Tuesday, July 8, 2014
Testing New Kind Of Emergency Care
A New York State Health Foundation official calls the "HealthPlex," a free-standing emergency center opening across the street from the former St. Vincent's Hospital in NYC, as as a test case for a new kind of care.
The new facility located between West 12th and 13th streets on Seventh Avenue--an E.R. without a hospital, and offering 24-hour emergency care and outpatient surgery--is "not a substitute for primary care and it's not a full service hospital but it's right in between," said David Sandman, Senior Vice President at the New York State Health Foundation.
The new care center is opening four years after St. Vincent’s Hospital closed. Proponents of the concept say it is an economical way to restore medical services to the neighborhood and that the idea might also work well in other places where aging hospitals are teetering on the edge of bankruptcy….