NFTA and GBNRTC Receive Federal Contract to Improve Transportation Options for Older Adults, People With Disabilities, and Those with Low Incomes.

New Video Will Provide More Information for Users

Buffalo, New York – Buffalo All Access: In and around BNMC, a new initiative funded by the U.S. Department of Transportation (U.S. DOT) under the ITS4US Deployment Program, will use technology to improve transportation options for travelers in and around the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus (BNMC), regardless of ability, age, or income. The initiative aims to make it easier for people of all abilities to utilize public transit and access the many essential services and destinations on and around the medical campus. The initiative focuses on providing:

  • An All Access App: a mobile app, website (https://bnmc.org/allaccess), and call center for people to plan trips based on their unique needs and abilities.
  • A Shuttle Program: an on-demand community shuttle that includes both human-driven shuttles and a self-driving shuttle.
  • Smart Infrastructure: wayfinding technologies on the medical campus that assist people who need support with both outdoor navigation and indoor navigation (inside VIA and the Buffalo General Medical Center). 

The project is led by the Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority (NFTA) in partnership with BNMC, the Greater Buffalo Niagara Regional Transportation Council (GBNRTC), the University at Buffalo (UB), City of Buffalo, NITTEC, Kaleida Health, Buffalo Hearing & Speech Center, VIA, Heart of the City Neighborhoods, and FruitBelt Coalition, Inc. aka Fruit of the City. Consultant partners on the project include ICF, ETCH, RSG, and the Open Doors Organization. The project team has just produced an overview video that showcases more details about this project.  For more information, please watch the video on the website (https://bnmc.org/allaccess/).

Speaking about the project, Jamie Hamann-Burney, Director of Planning & Implementation for BNMC, said: “The lack of safe and inclusive trip planning and travel options for people of all abilities can be a major barrier to employment, healthcare, and other quality of life essentials in our community.  We’re thrilled to be a part of this initiative that will help break down these barriers.”

The ITS4US Deployment Program (https://its.dot.gov/its4us/) is a $40 million multimodal effort, led by the Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) Joint Program Office (JPO) and supported by the Office of the Secretary, the Federal Highway Administration, and the Federal Transit Administration, to identify ways to provide more efficient, affordable, and accessible transportation options for underserved communities that often face greater challenges in accessing essential services.

The U.S. DOT launched Phase 1 of the program in January 2021 and supported the concept development efforts of select sites, including Buffalo All Access. In June 2022, Buffalo All Access was selected to continue Phases 2 and 3 of the program, which includes the design, testing, operation, and evaluation of the deployment.

About Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus  

For more than twenty years, The Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus organization (BNMC) has been a driving force of Buffalo’s economic renaissance. Throughout its management of the growth of Buffalo’s premier innovation district, the BNMC has foregrounded smart economic, social, and environmental development, prioritizing health & well-being and sustainability. Today, the BNMC is focused on the next phase of Buffalo’s ongoing resurgence, cultivating inclusive innovation in partnership with our community. BNMC launched its flagship program, IC Success in 2021 to provide support to aspiring entrepreneurs from all backgrounds to help them start or grow a business. Program graduates form the heart of Buffalo’s growing Innovation Community comprised of businesses large and small in an array of disciplines and leading the region’s next wave of economic development and growth. BNMC  www.bnmc.org. 

MEDIA CONTACT:

Adriana Viverette

Digital Communications Manager

Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus

640 Ellicott, Buffalo, NY 14203

(716) 348-4126 aviverette@bnmc.org

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Welcome to National Bike Month

By Jamie Hamann-Burney
May is National Bike Month, and BNMC is as committed as ever to helping make bicycling a fun, safe, and healthy way to get around our district.  We continue to work with our partners to enhance our bicycling infrastructure on the campus and we’ll again be celebrating National Bike to Work Day on Friday, May 21st with our first-ever BNMC Open Streets Event! Here’s some more details:

BNMC Open Streets

Being able to enjoy the outdoors – walking, exercising, getting fresh air – is an important part of living a healthy, hwp-contenty life.  With limited park space in our area, and the need to still stay safely socially distant from one another, we’re rethinking how we use our streets.   We will be closing Washington Street between Carlton and High Streets to traffic and we will be using the street for healthy living activities throughout the day, starting off with a Bike to Work Day breakfast for anyone who rides their bike to the event. More details about the event and how to register are here.

