On a bright, blustery Friday morning, the wind in downtown White Plains had competition from the sounds of construction vehicles on Davis Avenue, off White Plains Hospital’s entrance.
Preparations were underway for a new building that will take over the footprint of a portion of Davis Avenue and the hospital’s old parking garage to connect with and expand the hospital. It’s the latest dramatic step in White Plains Hospital’s evolution to engage the health-care needs of the Hudson Valley and beyond.
“We understand that New York City hospitals are looking to expand in our area,” said Susan Fox, White Plains Hospital’s president and CEO. “Our goal is to provide the best care to our community, and we are able to provide the full continuum of care locally so that patients do not have to travel. This expansion, combined with our outpatient network that has specialists at more than 30 locations throughout the region, supports our commitment to this community.”
The 10-story, 475,000-square-foot space will accomplish three objectives, Fox added as she gave the Westfair Business Journal a preview:
- It will increase the hospital’s bed capacity from 292 to 436, with the addition of 144 private beds.
- It will add 10 more operating rooms.
- And it will more than double the size of the Emergency Room.
The new building – designed by Payette, a Boston architectural firm, to be realized by Manhattan-based Suffolk Construction – will cost an estimated $750 million, $500 million of which is financed, with the rest coming from philanthropy and operating expenses, Fox said. The structure’s butterfly shape, she added, reflects a blend of aesthetics and functionality as well as the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ (CMS) requirement that each hospital sleeping room have a window with an outdoor view to facilitate mental and physical well-being.
Each of the private rooms in the new facility, which can be used for medical, surgical or intensive care unit (ICU) patients, will also be spacious enough for attending family, have its own private bathroom and be adjacent to a nursing station. Kerri Elsabrout, NP, DNP – the hospital’s newly appointed senior vice president of patient care services and chief nursing officer – said she and the staff worked closely with Payette on every aspect of the design to ensure “safe care.”
Scheduled to open early in 2028, the new building is just the latest expansion by the hospital, part of the Montefiore Health System and the largest employer in the city of White Plains, with a staff of 5,500, 1,500 of whom are medical personnel. The hospital – the only one in the Hudson Valley to receive five stars, the highest rating, from CMS for three consecutive years as well as 12 consecutive “A” Safety Grades from health-care advocacy group Leapfrog – works closely with the city, which reportedly intends to build a 1,500-space parking garage on White Plains Post Road (Route 22). (The hospital has approximately 450 parking spaces on the site of former car dealerships on Post Road.)
The hospital is also going to demolish 170 Maple Ave., home to many members of White Plains Hospital Physician Associates, transferring those staffers either to 222 Westchester Ave., what Fox called “a practice site to handle relocation and growth,” or to White Plains Hospital Physician Associates Eastchester, which will open on the main floor of the former Lord & Taylor store at 750 White Plains Post Road in the summer of this year and feature various specialties, including radiology.
“This will be the fourth multispecialty ambulatory center that we have opened, which will allow us to continue to provide local communities with access to a number of specialists who can work together, providing a comprehensive team approach to care,” Fox said.
White Plains Hospital’s continuing transformation reflects what she described as the need to meet demands.
“Over 10 years, our Emergency Room has gone from 45,000 visits a year to approximately 90,000. Our impatient services have increased more than 70% and our surgical demands have increased nearly 70%.”
Fox said the hospital has met those needs with one million square feet of renovated or expanded space that includes the Center for Cancer Care, the Family Health Center and the Center for Advanced Medicine & Surgery (CAMS), which opened in 2021. (With the hospital as its tertiary hub in the Hudson Valley, Montefiore has also made inroads across state lines into Fairfield County with its Specialty Surgeons of Connecticut in Greenwich and Burke Rehabilitation’s Fairfield/Purchase Outpatient Therapy in Purchase.)
However, it’s what goes on in these sleek new spaces that is most important, she added:
“Together with Montefiore Einstein, we share in a unique vision to bring new and specialized procedures to local communities, and we have successfully partnered to bring an array of new programs. In 2021, we launched our cardiac surgery program, making us one of only two in Westchester County to provide this life-saving service. Additionally, in 2023, we launched a new structural heart program featuring a minimally invasive heart valve replacement, also known as transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR), which can be a life-saving alternative to cardiac surgery for certain patients.
“Similarly, our neurosciences program continues to grow. We now offer the gold standard for stroke care, a minimally invasive mechanical thrombectomy procedure to remove blood clots in the brain. We also continue to add cutting-edge cancer treatments and clinical trials, advanced orthopedic specialties, complex ear, nose and throat (ENT) procedures, pediatric subspecialties and more.”
For Fox, the hospital’s upward trajectory is the inevitable response to a career that began in pediatric nursing. Armed with a Bachelor of Science in nursing from Columbia University, she began her career as a pediatric intensive care nurse at New York Hospital in Manhattan. But those early days taught her that hospital care could be so much better. So she got an MBA from Baruch College, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, and went to work for Ernst and Young as a senior manager of health-care consulting, specializing in hospital reengineering.
As a senior vice president at North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System, now part of Northwell Health, she developed and oversaw physician and ambulatory network services. Fox joined White Plains Hospital in 2010 as senior vice president of administration. A year later, she was named executive vice president and then president in January 2013. She became CEO on May 1, 2015.
As a former nurse who transitioned to hospital administration, Fox is well-aware that hospitals lie at the nexus of a number of health-care industry trends and issues – the nursing shortage; patient discontent over health care and coverage and whether hospitals and/or insurance companies are to blame; and Surgeon General Vivek H. Murthy, M.D.’s recommendation to put cancer warning labels on liquor. (We’ll have more on liquor and cancer in an upcoming article that includes insights from Yael Zack, M.D., founder and director of the Young Women’s Program for Cancer Care at White Plains Hospital.)
As for the nursing shortage, Fox and El Sabrout pointed to the nurses, pharmacists and other professionals who have apprenticed and, in some cases, joined the hospital’s staff after schooling at Mercy University in Dobbs Ferry, from which Fox holds an honorary degree; Manhattanville University in Purchase; and Pace University in White Plains – academic institutions that along with Iona University in New Rochelle and Bronxville have served as training grounds for the local health-care industry. The role of local schools in the health-care community is something Fox said she is also helping to explore in her role as chair of the Westchester County Association, a business advocacy group.
On the subject of health care and insurance, Fox said that the best way to drive costs down is through preventive care. And that, she added – along with patient care – is what White Plains Hospital is committed to delivering.
“The biggest change has been a switch in focus from episodic care – where years ago you treated the patient for the acute condition – to today, where the goal of care is to be more holistic and focus on wellness. We are caring for more patients in the community beyond our walls through the growth of our outpatient care network as well as through a number of community wellness and prevention programs, including our WPH Cares program, our Community Paramedicine program and the growth of remote patient monitoring for those with complex conditions. As a result, we are able to meet patients where they are and help them manage their unique needs.”
