With emergency department (ED) patient volume exceeding capacity, Northwell Health’s Southside Hospital needed to find a way to serve its growing community. Southside was seeking a design solution that would not only increase ED capacity, but also improve throughput and decrease patient length of stay. Phase one, completed in August 2016, added 30,000 SF of new space, tripling the size of the facility and allowing the ED to care for more than 70,000 patients each year.

The design approach organizes the department into a split-flow, “super-track” model that improves management of the patient experience and length of stay for both lower and higher-acuity patients. An expanded critical care area with trauma and resuscitation rooms provides the hospital’s level 2 trauma center with much-needed support, and, for the first time, the ED has a dedicated behavioral health evaluation area with six treatment positions. Phase one also includes four intake rooms for rapid assessment, 14 new general treatment rooms, new treatment areas devoted to obstetrics/gynecology and bariatric patients, and a new entrance that creates a welcoming front door to the ED.

Phase two, expected to be finalized in late 2017, will upgrade the existing ED to further expand the department’s size and capacity.  Once both phases are complete, the aim is to cut wait times in half from what they were before expansion and provide the ability to treat up to 100,000 patients annually.