Bicycle Programs:

This year, we’re also continuing to add more bicycle perks for members of our community:

  • Free annual REDDY Bikeshare memberships for employees and neighbors and a campus-wide free parking zone;
  • Exploring micro-mobility options on campus in collaboration with Shared Mobility, Inc.
  • Indoor, member-only bicycle parking in collaboration with GObike as well as numerous other bike parking racks throughout the campus;
  • A Bicycle Fix-It Station at the corner of Ellicott and Virginia Streets;
  • Free memberships for our Green Commuter Club which provides prizes and a Guaranteed Ride Home Program to employees who walk, bike, take transit, or carpool to work. To learn more and sign up for our programs, click here.

Streetscape Projects:

The next few years will be transformational for our shared campus.  We continue to work with the City of Buffalo on creating new bicycle infrastructure and amenities through new streetscape projects.  Currently, Virginia Street between Main and Ellicott is being reconstructed to include wider sidewalks and bicycle lanes (mid-block pedestrian crossings will also be added on Washington Street and Ellicott Street as part of the same project); and in 2022, the City will start construction on the Middle Main Street Project, which will feature protected bicycle lanes from at least Goodell to Ferry Streets. Best Street is also being repaved this year and that project will include new bicycle lanes as identified in the City’s Bicycle Master Plan.

Medical Campus Drives Private Sector Growth

Companies on the Medical Campus

The Medical Campus is a dynamic consortium of world-class hospitals and health care facilities, exceptional education institutions, and innovative research institutions. Made up of 8 member institutions, the Medical Campus is home to hundreds of renowned physicians, clinicians, scientists, and researchers in oncology, neurology, immunology, vascular surgery, personalized medicine, cardiology, and beyond. The collaboration among our institutions combined with the significant research and clinical capabilities offered on the Medical Campus has led to the creation or co-location of more than 150 public and private companies including a dynamic and growing cluster of technology, life sciences, bioinformatics, energy, and social innovation companies, and not-for-profit organizations. View companies located on the Medical Campus below.

Member Institutions & Partner Organizations Located on BNMC

  • Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus, Inc.
  • Buffalo Medical Group
  • Buffalo Hearing & Speech Center
  • Buffalo Manufacturing Works
  • Hauptman-Woodward Institute
  • Kaleida Health – Buffalo General Medical Center, Gates Vascular Institute, HighPointe, Oishei Children’s Hospital
  • Kevin Guest House
  • Jacobs Institute
  • Olmsted Center for Sight
  • Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center
  • St. Jude Center
  • University at Buffalo – Center for Biomedicine and Life Sciences; Center for Computation Research; Center for Material Informatics; Clinical & Translational Research Center; Educational Opportunity Center; Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences; Research Institute on Addictions; Ross Eye Institute
  • ZeptoMetrix

*For restaurants & other food options, visit www.bnmc-old.local/food

Innovation Center

  • 43North
  • 81 Eighteen
  • 911 Flex
  • Acara Solutions
  • ACV Auctions
  • AirExpert
  • All Pro Parking
  • Alliance for the Great Lakes
  • Apena Care Inc
  • Assisted Living Consultants, Inc.

