Peconic Bay Medical Center: Adapting to Change
Healthcare Spotlights
Written by Ashley McGown   
Sunday, 01 November 2009
Peconic Bay Medical Center: Adapting to Change
This organization responds to the needs of its community by adding more services to address a shift in demographics.
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The team at Riverhead, NY-based Peconic Bay Medical Center has worked hard throughout the last few years by staying dedicated to rolling out a string of investments related to infrastructure upgrades and program development. Although the investments make a positive impact on the organization as a whole, the emergency and surgical services departments have seen particularly significant improvements.

According to Andrew Mitchell, who joined the team at Peconic Bay roughly eight and a half years ago, the main driving factor behind the major investments is a shift in the surrounding community’s demographics.

“The east end of Long Island is becoming more of a retirement community, and we believe the people who choose to reside here should be able to get the quality healthcare services they need without having to travel a great distance,” said Mitchell, president and CEO.

Peconic Bay Medical Center: Adapting to Change
Andrew Mitchell, president and CEO
“For this reason, we’ve begun to expand the scope of services we offer,” he continued. “It’s an effort that’s involved not only expanding but also modernizing our facilities. We have to be able to attract new physicians to the area if we want to develop a wider range of specialty services.”

A great start
Peconic Bay, which employs a team of 1,300 employees and generates approximately $120 million annual revenue, has a rich history dating back to the early 1950s. The organization has undergone several changes throughout the last seven decades, the largest of which began in 2002.

That year, Peconic Bay’s administrative team introduced a strategic plan outlining long-term goals and plans for the following years. As of 2009, the majority of the physical plant investments and construction that was outlined is complete.

Construction on The Kanas Center for Advanced Surgery, a 40,000-square-foot surgical replacement facility, was the most recent project to wrap. Named in honor of a nationally recognized banker that contributed a significant amount of funds to support construction, The Kanas Center has allowed Peconic Bay to expand its orthopedic surgery services and introduce neurosurgery services like spine surgery.

The new surgical facility just opened in April, but Peconic Bay has already begun to receive recognition for its efforts. The organization was named a designated center of excellence for bariatric surgery, and, earlier this year, HealthGrades granted the facility a five-star rating for its general surgery services.

The Kanas Center was built as an extension of the main facility and actually now serves as the medical center’s main entrance. To ensure no space goes to waste, Mitchell and his team renovated the old operating room space to include an extensive new central sterile supply. Among other things, they hope to add an interventional cardiac cath lab.

To complement the physical changes, Peconic Bay has invested in technology to match. Its team uses a homegrown surgical information management system that works off a central database and is customized to fit the medical center’s specific needs.

“One of the most unique parts of that system is the patient tracking program that allows family members to know where their loved ones are at all times,” Mitchell said. “They can follow them along the continuum of care, from the OR to the recovery room.”

Patient information is posted on various monitors throughout the facility, and a numerical system is used to ensure patient privacy is upheld. In the near future, Mitchell hopes to introduce mobile-alert technology that allows family members to receive these updates via text message.  

An urgent need
In addition to investments related to the surgical center, the team at Peconic Bay recently invested in projects aimed at addressing its community’s need for more advanced emergency medical services.

Mitchell said he and his team approached this part of the strategic plan in two steps. First, they built a new emergency facility developed around a modern, private room model with advanced infection control systems and the latest physiological monitoring technology. Second, they made sure they had a strong team to staff the unit.

“We’re one of only two hospitals in the county whose physicians come from Stony Brook University Medical Center, which houses the only Level I trauma center in the area. We’ve been working with them for the last three years, and we have a combined emergency medicine faculty,” Mitchell said.
“We also team up with them to offer a residency teaching program in emergency medicine,” he added. “The relationship gives us the ability to work in the context of a larger health system, improving efficiency and quality of care in some areas.”

Help with financing
A nonprofit foundation was established in 2004 to help fund the medical center’s capital-heavy investment projects. The foundation operates as a separate organization and is governed by an independent board of directors, but its team is wholly dedicated to generating philanthropic support for Peconic Bay.

Mitchell said the foundation proved especially resourceful in recent years, but he expects its existence will benefit Peconic Bay well into the future. The medical center owns 44 acres of property to its south, and its team is looking to develop a retirement community in the coming years.

“As we move further down the road, the foundation board is looking to other initiatives to support as we continue to evolve,” Mitchell explained. “We want to take our existing skilled nursing facility, which is currently on our main campus, and move it to that area, combining it with independent housing and assisted living. This will help us move toward the fully private room hospital model, which is where we eventually want to be.”
 
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