RWJ Barnabas Health, which opened a new medical center on 24th Street and Broadway in Bayonne in June, was approved as a Satellite Emergency Department (SED) according to the NJ Department of Health. The center still needs final licensing approval.
The three-story, 80,000- square-foot medical facility includes an imaging center, retail pharmacy, pediatric center, primary care services, women’s health services, physical therapy, laboratory drawing station, and now emergency services. The center was constructed to accommodate ambulances and emergency services through its rear entrance.
CarePoint Health, which operates three hospitals in Hudson County, has been openly opposed to a SED coming to Bayonne. It has criticized the planned SED as redundant because CarePoint has its own emergency room and has accused RWJ Barnabas of being negligent for choosing Bayonne over other areas of Hudson County in need of emergency services, such as the Greenville section of Jersey City.
In its waiver application, RWJ Barnabas said the SED in Bayonne will service Greenville patients, because it will be roughly the same distance from the southern Jersey City neighborhood as Jersey City Medical Center is.
Responding to a request for comment, KiratKharode, EVP and Chief Strategy Officer at CarePoint Health, said, “CarePoint believes deeply in the principles of population health management. Our Satellite Emergency Departments will help address significant actual health care needs in Northern New Jersey by improving quality and reducing costs through appropriately enhancing access to care.”
When asked about Barnabas Health at Bayonne’s SED status, RWJ Barnabas said in a statement, “We strongly support enhanced access for quality care for all of Hudson County, including Bayonne and the Greenville section of Jersey City. We continue to move forward with our plans to expand medical services — including the Satellite Emergency Department at the new Bayonne facility — in the near future, and remain steadfastly committed to providing health care services through our Jersey City Medical Center at Greenville facility as well. Our services at Greenville as well as the Bayonne [Satellite Emergency Department] promise a depth of services and activity which will generate access to high quality care throughout Hudson County.”
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“We continue to move forward with our plans to expand medical services — including the Satellite Emergency Department at the new Bayonne facility — in the near future.” – RWJ Barnabas Public Relations
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About SEDs
New Jersey state statute stipulates that some medical conditions require acute care hospitals rather than SEDs, such as trauma, critical care, surgery, laboratory testing, advanced radiology, childbirth, psychiatric illness, and other complex medical conditions. However, SEDs provide much of the same medical services as conventional emergency departments.
The emergency room problem
Last year, RWJ Barnabas applied for a waiver for its new location in Bayonne to be designated as a satellite emergency department (SED), citing its growing volume of ER visits as part of the reason. In its application, RWJ Barnabas said its Jersey City Medical Center ER was designed for 57,000 annual visits, but experienced about 87,000 visits in 2016, with more than 33,000 visits coming from Greenville and Bayonne.
To gain a SED license, RWJ Barnabas had to prove its facility will either replace a closed full-service emergency room in the area or “substantially mitigate problems of access to appropriate emergency care affecting a community or communities,” according to the statute that defines SEDs.
Meanwhile, CarePoint Health announced in November that it is planning, pending DOH approval, to open nine SEDs: in the Greenville section of Jersey City, Downtown Jersey City, Union City, and North Bergen; four in Bergen County, and one in Clifton, which is in Passaic County. According to its 40-page presentation, CarePoint hopes to “improve” the region’s “capacity and access” to various emergency services with more outpatient centers.
Rory Pasquariello can be reached at roryp@hudsonreporter.com. Follow him @rory_louis on twitter.