    • Block Chain Resources Group LLC
    • Bozer
    • Boxcraft Studio
    • Brien’s Business Umbrella
    • Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus, Inc.
    • Buffalo Niagara Sleep Center
    • Buffalo Perspective
    • CAI Gobal/Hope Buffalo
    • Canadian Consulate in NY
    • Capital Insights Group of WNY
    • Cheiron
    • Connare Tech, Inc
    • Crews Group
    • Debitrum
    • EB-5 New York State LLC
    • Everon Biosciences
    • Explora Connections
    • Forsake
    • Genome Protection
    • Girls Education Collaborative
    • Glide Health IT, Inc
    • Global Dyamic Group
    • GoBike Buffalo
    • Guideline Medical
    • HiOperator
    • Huntview
    • Immersed Games
    • Inside Insight LLC
    • Jeca Energy Bar
    • JMS Technical Solutions
    • Kangarootime
    • Kermis Profitability Solutions
    • Koobusoft
    • Lena Levine Studio
    • LenderLogix
    • Let There be Light International
    • Lincoln Archives Family of Companies
    • Lindquist
    • MED VAR
    • Med-Scribe Inc
    • Memory Fox
    • New York Technology
    • Niagara Share
    • OncoTartis
    • Parson Group
    • Produce Peddlers
    • Peeva LLC
    • PurEndo
    • Queen City Risk Management
    • Quidni Labs
    • Rel8ed.to Analytics
    • Robb Surgical
    • Rodriguez Construction Group
    • Secureware Technologies
    • Shared Mobility, Inc
    • SNAPCAP of WNY
    • SparkCharge
    • Squire
    • Suite It
    • Suncayr
    • Talking Pictues/ Randford
    • TARA. Ai
    • Tartis
    • Tarvos.io
    • Toca Travel Services
    • TrainSmart
    • Travel Healthcare Accrediation
    • TROVE
    • Vargas Associates, Inc.
    • Wesolowski & Associates PC
    • Western NY Environmental Alliance
    • White Buffalo Creative
    • WNY Works Staffing Placement
    • Wynne Creative Group
    • Your Corporate Agent/ Vonsway
    • Z80 Labs
    • Zany Nomad
    • Zwp-contentos

BioSciences Incubator at the CTRC

  • AccuTheranostics
  • NeuroTrauma Sciences
  • Neurovascular Diagnostics

UB Gateway

  • 3AM Innovations
  • Buffalo Employment & Training Center
  • Burner
  • Clean Capital, LLC
  • CleanFiber
  • Clearview Social
  • Decision Pace Inc.
  • Erie Niagara Health Education Center (AHEC)
  • Femi Secrets
  • Garwood Medical
  • Helm
  • Ignition Life Solutions
  • Kickfurther
  • Launch NY
  • LegWorks
  • Magnusmode
  • Quantranalytic Corporation
  • Sedara, LLC
  • Silo City IT, Inc.
  • SomaDetect
  • UB Associates, Inc. (UBF) – UBMD
  • UB Emergency Medicine
  • UB Family Medicine (UBF)

73 High Street

  • 22nd Century
  • Buffalo BioLabs
  • Buffalo Molecular Design & Development
  • CH3 Biosystems
  • Cleveland BioLabs
  • CPL Associates
  • Photolitec
  • Robb Surgical
  • Tactiva Therapeutics

Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center

  • Global Biotechnology & Cancer Therapeutics
  • MimiVax
  • Panacela Labs

Hauptman-Woodward Institute

  • HarkerBIO
  • OmniSeq
  • American Crystallography Association

Conventus at 1001 Main Street

  • Athenex
  • AMRI
  • KeyBank
  • UBMD Offices
  • Oishei Children’s Outpatient Clinic

UB’s NYS Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics and Life Sciences

  • Acudex, Inc.
  • Aesku NY, Inc
  • AHRM, Inc.
  • AMI Oncotheranostics, LLC
  • Athenex, Inc.
  • Canget BioTekpharma, LLC
  • CH3 Biosystems, LLC
  • Chronicle Life Sci America Corp
  • Efferent Labs, Inc.
  • Enhanced Pharmacodynamics, LLC
  • Frontier Science & Technology Res Foundation, Inc.
  • Greenwich Geriatrics, LLC (dba Patient Pattern, LLC)
  • Qoma, LLC
  • Aigh StarPro, LLC
  • Sunstar, Inc.
  • Tactiva Theraputics, LLC
  • Veronomics
  • Zeptometrix, Corp.

