Cayuga Health Capital Transition Project On Track to Meet Expanding Needs
Schuyler Hospital, a member of Cayuga Health, opened their new 15,000 square foot state-of-the-art Medical-Surgical inpatient unit on April 21. This is Phase 1 of a two-part construction project expected to be completed by later this year. The project was made possible by a $10.3 million New York Statewide Health Care Facility Transformation Program (SHCFTP) Grant that was awarded in July of 2017. Schuyler Hospital also met the needs to restart elective surgeries per the Governor’s requirements since the novel Coronavirus pandemic was declared.
“We are excited to open this new inpatient unit during our 100th anniversary year. While this year has not gone as planned based on COVID-19, we have been able to keep our project on-track with our patients and our community in mind,” states Rebecca Gould, President and CFO of Schuyler Hospital. “These improvements provide a new and enhanced healing environment and state-of-the-art technology that will allow our hospital’s staff to give more coordinated care and provide our patients and their families with the comfort and support that they need. We designed these improvements to meet our patients’ needs now and into the future.”
The new Medical-Surgical unit includes 12 large, single rooms and four semi-private beds. Improved monitoring allows nurses to check each patient’s status from a central station and quickly respond to monitor alerts detecting changes in a patient’s condition. The new design provides a pleasant, healing environment with an open central space that gives nurses an unobstructed view to private patient rooms located along the unit’s perimeter.
Phase II includes the complete renovation of the former Medical-Surgical unit into a 9,185 square foot new Primary Care Center – a 53 percent expansion – that is telehealth enabled and will offer improved care coordination. This move will enhance patient care by locating the Primary Care Clinic to the front of the building and adjacent to the Specialty Clinic and improve interdisciplinary coordination for treatment plans.
“Having Primary Care in our main building, and under one roof, will be a great convenience to our patients,” says Matthew Rouff, Executive Director, Outpatient and Support Services at Schuyler Hospital and the project’s manager. “When patients see their physicians and get an order for bloodwork or x-rays, they only have to walk a few steps to get the tests done that day in the same building.”
In anticipation of the expansion, work began in November 2018 on new and expanded parking lots to support the Transformation project. The Phase 1 project cost is primarily covered by a $10.3 million grant from New York’s Statewide Health Care Facility Transformation Program. The grant was the largest of six grants, totaling $40 million, awarded in 2017 to hospitals and health-care programs in the Southern Tier. The new project follows a $6.5 million renovation funded by a state grant in 2014 that improved the hospital’s clinical laboratory, operating rooms, out-patient registration area, and gift shop, as well as its main entrance and hallway.
The growth of specialty health-care services at Schuyler Hospital underscores how patient needs have been changing. In 2014, the hospital’s two specialists in orthopedics and general surgery had approximately 1,500 patient visits. By the end of 2019, nine specialists were at the hospital for over 4,700 patient visits. The range of on-site specialty care includes oncology, cardiology, gynecology, sleep/pulmonology, orthopedics, general surgery, wound care and ear, nose and throat care.