Thursday, November 12, 2015
Jersey Shore University Medical Center broke ground Wednesday on a $265 million, 10-story building that will house its cancer center, imaging technologies and academic programs.
The building, called Hope Tower, is designed in part to help the hospital compete with cancer centers both at the Shore and in New York.
"When a patient is diagnosed, there's some sort of weird peer pressure that goes on that says you have to go into Manhattan to get the best treatment," said Sandra Doyle Ferullo, 48, of Farmingdale, who is being treated for breast cancer at Jersey Shore. The new facility "gives patients and their families a confident choice to stay in this community."
Jersey Shore University Medical Center is owned by Wall-based Meridian Health, and its expansion comes during a whirlwind.
Hospitals in the wake of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, face pressure from both private insurers and Medicare to deliver better care, less expensively. It has prompted many of them to change their focus and invest in projects that treat patients in a day and send them home, experts said.
"These are really hospitals without beds at the end of the day, said Patrick Duke, managing director of CBRE Healthcare, a real estate company, where patients undergoing treatment would rather be closer to home.
Hope Tower, an acronym for Healing Outpatient Experience, is a decade in the making. It will be built on five-acres that previously was occupied by a 50-unit apartment building that was owned by Neptune. The hospital agreed to construct a $13 million apartment building and relocate the residents, executives said.
The new facility will be on the east side of the hospital. It is expected to be completed by early 2018. And the hospital plans to pay for the project with money from its operations, philanthropic donations and debt, said Dr. Kenneth Sable, president of Jersey Shore University Medical Center.
When it is done, it will include a 58,000-square-foot cancer center that will bring all of its doctors, nurses and social workers, currently spread throughout different buildings, under one roof, Sable said.
The hospital faces competition for cancer care from renowned hospitals. Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center is opening an outpatient center in Middletown. And MD Anderson Cancer Center partnered with Cooper University Health Care in Southern New Jersey.
Jersey Shore University Medical Center's team "will all come to the patient in this new building," Sable said after the groundbreaking. "It's hard enough dealing with cancer. It's harder when you have to navigate this maze."
The expansion also will include:
"I choke on this; it's a significant amount of money," John Lloyd, president of Meridian Health, said. "But the most important thing is, it's not about facilities, it's about bringing better care to the communities we serve."
Patients drove home the point. Jonna Crocker, 11, of Howell, recalled playing with a service dog and working with her caregivers on Play-Doh projects to help her cope with gastroparesis, a rare stomach ailment.
And Ferullo told the crowd at the groundbreaking that she was diagnosed with Stage 4 breast cancer during the holiday season in 2013, but turned away suggestions that she travel to Manhattan so that she could stay closer to home.
She chose Jersey Shore University Medical Center, whose doctors and nurses put her on a course of treatment that saved her life, she said.
"People like us, we need you to be here," Ferullo said.
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