Olmsted Center for Sight

  • Clean Slate
  • Last updated Feb 2018

Electric Vehicles 101

Did you know that the BNMC has installed more than 30 electric vehicle charging stations (EVCS) across the Medical Campus, with the ability to charge almost 50 vehicles? We are committed to ensuring that our infrastructure supports sustainable transportation, everything from making it easy to charge electric vehicles, to installing hundreds of additional bike racks, to providing reduced-rate transit passes. We are building an innovation district known for accessible, environmentally-forward ways for everyone to get here.
With so much talk about electric vehicles and charging station infrastructure, we thought we should help answer some questions we hear often. What is an electric vehicle, what isn’t, and why should I care? Here’s a quick Electric Vehicles 101.

Your basic conventional car runs on an internal combustion engine: you add gasoline, it ignites and releases energy that is translated into motion. In the process, however, the vehicle releases carbon dioxide, one of the greenhouse gases contributing to climate change. In the United States, the transportation sector is responsible for 28% of our greenhouse gas emissions, more than any other sector (hint: this is part of why you should care!). Learn more about how our team is a part of the national conversation.

An electric vehicle (EV), in contrast, runs on an electric current. There are three main types of vehicle commonly called “electric”, and it’s worth knowing the difference:

  1. Battery electric vehicles (BEVs) run only on electricity. With a BEV, you charge the car’s battery with electricity. That battery then powers the electric motor, which propels the car forward. Since the car itself is not burning a fuel to generate movement, there are no tail-pipe emissions. Instead, the carbon footprint of a BEV depends on how the electricity that runs it is produced.
  2. Plug-in hybrids (PHEVs) combine a battery-powered electric motor with an internal combustion engine. You charge your vehicle with electricity and use it much like an all-electric vehicle. However, if and when you run out of charge, the gasoline provides fuel as a back-up. While running only on electricity, a PHEV’s carbon footprint again depends on the fuel mix that generated the electricity. As soon as the internal combustion engine switches on, the engine’s tail-pipe emissions add to the vehicle’s carbon footprint.
  3. Hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) also combine an internal combustion engine and an electric propulsion system. However, you cannot plug them in to charge them with electricity, so they are not strictly speaking “EVs”. However, HEVs are more efficient than traditional internal combustion engines because they take advantage of technologies such as regenerative braking.

The more you know!

Infrastructure Improvement Alert!

The City of Buffalo will be paving the following streets on the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus from Monday, October 8ththrough Friday, October 12th. There will be no parking on these blocks beginning 10/8 at 12:01am. Work is anticipated to take a week (weather permitting). Traffic will be maintained via flag persons. The impacted blocks are: High Street from Main to Ellicott, Washington Street from High to Virginia, and Virginia Street from Ellicott to Michigan. Employees are asked to please take other routes through the Medical Campus if possible to ensure ease of patients and visitors in getting to their destination.
PLEASE NOTE: Asphalt is placed at temperatures in the 240-270 degrees Fahrenheit range. For your safety, please avoid stepping onto freshly placed asphalt!

BNMC to Explore Ways to Create Greener, Safer and More Accessible Main Street Through Smart Infrastructure

BNMC to Explore Ways to Create Greener, Safer and More Accessible Main Street Through Smart Infrastructure

When the City of Buffalo begins its $13 million streetscape improvement project on Main Street this spring, the BNMC team will work alongside them to identify opportunities for integrating smart transportation infrastructure and technology into the design to create a greener, safer, and more efficient streetscape ready for future transportation advancements.

