A Tale of Two Villages

Big changes are already underway in Port Jervis and Kingston, preparing for the comprehensive-care centers of the future.

By Deborah Skolnik

A hospital is a wonderful resource for any community. And residents in Kingston and Port Jervis will soon have an even greater asset: Each city is slated to become the site of a medical village, being developed by the Westchester Medical Center Health Network (WMCHealth), to provide comprehensive outpatient services and improve community health. Ultimately, the medical villages will have an even larger overall effect — reducing expensive and avoidable hospital visits.

Imagine going to one central location to receive diabetes care, take an exercise class and pick up needed prescriptions all under one roof. The two “villages” will offer these services and more, from urgent care to cancer screenings in convenient, one-stop locations.

To prepare for the changes, new partnerships and upgrades are taking place throughout WMCHealth. Earlier this year, the Bon Secours Charity Health System, in Port Jervis, entered into a multiyear, $180-million partnership with Royal Philips, a leading provider of healthcare technology.

The collaboration will provide Bon Secours Community Hospital — a member of WMCHealth, and the epicenter of the medical village in Port Jervis — with access to advanced medical solutions. Cutting-edge imaging and patient-monitoring systems, clinical and business-consulting services and more will all be available to staff.

The results — increased standardization, connectivity and optimization of technological resources — will help WMCHealth fulfill its commitment to Hudson Valley patients. “By collaborating with partners like Philips, we can go beyond providing diagnosis and treatment, to work on proactive health management, such as healthy living and prevention,” says Mary Leahy, MD, CEO of Bon Secours Charity Health System. “Together, we can transform healthcare, creating integrated solutions and patient-care models, while providing exceptional, compassionate care to those we serve.”

In Kingston, HealthAlliance Hospitals’ services are rapidly broadening. The new “hospital of the future” will debut on the Mary’s Avenue Campus, featuring a new, more efficient Emergency Center, intensive care unit and endoscopy center, plus two medical-surgical floors. It will undergo dramatic upgrades, as well, including a new main entrance and lobby, imaging center, family-birth space and same-day-surgery suite. And when the medical village is completed, it will occupy the current Broadway Campus.

These may all be big changes, but they’re aimed at an even larger goal: making WMCHealth’s two new medical villages among the most technologically advanced community-health resources in the nation.

Pictured above: A $133+ million technologically advanced transformation is taking place at HealthAlliance Hospital’s campuses.