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A sneak peek at the future
(by Karen F. Mrnarevic - July 22, 2008)
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Staff Photos by Roy Caratozzolo
Westwood Mayor John Birkner, left, stated the importance of a community hospital to local residents during a recent walk through of the
Pascack
Valley
Hospital site, led by representatives from
Hackensack
University
Medical
Center . Pictured with Birkner are Councilman William Phayre (center) and Vice President of Corporate Development for HUMC Robert Koller.
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On Monday, July 21, the emergency room of the former
Pascack
Valley
Hospital was the scene of a major renovation; a hum of activity accompanied the movements of a work crew peeling wallpaper, unpacking building materials and installing equipment. But amidst the apparent chaos, the tangles of exposed wires and ductwork, among the bare ceiling beams and the naked walls, there was a palpable sense of potential, anticipation and rebirth.
Before commencing with a walk-through of the facility, John P. Ferguson, CEO of Hackensack University Medical Center (HUMC), made a blunt statement about the emergency department’s future. “Point blank,” he said with characteristic emphasis, “it’s actually happening.” The emergency room will be fully operational, said
Ferguson , by Oct. 1.
Representatives from HUMC hosted the walk-through and press conference, in large part, to let the community know that everything is still going according to schedule, and the end result of this leg of the massive renovation project will be a fully functional emergency room. When all is said and done, HUMC will have spent approximately $2 million on interior and exterior renovations of the emergency department, laboratory, and radiology center. Suzen Heeley, director of design and construction, said, “Basically what we are looking to do is just refresh it. We are trying to keep it [the upgrades] more cosmetic than construction – just freshening up.” But the department will be more than just a pretty face, she said. “Obviously, it will be functional in every way, but in appearance it will be enhanced.”
But it won’t just be in the appearance of the emergency room that members of the community will see major changes. The staff of the emergency department will be composed of doctors and nurses who will be trained by HUMC and spend time working at both the
Pascack
Valley location and the
Hackensack campus. “We are going to be one united department,” said Dr. Joseph Feldman, chairman of the Department of Emergency Medicine. “We are going to emulate the same quality of service as that of
Hackensack .” He added, “We are real excited to be here, joining the Westwood community to provide the service we have been providing with our pre-hospital care, with our Mobile Intensive Care Units… This is the final layer of emergency services, of providing services right in the neighborhood.”
Registered Nurse Lisa Iachetti, the administrative director of the Department of Patient Care pointed out the advantages of this “integrated” emergency department. “What we’re excited about is that the team in Hackensack will be the team in
Pascack
Valley , as well,” she said. “We work so well together, which has been the secret to our success… Everybody will be on board with all the quality standards at
Hackensack .”
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HUMC executives and local officials look over plans for the new emergency department. From left: VP of Corporate Development Robert Koller; Director of Design and Construction Suzen Heeley; Westwood Mayor John Birkner; Chairman of the Department of Emergency Medicine Dr. Joseph Feldman; Administrative Director of the Department of Patient Care Lisa Iachetti; and Councilman William Phayre.
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While the emergency room will offer outpatient services, laboratory, cardiac services and radiography, such as CAT Scans and X-rays, the department will be opening as a “freestanding” facility, and the hospital will not offer inpatient, overnight care until some time in the future.
Ferguson said that HUMC will be submitting its application for renewal of the hospital’s certificate of need, which is required to open a full service hospital, at the end of this month.
Ferguson said that he expects the application will be approved by February of 2009.
In the meantime, Feldman said, “There is a regulation with the state; after a certain number of hours of staying here, you will have to start looking for an inpatient bed.” The hospital will provide transport for inpatient admissions and critical cases that require services that the emergency room cannot provide, such as major surgery. Iachetti expanded on the subject, “If someone were to come here and need an inpatient bed, then we do have the ambulance here on standby to make the transfer… But then all PV nurses and physicians will be trained to handle the most acutely ill,” she said. Requests of patients and their personal physicians will be honored in terms of where they are transferred in such cases.
Feldman estimated the volume of patients the emergency department will see is expected to start out relatively low, but increase in time. “We project the first year to have about 11,000 patients,” he said. “But our expectation is that once the word gets out and people feel comfortable with the services, we expect the volume to be increasing exponentially.” Especially, he added, once the full service community hospital is operational. In the meantime, he said, an estimated 20 percent of those 11,000 patients would be admitted to inpatient care and transported to other area hospitals. There are other areas in the hospital that will be available for use should there be an overflow in volume from the emergency department.
Another element of the emergency room that will see major upgrades is the equipment. Robert M. Koller, vice president of Corporate Development, pointed out that most of
Pascack
Valley ’s original equipment had been leased by the previous owners of the hospital. When the hospital declared bankruptcy, the equipment was basically repossessed by the manufacturers. HUMC will be purchasing all the necessary equipment for the department, which will have the added advantage of being brand new in many cases.
The basic message HUMC is communicating to the public is that the hospital is coming back, and it will be better than ever. Heeley mentioned that “green” materials will be used whenever possible in the renovation, and once the emergency room opens, more environmentally friendly cleaning supplies and materials will be used.
Thanks to advances in modern technology, patient care will also be brought into the 21st century, with an HUMC robot, called “Mr. Rounder,” which allows doctors and nurses located at the Hackensack campus to actively participate in the care of patients at Pascack Valley when. “We will actually be able to ‘beam in’ our specialists from
Hackensack if need be,” said Feldman. Additionally, any images taken by the radiology department in
Pascack
Valley will be digitally sent to and reviewed by radiologists at the
Hackensack campus.
Mayor John Birkner expressed his hope that the opening of the emergency will do more than bring peace of mind to area residents. Currently, he said the number of new volunteers for local volunteer ambulance corps has suffered, in part, he said, because with the nearest hospital located miles away, it is becoming more of a time commitment. “It’s one thing to hop out of your house and go on a half hour run. It’s another thing… to be tied up for three hours.” Furthermore, said Birkner, although he has not heard of a case in which a life was lost because of the distance ambulances need to travel, “Every day that this hospital is not here is one more day of a risk of that happening.”
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Workers were busy removing wallpaper and replacing the ceiling during the July 21 walk-through. The emergency department, slated to reopen on Oct. 1, is receiving a total cosmetic overhaul, as well as many functional upgrades.
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Koller stated that the reopening of the full service community hospital, which will happen in phases, should be fairly rapid. “We are probably talking about 30 months to get fully operational on the hospital, once the transfer of the license… has taken place.” He said that patient rooms will have to be renovated, with the end objective being all single-patient rooms with private bathrooms. The revamping of the 120 bed community hospital, Koller said, is projected to cost HUMC an additional $60 million.
Karen F. Mrnarevic's e-mail address is Mrnarevic@northjersey.com.
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