The Smart Corridor Plan will focus on opportunities for improving multi-modal traffic efficiency, emissions reduction, access and mobility, and safety by incorporating leading-edge technology such as Internet of Things sensors, artificial intelligence, and streetscape design in the corridor’s transportation system. Design elements and technology improvements to be considered are wireless communications; sensing technologies; dynamic traffic control and crossing signalization; smart parking technologies; transit technologies including real time data and systems coordination; and renewable energy and energy efficiency wp-contentlications. Specific recommendations and anticipated costs for improvements to the City’s central thoroughfare between Goodell Street and Humboldt Parkway will be included.

The BNMC received $75,000 in funding for the project from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) and New York State Department of Transportation.

What’s next for the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus?

What’s next for the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus?

By | The Buffalo News | Published | Updated

The newly opened $270 million John R. Oishei Children’s Hospital was a page turner in the latest chapter of the burgeoning downtown Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus.

So was the December opening of the University at Buffalo’s $375 million new home for its Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences.

The completion of the new projects mark a turning point for the 120-acre campus at the epicenter of Buffalo’s renaissance.

In 2002, the campus was in its infancy with just three companies. Now boasting 4.5 million square feet of development and $1.4 billion in investments, the campus has moved beyond just medical institutions. It has taken shape with a diverse mix of health care, life science and technology companies, becoming fertile ground for entrepreneurs and their startups.

There is still more to come.

Campus planners are aiming for BNMC to rival medical campuses in places like Cleveland and Pittsburgh. Among the next steps are strengthening ties with higher education and the private sectors.

“We are so well positioned with all the institutions and assets that are here and now want to embrace the excellent universities and colleges,” said Matthew K. Enstice, CEO and president of the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus Inc. “We plan to build out” – meaning renovate – “more space for them to have a location so they can interact and be a part of the entrepreneurial ecosystem that we have here.”

A big part of that vision is twp-contenting into local small and large companies, especially mature ones, and including them in the campus’ vision for its innovation district. “The world is changing so quickly in technology, that we’re putting a structure in place to help multiple, different companies innovate,” Enstice said.

Here’s what’s coming next on the Medical Campus:

• Design work is expected to start for renovation of existing buildings on the former Osmose Holdings site. In 2016, BNMC bought the 4.4-acre parcel, which is located at the northern edge of campus at Ellicott and Best streets and has parking for 200. It is expected to be a magnet for mature private-sector companies, along with universities and colleges, but will not be a second incubator, BNMC officials say.

• Ellicott Development Co. has a $4 million adaptive reuse development project underway at Our Lady of Lourdes Church, just north of the campus at Main and Best streets. To the south, Ellicott is planning a six-story retail and office building at 1091 Main St.

• Along the western edge of the campus, design work will begin for a redo of a critical stretch of Main Street from Goodell toward Canisius College. Meanwhile, a $7.5 million overhaul of Allen Street, including redesigned sidewalks and widened sections of the street, is expected to begin. Work will be done in phases, stretching from the eastern end of Allen toward Wadsworth.

• Workers will put the finishing touches on the exterior of UB’s Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, which opened to students earlier this month at 955 Main St. Final terra cotta panels are being installed on the Washington Street side of the building by spring. Most of the university’s labs are being moved in from mid-January through mid-March. With the medical school fully operational, 2,000 faculty, staff and students will be there daily.

• The Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority’s newly renovated Allen Medical Campus Station has been integrated into the medical school. The station features “Gut Flora,” a colorful public art sculpture by Shasti O’Leary Soudant, and a newsstand opens this month. A one-block tunnel that serves as a pedestrian passageway to Washington Street will open beneath the medical school.

• The campus’ ninth pedestrian skybridge will be designed and constructed later in the year. It will span High Street, linking the Conventus medical office building to the UB Medical School. The new $1.5 million connector comes after three other skybridges just opened in November: one from Conventus to Oishei Children’s Hospital, another from Children’s Hospital to Buffalo General Medical Center/Gates Vascular Institute, and a third leading out the back of Children’s Hospital to a new parking ramp at 854 Ellicott St.

