$20,000 Gift in Support of the Expansion of South Nassau’s ED

South Nassau Communities Hospital has received a gift of $20,000 from the Syde Hurdus Foundation in support of the hospital’s $60-million emergency department renovation and expansion project.

The project will increase the Emergency Department’s square footage from 16,000 to 30,000 square feet, increasing its overall size by 87%, giving it the necessary room to accommodate in excess of 80,000 patient visits each year as well as establishing dedicated areas for behavioral health and pediatric emergencies. The Emergency Department currently sees some 65,000 patients a year, but is designed to handle just 35,000 annually.

“We are grateful benefactors of the generosity and honorable mission of the Syde Hurdus Foundation,” said South Nassau President & CEO Richard Murphy. “The foundation’s generosity and mission has been essential to the robust growth of South Nassau to meet the needs of the patients it serves.”

The Syde Hurdus Foundation has an extensive history of loyal support of South Nassau, donating annually for more than a decade to fund various hospital expansion and renovation projects. Previous gifts to South Nassau include funding for the purchase of cancer treatment planning technologies and equipment for South Nassau’s Gertrude & Louis Feil Cancer Center; to support construction of the hospital’s North Addition and Center for Cardiovascular Health; for the purchase of bedside ultrasound equipment; and for the renovation and modernization of a medical/surgical patient care unit.

This latest donation from the foundation will be used to fund the first phase of the ED expansion, which encompasses a much-needed renovation of the patient and family waiting area, the construction of dedicated units for pediatric and psychiatric emergencies, and the reconfiguration of floor space for the addition of ten new treatment bays. The total cost of this phase is approximately $15.5 million, which is expected to be completed in 2016.

South Nassau’s Emergency Services Department is one of the busiest in Nassau County, realizing an 8.5 percent increase in patient visits in 2013.

Presently housing 35 treatment bays, South Nassau’s ED is a New York State Department of Health regional stroke center and the only Level II Trauma Center located in southern Nassau County. The department is staffed by a team of dedicated professionals including board-certified, residency-trained emergency medicine physicians as well as nurses, nurse practitioners, certified emergency nurses and physicians' assistants who have been specially-trained in emergency medical care. It is one of few hospitals in New York with such staffing.

To reduce waiting times, the department has a special unit dedicated to treat minor emergencies from abrasions to fractures, flu and fevers. Additionally, the ED deploys advanced imaging technology with state-of-the-art CAT scanning, ultrasound and digital radiology services with on-site radiologists available for rapid diagnostic results. Recognizing that children have unique presentations for disease and sometimes require special handling, the emergency department's staff includes physicians with specialized training in pediatrics and emergency medicine.

A recipient of the Get With The Guidelines® Stroke Gold Plus Quality Achievement Award, and a recipient of the American Stroke Association’s Target: Stroke designation, the department is among the top 10% of stroke programs in the nation, and provides the rapid assessment and advanced therapies and procedures for patients in need of emergency stroke care.

If a patient arrives at the department in need of emergency treatment for heart attack, South Nassau is the only hospital on the South Shore of Nassau County to provide angioplasty in an emergency. Angioplasty is a potentially life-saving, patient-centered treatment to reopen a partially closed coronary artery that can cause a heart-attack.

When providing emergency angioplasty, South Nassau averages a “door-to-balloon-time” of approximately 62 minutes, which is 28 minutes faster than the national standard door-to-balloon time benchmark of 90 minutes. (Door-to-balloon time is the time measured in minutes from the moment the patient walks in the door to the point the artery in the heart is re-opened with a stent. Studies show that patients having a heart attack who receive treatment in less than 90 minutes have a better chance of recovery.) Many other New York hospitals with angioplasty programs achieve the 90-minute average 75-85% of the time, but at South Nassau, we are achieving it 100% of the time.

South Nassau is a recipient of the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association’s Get With The Guidelines®–Target: Stroke Honor Roll-Elite Quality Achievement Award as well as the American Heart Association/American College of Cardiology Foundation Get With The Guidelines®–Heart Failure Silver-Plus Quality Achievement Award.

Designated a Magnet® hospital by the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC), South Nassau® Communities Hospital is one of the region’s largest hospitals, with 455 beds, more than 900 physicians and 3,000 employees. Located in Oceanside, NY, the hospital is an acute-care, not-for-profit teaching hospital that provides state-of-the-art care in cardiac, oncologic, orthopedic, bariatric, pain management, mental health and emergency services. In addition to its extensive outpatient specialty centers, South Nassau provides emergency and elective angioplasty, and is the only hospital on Long Island with the Novalis Tx™ and Gamma Knife® radiosurgery technologies. South Nassau is a designated Stroke Center by the New York State Department of Health and Comprehensive Community Cancer Center by the American College of Surgeons and is an accredited center of the Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery Association and Quality Improvement Program.

In addition, the hospital has been awarded the Joint Commission’s gold seal of approval as a Top Performer on Key Quality Measures, including heart attack, heart failure, pneumonia and surgical care; and disease-specific care for hip and joint replacement, wound care and end-stage renal disease. For more information, visit www.southnassau.org.