NYU Langone has officially completed a long-awaited merger with a Suffolk County outpost.
Long Island Community Hospital, now named NYU Langone Hospital – Suffolk, officially merged with the Midtown-based health system today, ceasing operations as an independent facility. The completed deal, which is set to be announced by executives this morning, comes three years after NYU began its affiliation with the East Patchogue facility.
State health regulators gave NYU the nod to affiliate with Long Island Community Hospital in 2021. Since then, the health system has operated as the parent company of the 306-bed facility, investing an initial $100 million and offering technology and staffing upgrades to improve operations.
Before affiliating with NYU Langone, Long Island Community Hospital was the last remaining independent hospital on Long Island. Major city health systems have increasingly acquired free-standing hospitals, which often face financial challenges without the resources and vast outpatient network that larger systems offer. Hospital consolidation in New York has ramped up in recent years, with the state’s six largest health systems controlling 42% of all inpatient beds, according to a recent report from the Community Service Society, a Midtown nonprofit that offers health and social services.
The affiliation with NYU Langone represented a turnaround for Long Island Community Hospital, said Dr. Marc Adler, the hospital’s senior vice president and chief of hospital operations. Since the deal began, NYU has rolled out the Epic medical record system to streamline communication across sites of care and hired more than 100 doctors and advanced practitioners for the hospital. It has also started building outpatient facilities in the region, and expects an ambulatory clinic with six operating rooms in Patchogue to come online next year, Adler said.
The hospital has also focused on improving patient outcomes. NYU Langone Hospital – Suffolk has reduced average length-of-stay by two days and hospital-acquired infections by 25%, according to the health system.
“It’s not just a flip of the switch,” Adler said. “We needed a methodical approach, and that’s why it took three years.”
Adler said NYU has invested much more than the $100 million it initially committed to the facility, but he declined to offer more detail about the health system’s investments.
The deal marks NYU Langone’s third hospital acquisition in the past decade. The health system took over what was formerly known as Lutheran Medical Center, now NYU Langone — Brooklyn, in 2015. Four years later it acquired what was previously known as Winthrop Hospital in Mineola, building out its presence on Long Island.
