By Frank Donnelly
The Staten Island Advance
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — Staten Islanders can expect shorter wait times and a new way of doing business when the sprawling new Elizabeth A. Connelly Emergency and Trauma Center opens later this month at Staten Island University Hospital’s Ocean Breeze campus.
Almost three years in the making, the $39 million emergency room more than triples the size of the hospital’s current 12,000-square-foot emergency room to 40,000 square feet. Patient capacity will rise to 85,000 visits a years, from the current 70,000.
Outfitted with the latest in high-tech equipment, the new ER will house a pediatric care center, urgent care center, trauma care center, decontamination and isolation areas, and 56 private rooms, up from the current 34 total rooms.
Just as important, the emergency room will feature a new treatment process that will aid patients quicker and get them in and out of the emergency area faster and more comfortably.
“We’re bringing something to this community they’ve deserved for a long time,” said Dr. Brahim Ardolic, the hospital’s director of emergency medicine. “The premise is to bring the care to the patient as quickly as possible.”
A ribbon-cutting ceremony will be held June 26. The first patients are expected to be received a few days later.
“With the June 26 dedication of our Elizabeth A. Connelly Emergency and Trauma Center, we celebrate a dream come true,” said Anthony C. Ferreri, the hospital’s president and CEO. “The new emergency department revolutionizes the way Staten Islanders will receive emergency care ... with a promise of no-wait triage as patients and family members are escorted to one of the 56 patient rooms.”
End of long waits?
Ferreri said the hospital has raised $27.5 million of its $30 million goal for the trauma center and the Regina M. McGinn M.D. Medical Education Center, which is being built atop the new ER.
The education center boasts a 250-seat auditorium and will be used both by hospital staff and community groups for training sessions and symposiums. The combined facility will cost about $56 million, said Ferreri.
Most of the funding has been secured from a combination of philanthropy, donations, government money and other sources. The hospital is also borrowing $13 million, said Ferreri, who praised the “unprecedented outpouring of generosity and support” that University Hospital received from community donors.
The hospital’s nerve center, the ER, had been plagued by long wait times.
Four years ago, patients typically waited nearly three hours to see a doctor, said Dr. Ardolic. The current wait time is less than 40 minutes, yet there still are instances when the ER gets so backed up that patients wait for hours on gurneys in the hallway.
As it stands now, the treatment process can be maddening. Patients move among a seemingly endless set of musical chairs from registrar to nurse to technician to doctor, with wait stops in the lobby.
One-stop shopping
It’ll be more like one-stop shopping when the new ER opens, said Dr. Ardolic.
After registering, patients will be brought into a private room in the ER, where nurses and doctors will come to them. Many of the 12-feet-by-12-feet rooms have windows. All have sinks, portals for wall-mounted monitors, a computer station and space for family to gather.
Patients will be segregated according to needs.
Urgent care patients, such as those requiring X-rays to diagnose sprains or breaks or those seeking treatment for the flu, will be brought to the eight-room Urgent Care area. That center has an embedded X-ray room.
Children will be brought to the seven-bed pediatric care unit, which features its own brightly colored waiting area.
Patients requiring more extensive treatment, for example, from injuries suffered in high-speed vehicular accidents, can be taken straight from an ambulance into the trauma bays.
Adjoining the trauma bays are an elevator that travels nonstop to the operating room and another elevator to the CAT scan section.
The decontamination and isolation rooms are accessible directly from outside, meaning patients exposed to toxins won’t come into contact with other emergency room patients.
The charge nurse will be centrally located to dispatch resources as needed.
Big Changes
“Small changes in the process equals big changes in beds being available,” said Dr. Ardolic. “I don’t think anyone can promise there will never, ever, be a patient in an ER hallway again [but] you’re not going to be going into the hallway on a regular basis. Comfort of the family and patients is one of the things you’re going to see.”
Dr. Allan Perel, president of the Richmond County Medical Society, and a New Dorp-based neurologist, said that is a worthwhile goal.
“There’s a certain humanity in not having to be in the hallway with 12 other people,” he said. "[Patients] get better in a comfortable environment.”
Dr. Ardolic and Frank Morisano, associate vice president of the emergency department, said current staffing levels, both among doctors and nurses, are sufficient to meet the new ER’s needs. But they’ll monitor the situation and bring in more personnel if needed.
Dr. James Kenny, associate chairman of the emergency department, has been in the ER since 1987.
He said he likes what he sees.
“I’m extremely excited,” said Dr. Kenny. “This is bringing us into the 21st century.”
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