Healthcare innovations save lives

Elmhurst, Jamaica and NewYork-Presbyterian Queens hospitals see upgrades

by Naeisha Rose Associate Editor

It’s the 21st century, and with new technology comes improvements in healthcare. While Covid-19 certainly opened the public’s eyes to the importance of maintaining and upgrading hospitals, many of the health facilities in Queens were already in the process of making improvements not only to better treat patients but to also provide care in more efficient buildings.

At NYC Health + Hospitals/Elmhurst, there are several ongoing projects, according to Milenko Milinec, the chief operating officer at the medical center.

“We’ve been very fortunate over the last few years that we have a lot of elected officials and elected partners who are contributing to upgrades at the facility,” Milinec told the Queens Chronicle. “We have in total $560 million in upgrades on the way or planned at the hospital here.”

At the end of July, the hospital will have two full-size operating rooms after it merges two cystology rooms with an existing operating suite. The new ORs will have a tech space too.

“We are creating two full-size operating rooms capable of robotic surgeries,” Milinec said. “We will increase our surgical capacity at the hospital” by 20 percent.

Surgeons will use a da Vinci robot to assist them with procedures.

The hospital also has an ambulatory surgery expansion.

“We are adding another OR and four procedure rooms,” said the COO. “That will increase our outpatient surgical capabilities at the hospital, as well. That will add us many surgical sub-specialties: urology, gastroenterology, general surgery, pulmonology, symptomology and gynecology.”

The hospital also has modernized its radiology rooms.

“We have made many imaging upgrades,” said Milinec. “We’ve replaced the equipment at three of our mammography rooms with digital mammography. We have a fourth planned for this upcoming year, so that we are fully modernized with our entire mammography suite.”

The hospital is in the process of replacing a nuclear camera, it replaced a CT scanner and an upgrade to a Cardiac Cath Lab is in the works, according to Milinec.

“A nuclear camera is used to better locate the cancer in patients,” he said. “It gives us a clearer image of where it is.”

There will also be a $13 million renovation of the hospital’s entire Labor & Delivery Suite.

“That will provide a new recovery space, a new triage and a new anti-partum space,” the COO said. The project is scheduled to begin in December and is expected to take 15 months to complete. “We are looking at Spring of ’25 for completion.”

The ambulatory expansion is expected to have the same timeline as the L&D suite. The mammography suite upgrade is expected to start in August and be completed in three months, as well as the Cardiac Cath Lab.

“It has been a decade since the first talk of renovation,” Milinec added. “We had completed design prior to Covid ... Thankfully, we didn’t start construction because we were at the epicenter of the epicenter for Covid ... We now section off areas of the Emergency Room and are able to manipulate airflow should there be other surges.”

Some energy upgrades at the hospital, which is located at 79-01 Broadway, include solar panels on the Ambulatory Clinical building and spending $8 million on an emer- gency electrical system.

Located in Flushing, NewYorkPresbyterian Queens said it is passionate about providing high-quality care to the city’s most diverse borough.

“I’m proud of the new programs, units and innovation at NewYorkPresbyterian Queens,” said Jaclyn Mucaria, NY-Presbyterian Queens’ president, in a statement via email. “Our commitment to the community we serve is unmatched and we’re constantly looking for ways to bring more enhanced services directly to our patients where it’s convenient for them.” rological condition at a general or surgical ICU, but the neuro-ICU will be able to react faster in providing care helping to speed up healing, improve outcomes and shorten hospital stays.

The hospital recently opened a new state-of-the-art pre-operative area and family waiting area with two new operating rooms. The two new rooms include the latest in robotic surgery capabilities and equipment.

The neuro-ICU will include a full CT scanner on-site, private rooms, dedicated video EEGs at each hospital bed to help detect seizure activity, ICU point-of-care pharmacists and a patient lift in each room to ensure safe transitions for both patients and medical staff.

To improve their techniques, physicians, nurses and other personnel use medical simulation to help healthcare professionals and trainees at the hospital perfect their teamwork and communication and further develop their skills, according to NYPQ.

Future Prescription

NY-Presbyterian also upgraded and expanded its intensive care units with state-of-theart equipment to provide broader critical care. The expansion included redesigning three brandnew units with 60 ICU rooms to support adult surgical, medical, cardiac and neurological critically ill patients.

Opening in July, it will be home to the only neuroscience intensive care unit in the borough, offering specialized critical care for patients with complex neurological conditions, according to the hospital. Specialized treatment may not be readily available for patients with a neu- ceremony on June 16. “Our volume peaked in 2010, at 135,000 visits when neighboring hospitals closed. That made us the 27th busiest emergency department in the country.”

Prepandemic, visits were averaging 120,000 per year, he added.

“We are the busiest Level 1 Trauma Center in all of New York City,” said Flanz. “As a safety-net hospital, we have not had access to capital for major facility upgrades and that is why we are profoundly grateful to Gov. Hochul for providing this ... transformation grant that will enable us to provide ... exceptional services in a state-of-the-art emergency department. Our community, and our patients deserve nothing less.”

The hospital will go from having one trauma bay to four major trauma bays, from one isolation room to 22, and three times the number of treatment areas, he said. There will also be two new intensive care units: a 12-bed neuro-ICU and a 10-bed ICU. That brings the total of ICU beds to 48.

“When completed, the Emergency Department will double in size,” the CEO said. “The project will also add much-needed space to our mental health program and to our CPAC,” or chest pain center.

JHMC will also collaborate with Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center to develop its cancer care program.

“This year, like last year, we have targeted our gala to support the development of our cancer program with the goal of providing world-class cancer service ... right here in Jamaica, Queens,” the JHMC president added.

Flanz told the Chronicle that the development with MSK is going great.

At Jamaica Hospital Medical Center, ground was symbolically broken last Friday in the doctors’ parking lot, which is adjacent to its C-building, for a $150 million Emergency Department expansion that will help the health facility serve more than 150,000 patients annually.

The parking lot, located on 89th Avenue between 135th Street and the Van Wyck Expressway Service Road in Richmond Hill, will be taken up by the expanded Emergency Department, according to JHMC President and CEO Bruce Flanz.

“We were able to build the current ER in 1989 anticipating our volume would grow from 30,000 annual visits to 60,000,” Flanz said at the

“They are excited as much about this as we are,” Flanz said. “We have new oncologists who will be providing services right here on our campus. We will be providing services across the board and the goal is to provide as many of the services here, and if there is someone who has a significant need, we have that relationship where they can get treated at Memorial.”

Hochul, the keynote speaker last Friday, said the $150 million was an investment into the future of the community.

“As a result more lives will be saved,” Hochul said. “We have so much more to do. But this community deserves the finest institution, the finest facilities and the finest opportunities to get the best health outcomes in life.” Q