Kings County Hospital is again moving to expand its emergency room capacity as patient demand skyrockets.
New York City Health + Hospitals filed plans with the state on Tuesday to enlarge units that support the overcrowded emergency room at its East Flatbush hospital. The plans include relocating the hospital’s so-called “fast track” unit to move patients with minor injuries out of the emergency room setting and building a 12-bay observation unit to monitor patients who have already been treated outside the ED.
Kings County Hospital, located at 421 Clarkson Ave., is one of the most overcrowded in the public hospital system. Patients have flocked to the 624-bed safety-net hospital as medical centers in central Brooklyn have either closed or reduced services, including Kingsbrook Jewish Medical Center, which closed in 2023, and SUNY Downstate’s University Hospital, which narrowly avoided a closure but has reduced services because of its physical infrastructure, Dr. Mitchell Katz, president and CEO of H+H, said during a City Council hearing last year.
The influx of patients at Kings County Hospital has led to overcrowding and long wait times in the ED. The hospital’s yearly emergency visits skyrocketed by 30% in just two years, jumping from 84,000 in 2021 to 109,000 in 2023, according to the public hospital system.
H+H built the fast track unit next door to the emergency room to operate as an urgent care facility that could triage patients with minor respiratory symptoms or strains to a lower level of care. Patients typically wait in the emergency room before they are moved to the fast track unit, but the hospital’s proposal would move that unit to a building down the street, according to its application.
Kings County also plans to build a new observation next door to the fast track unit, so that patients can stay to be monitored without clogging up the ED, the application said.
A representative from the public hospital system did not respond to a request for comment by publication.
Kings County has planned a series of expansions in recent months to accommodate rising volume and ease overcrowding. Earlier this month, the public hospital asked the state to approve its conversion of 25 substance-use beds to medical-surgical beds, so it could increase general hospital capacity and move patients out of the ER. It also moved to expand its ambulatory surgery unit in September as it prepared to accommodate a rise in patients from the closure of SUNY Downstate, which has since been tabled after the medical center received an influx of funding from the state.
