1.6 Million State Grant

$1.6 Million State Grant Supports Faxton-St. Luke’s Healthcare (FSLH) and St. Elizabeth Medical Center Consolidation of OB Care Center Services

(Utica, NY) - Faxton-St. Luke’s Healthcare (FSLH) has received $1.6 million to fund the centralization of St. Elizabeth Medical Center’s Obstetrical Care Service with its own OB Care Center. The new central community-based OB/GYN Care Center will be located at FSLH’s St. Luke’s Campus.

Governor David A. Paterson announced recently that $280 million in grants will fund healthcare restructuring projects throughout New York State. The funding is designed to expand the availability of primary care in local communities, cut duplicative services in hospitals, “right size” nursing homes and fund consolidation projects by healthcare providers. These grants are funded through the Health Care Efficiency and Affordability Law for New Yorkers (HEAL NY), passed in 2006.

"The centralization of the OB Care Center at FSLH is one more way St. Elizabeth Medical Center and FSLH can pool valuable resources for the benefit of the patients and the community,” said Scott H. Perra, FACHE, executive vice president and COO of FSLH. “The two organizations have successfully established collaborative relationships with The Regional Cancer Center, Mohawk Valley Heart Institute, Community Diabetes Program and the Palliative Care Program. Our ability to access available funds through New York State was a key driver in the development and execution of the plan.”

The hospitals have been doing cooperative community planning for more than a decade. Their collaborative working relationship allows both organizations to address issues that impact patients throughout the area, including obstetrical services.

According to Robert Scholefield, Vice President of St. Elizabeth Medical Group, there are numerous benefits for both organizations to centralize OB Care Services.

“FSLH OB Care Center does not currently offer gynecology services to its patients and St. Elizabeth Medical Center does not offer inpatient OB services, so this collaboration will remedy both of these situations and allow patients a convenient access to both services ,” said Scholefield. “In the long term, this project will also offer a recruitment incentive to our Family Practice Residency Program. For the OB Service of the program, we need a larger volume of local patients and an increased number of local deliveries to support the Residency Program. Centralizing the OB Care Centers will enhance our current program by offering the space needed for the Residency Program, providing the number of deliveries required and creating an opportunity for a more intense, detailed OB rotation at one site.”

The $1.6 million project at the St. Luke’s Campus involves renovations to the existing 1,810 square foot OB Care Center as well as a 3,860 square foot addition. The expansion and renovations includes new exam rooms, procedure rooms, a larger waiting room, new medical equipment and support functions that include physician office space, reception, financial counseling and medical records.

The hospital is required to submit a Certificate of Need (CON) application to the New York State Department of Health for the expansion and that is anticipated to occur within the next 30 days. In conjunction with the CON approval process, the construction documents will be reviewed and completed with a possible start date of April 2009 and an opening in late 2009.

The OB Care Center project is designed to continue to improve the level of patient care - optimizing physician and family practice resident staff, alleviating space and staffing shortages, increasing available services to all patients within the community, as well as decreased healthcare costs.

The primary patient populations for both OB Care Centers are insured by Medicaid. In 2007, FSLH’s OB Care Center had 6,800 visits and St. Elizabeth’s OB Care Center had 5,124 visits and 1,356 visits for gynecology services. FSLH’s Birthplace had 2,200 deliveries in 2007, with approximately 750 of those being births from OB Care Center patients from both locations. The Birthplace at Faxton-St. Luke’s Healthcare is the only hospital in the Utica area that performs deliveries and has a Level II Special Care Nursery staffed by neonatologists.

The mission of the OB/GYN Care Center at FSLH is to promote community-based care through the centralization of services providing optimal, holistic prenatal and gynecology care to the underserved and underinsured population of the community. This project will eliminate the duplication of local healthcare services at two facilities and remove barriers to accessing women’s services. There is a growing need to have prenatal, postnatal care and delivery services in one location, and this project will fulfill these needs.

“Patients will greatly benefit from receiving all of their care at one location,” said Kathleen Dean, RN, at FSLH’s OB Care Center. “Having the opportunity to provide prenatal and postnatal care as well as delivering the baby will allow us to form long-term relationships with our patients. We are looking forward to providing all aspects of care, which will not only benefit patients, but our staff as well.”