NYU Langone plans to further expand the emergency department at its flagship suburban hospital, part of a larger spree of growth outside the city.
The Kips Bay-based health system filed plans to add 1,390 square feet to the emergency department at NYU Langone Hospital—Long Island in Mineola just months after opening a new emergency pavilion at the same facility. The new expansion, a $9.1 million construction project, is intended to improve patient waiting times and alleviate excessive demands on the emergency room, according to an application submitted to the state Department of Health.
The filing comes shortly after the hospital opened a new 7,200 square foot annex to the emergency department in December. The pavilion more than doubled the hospital’s emergency treatment capacity, adding 29 low-acuity beds and 24 designated patient spaces, for a total of 85 bays.
But the hospital, a 591-bed Level I trauma and stroke center, has experienced a sustained high volume in its emergency department, which it hopes to alleviate with the new floor space, according to the filing. The additional square footage – to be located in the main hospital outside the new annex – will grow the department’s “fast track” area to help move patients through the system. The space will improve the facility’s triage capacity, increasing the speed of diagnosis and treatment as well as shorten the time it takes to be admitted to the hospital, the filing states.
The facility has taken “extensive efforts” to reduce the use of its emergency department to avoid the need for further expansion, but determined that growing the physical plant was the “only sustainable solution to the increase in volume,” according to the filing.
The hospital did not comment on what is driving the increased demand on its emergency room or what specific measures had been taken to reduce the burden.
The expansion is the latest in NYU Langone’s march across the island. Last month, the health system finalized a merger with the former Long Island Community Hospital, a 306-bed facility in East Patchogue, previously the last independent hospital operating on Long Island. That acquisition helped to solidify the health system’s footprint in Suffolk County on the eastern end of the island.
Plans for the new expansion, to be paid for in cash, follow a strong quarter for the health system. The hospital reported a $113 million surplus in the second quarter of its fiscal year from December to February. The system’s six hospitals and over 300 clinics took in $2.5 billion in revenue, an increase of 10% over the same period the year before.
