Like many hospitals regionally and nationwide, South Nassau Communities Hospital is adjusting to the changing face of health care delivery and accommodating patient needs.

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OCEANSIDE/ISLANDPARKHERALD—May7,2015
By VANESSA PARKER
vparker@liherald.com
Like many hospitals regionally and
nationwide, South Nassau Communities
Hospital is adjusting to the changing face of
health care delivery and accommodating
patient needs.
Along with a Medical Arts Pavilion to be
built on the former Long Beach Medical Cen-
ter site, South Nassau also has plans for its
Oceanside campus, including expansion of
its emergency department, critical care unit
and operating rooms.
The Medical Arts Pavilion in Long Beach
will be a two-story, 30,000-square-foot build-
ing that will include a 24-hour emergency
room and the capacity to house other health
service departments. Completion is expected
in 2017.
SNCH’s Oceanside emergency depart-
ment was last expanded and renovated 10
years ago. It currently has 16,000 square feet
of space with 35 treatment bays and seven
“fast track” stations. The need for expansion
and upgrading is due in part to the increase
in the volume of patients in 2014, up 8.5 per-
cent since Long Beach Medical Center closed
after Hurricane Sandy. A $60 million expan-
sion plan, from SNCH capital funds, would
expand that space to 30,000 square feet capac-
ity and allow for 75,000 annual visits. Cur-
rently, there are 65,000 visits, according to the
latest statistics from 2014.
Dr. Joshua Kugler, the hospital’s emergen-
cy services director and Emergency Medi-
cine Department chairman, said that the
treatment bays and resuscitation rooms in
the emergency department are equipped
with accessible technology such as X-ray and
CT scan machines to get the best treatment
as fast as possible.
The hospital is also planning to have des-
ignated behavioral health, geriatrics and
pediatrics treatment areas in its emergency
department, and will expanded waiting
areas. “We are also thinking about a different
treatment environment for geriatrics,”
Kugler said. “For example, we don’t put pedi-
atrics in with geriatrics or other adults with
care. Both have very different needs.”
The Center for Cardiovascular Health is
equipped with two cardiac catheterization
labs, where technologically advanced, mini-
mally invasive procedures are performed on
patients with blocked coronary passages. Dr.
Jason Freeman, the director of intervention-
al cardiology and the catheterization labora-
tories at SNCH, said that his department per-
forms more than 200 emergency heart proce-
dures each year.
Freeman said that elapsed-time stan-
dards-- measuring the time it takes for a
patient entering the hospital to treatment
with life-saving obstructed-heart-vessel infla-
tion procedures-- are exceeded in SNCH’s
cath labs. “The norm is what we call ‘90 min-
utes door-to-balloon-time,’” he said. “Here at
SNCH, with our cardio cath lab, we have got-
ten it down to 60.” Freeman said that he and
his staff “meet each month for improvement
discussion.” In addition to the catherization
process, the labs use a fluoroscope, a large-
lens camera, to view inside the heart.
The hospital is data-driven to better focus
on patient needs, said William Ulrich, the
vice president of administration. “What are
the needs of the community? We must
know,” he said. “What we’re designing has to
be reflecting their needs.”
The hospital plans to add six more operat-
ing rooms, Ulrich said. They will measure
about 600 square feet.
“As part of the planning process, we want
to add more space to accommodate equip-
ment rooms,” he said. “Forty years ago, we
didn’t have, for example, laparoscopy
machines. The technology has expanded to
the point where the surgery methods have
changed.”
SNCH is equipped to meet the needs of
patients in the future, according to Dr. Adhi
Sharma, its acting chief medical officer.
“Convenience, comfort and use of technolo-
gy is the reason for upgrading,” he said.
“This upgrade benefits all the communities.”
South Nassau has eyes on the future
Expansion plans for Long Beach and
Oceanside are developing
Photos by John O’Connell/Herald
DR. JASON FREEMAN, director of South Nassau’s interventional cardiology department, spoke with pride about his cardiac unit’s performance exceeding standards of
patient care. He is pictured in one of two catheterization labs at the hospital in Oceanside.
SNCH PRESIDENT AND CEO RICHARD MURPHY, left, and Dr. Joshua Kugler,
director of emergency services, discussed plans for an emergency department
expansion at SNCH.