains Hospital Center are these:
Ӣ Opened first coronary care unit in Westchester County in 1966.
Ӣ First hospital in the county to have a positron emission tomography (PET) scanner on site.
Ӣ Anxiety and Phobia Clinic, the first of its kind in the U.S.
Ӣ In 1990, became the first hospital in Westchester County to add a certified midwife to the medical staff.
Ӣ Its Dickstein Cancer Treatment Center is the only free-standing facility devoted solely to the treatment of cancer in the county.
Ӣ First hospital in New York State to house the Aurora Breast Magnetic Resonance Imaging machine.
”¢ First and only hospital in the county designated a “regional stroke center” by the state.
White Plains Hospital Center CEO Jon B. Schandler is the longest-tenured hospital chief in Westchester County, having served 25 years.
Schandler leads an institution that in 2007 was honored with three national awards for clinical excellence. It was one of only 31 community-hospital cancer programs nationwide and the only one in Westchester and metropolitan New York to receive the Outstanding Achievement Award for 2006 from the Commission on Cancer of the American College of Surgeons. It was the only facility in Westchester and one of 113 in the country to receive the American Stroke Association”™s Annual Performance Achievement Award. And the hospital was ranked by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services among just 38 hospitals in the country and the only one in Westchester to have lower mortality rates for heart failure than the national rate.
For the sixth time, the hospital last year won the National Research Corporation”™s Consumer Choice Award.