Bruce C. Vladeck, Ph.D., former President of the United Hospital Fund, found that there is a “significant shortage of physicians, ancillary services and specialty geriatric and behavioral health services” on the barrier island.

1. For Immediate Release February 17, 2016
Contact: Damian Becker, Manager of Media Relations
(516) 377-5370
Leading Health Care Consultant Urges Expansion of Emergency
Care & Primary Care Services in Long Beach
Oceanside, NY….A leading health care consultant who studied the medical needs of
Long Beach in the wake of Superstorm Sandy has recommended that South Nassau
Communities Hospital continue to expand Emergency Services, increase access to primary care
physicians and focus on improving behavioral health services and care for the elderly.
Bruce C. Vladeck, Ph.D., the former head of the U.S. Health Care Financing
Administration (now the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid) during the Clinton administration
and the former President of the United Hospital Fund, found that there is a “significant shortage
of physicians, ancillary services and specialty geriatric and behavioral health services” on the
barrier island. His recommendations include:
• A continuing effort to upgrade the types of Emergency Services the newly opened
Emergency Department in Long Beach can provide so that it is capable of
handling 65-75 percent of all ambulance calls on the barrier island;
• Expanding laboratory capabilities at the Long Beach Emergency Department and
adding ultrasound services there;
• Adding more observation beds to the Long Beach Emergency Department;
• Improving South Nassau’s existing Family Practice site so that it would qualify as
a Primary Care Medical Home with 24/7 telephone access for patients;
• Forming a workgroup with Long Beach, State and County agencies to undertake a
“more systematic behavioral health services planning for the barrier island.”
The Vladeck study also examined the question of whether Long Beach needs and could
financially support a general hospital if one were to be built. Using “relatively optimistic
assumptions” about the number of expected inpatient admissions and not including initial “ramp
up” costs, the study found a 50-bed hospital would lose an average of $10.8 million a year,
totaling $54 million in losses during its first five years of operation. (The financial analysis was
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2. conducted by John Lavan of JL Consulting. Lavan is a leading health care financing expert who
served as the former Chief Financial Officer of New York-Presbyterian Hospital.)
The estimates were based on a close examination of the 5,543 hospital stays of residents
of the barrier island that occurred in 2013. That number of stays would generate an average
census of 40 admissions per day, which would require a facility of 50 inpatient hospital beds, the
study found.
In addition to the financial losses a 50-bed hospital would generate, the study also
questioned whether a hospital that small would have a sufficient volume of cases in certain
specialty areas to produce quality patient outcomes.
“A growing body of literature continues to reinforce the general principle that the more a
particular physician or hospital sees of a specific condition, the better the outcomes. This
relationship is particularly strong for certain surgeries, including cardiac, cancer, GI and
prostate,” the study noted. “This relationship is also strong for both routine and high-risk
maternity services…which is why hospitals performing fewer than 1500 deliveries a year are
gradually closing those services.”
Regulators in New York State also are generally pushing for a reduction in the number of
in-patient hospital beds, “especially downstate, including Nassau County,” the study noted.
Vladeck also attempted to address and update the findings of a 2006 Commission on
Health Care Facilities in the 21st
Century report (also known as the Berger Commission), which
recommended at the time that the former Long Beach Medical Center be downsized to a 145 bed
facility. Proponents of building a new hospital in Long Beach – post Superstorm Sandy – have
repeatedly cited the Berger Commission findings as evidence that the barrier island could
support a 145 bed hospital.
As part of his research, Vladeck asked Stephen Berger, the head of the 2006
Commission, if he believed his 2006 study should still be relied upon at this juncture. “It would
be a mistake, at this point, to conclude that having access to health services automatically
requires a hospital facility,” Berger wrote in response to Vladeck in a letter dated Oct. 30, 2015.
The Vladeck study said the focus by some community leaders on whether to replace the
shuttered Long Beach Medical Center with a new hospital, which has dominated much of the
public debate since Sandy hit in 2012, has diverted attention from more critical health care
questions facing Long Beach residents – like the lack of primary care physicians on the island.
The study also noted that Long Beach is an “extremely well educated” and “well-
insured” community that is “solidly middle-class.” As of 2013, 85 percent of the non-elderly
adult population had public or private health insurance.

3. South Nassau commissioned the Vladeck study last August as part of its commitment to
Long Beach to determine what medical services are most needed on the barrier island. As part of
his study, Vladeck interviewed key leaders from the civic, business & health care communities
as well as federal, state and local elected officials. He also reviewed government data on where
barrier island residents are receiving hospital care and for what diseases.
South Nassau has briefed more than 60 local community, civic and elected leaders about
the results of the study and about its plans for expansion and use of the FEMA funds. That
process will continue in the weeks ahead as hospital officials seek additional community input on
the Vladeck study and on its proposals for the FEMA funding. The proposed plans still must
undergo a series of formal review procedures at the local and state levels.
Some local leaders are expressing support for South Nassau’s plans to improve access to
medical care in Long Beach and in Oceanside.
Mayor Michael McGinty of Island Park called South Nassau “the finest regional hospital on
the Island,” noting it is “at the forefront of service and technology” and its medical staff “is without
parallel both in capability and compassion for its patients.” McGinty praised the hospital’s expansion
plans. “The administration continues to expand the ability of the Hospital to deliver extraordinary
care to its patient population,” he said.
South Nassau took over the former Long Beach Medical Center in October of 2014 after
it declared bankruptcy following damage from Superstorm Sandy. The Federal Emergency
Management Agency (FEMA) awarded South Nassau $171 million in potential reimbursement
funds to help restore medical services to the area. South Nassau has already spent $13 million to
open an Urgent Care Center on the site of the former Long Beach Medical Center and upgrade it
to a free-standing Emergency Department that started receiving ambulances via the 9-1-1 system
as of Aug. 10th
. The hospital has said it intends to spend about $40 million on a medical arts
pavilion in Long Beach that would be the permanent home of the Long Beach Emergency
Department as well as house other services identified by the needs assessment that Vladeck
conducted. Under the ‘alternative use’ provision of FEMA legislation, South Nassau intends to
spend the remaining FEMA funds to bolster services at its Oceanside campus to benefit Long
Beach and other residents in its service area, which stretches from the Rockaways to the
Massapequas.
South Nassau’s Oceanside Emergency Department is the only Level II Trauma Center on
the South Shore of Nassau County.
Designated a Magnet® hospital by the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC),
South Nassau® Communities Hospital is one of the region’s largest hospitals, with 455 beds,
more than 900 physicians and 3,000 employees. The hospital is an acute-care, not-for-profit

4. teaching hospital that provides state-of-the-art care in cardiac, oncologic, orthopedic, bariatric,
pain management, mental health and emergency services. In addition to its extensive outpatient
specialty centers, South Nassau provides emergency and elective angioplasty, and is the only
hospital on Long Island with the Novalis Tx™ and Gamma Knife® radiosurgery technologies.
South Nassau is a designated Stroke Center by the New York State Department of Health and
Comprehensive Community Cancer Center by the American College of Surgeons and is an
accredited center of the Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery Association and Quality Improvement
Program.
The hospital has been awarded the Joint Commission’s gold seal of approval as a Top
Performer on Key Quality Measures, including heart attack, heart failure, pneumonia and
surgical care; and disease-specific care for hip and joint replacement, wound care and end-stage
renal disease. For more information, visit www.southnassau.org.
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