• By late May, the $40 million, 1,825-space parking ramp behind Oishei Children’s Hospital at 854 Ellicott will be completed. The top half of the eight-story ramp has been under construction since late 2017. The bottom half of the eight-story ramp opened Nov. 10 with Oishei Children’s Hospital.

• The 128,000-square-foot Thomas R. Beecher Innovation Center at 640 Ellicott St. will be completely full by the end of March.

Biz Talk: Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus CEO talks about future growth

Biz Talk: Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus CEO talks about future growth

By | The Buffalo News | Published

After Amherst native Matthew K. Enstice wrwp-contented up stints in the entertainment industry that took him to Broadway Pictures in Los Angeles and “Saturday Night Live” in New York City, his career dramatically swerved back to Buffalo.

He landed at the helm of the nonprofit organization overseeing the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus. Now, 17 years later, Enstice finds himself at the pulse of the expanding campus footprint, as he guides a shifting momentum in the campus’ growth.

With a collective projected workforce of 16,000 this year, the Medical Campus continues to make its mark – from hospitals to clinical and research facilities.

“We deliver health care here, and we’re going to do high-end health care here, but it’s changing,” said Enstice, president and chief executive officer of BNMC Inc. “Health care, as you know it, is a very, very different place. As that changes and evolves, you’re going to see opportunities in our community to utilize technology to develop companies for the future.”

The Medical Campus is already home to startup companies, entrepreneurs building businesses and high-tech companies. The momentum shows no signs of tapering off.

The future vision for the campus reflects a dedicated shift toward making room for local companies as they cut their teeth on new initiatives. The Medical Campus also looks to expand its innovation district to a 4.4-acre site on the northern edge of campus that once was the home of Osmose Holdings.

A visionary with high energy, Enstice is related to the prominent Jacobs family. His late father-in-law, Dr. Lawrence D. Jacobs, was a neurologist and world-renowned researcher specializing in the treatment of multiple sclerosis.

Often wearing a blue or white button-down shirt and khakis, he is known for his casual attire and carefree manner. He rarely breaks out a tie or suit.

Enstice recently met with The Buffalo News inside the campus Innovation Center to talk about the campus’ growth and future.

Q: What do monumental projects such as Children’s Hospital and the UB medical school say about the future of the campus?

A: People talked in years past that Children’s wasn’t moving over and there was a lot of controversy. But I think it showed how the community coming together can do great things, and that’s what Children’s is a true sign of.

Right now, the (medical school) has a major presence in the city. That, to me, is a game changer that I don’t think we can define right now.

I was sitting there at the opening, looking right out the window down Allen Street, and it was just amazing to envision what is Allen going to be like. What was so wild to see, was that I used to never see people walking there and there must have been 20 or 30 people coming out of that subway. It’s just the fact that we have so much traffic starting to develop down here. And that’s a real positive.

It’s just the beginning of more opportunities for our community to leverage these great assets and great organizations being here on the campus.

Q: How does Buffalo’s regional health care hub fit within the national mix?

A: I think that we’re one of the leading innovation districts. I just don’t think about it as health. If you look back to what Jerry Jacobs commissioned for looking at the future of medicine, it’s changing dramatically. And I believe we’re very well positioned because of our computer science school, our school of engineering and our ability to be leaders in the technology field. That’s what I think of.

So, we’ve been on the map. Having Children’s and the medical school down here, puts it on the map even more.

What we need to figure out how to do, and what we really want to do, in our next phases of development is to integrate the school of engineering and the schools of business.

How does Canisius College play a role here? How does Niagara University play a role here? How does Buffalo State College play a role here? We are so well positioned with all the institutions and assets that are here. So we plan to build out more space for them to have a location so they can interact and be a part of the entrepreneurial ecosystem that we have here.

Q: What kind of involvement?

A: Let’s look at the future of medicine and all the work that we’re doing in energy, all the work that we’re doing in transportation. What’s the major driver behind those industries as they’re changing? It’s technology. We’re well positioned in building our community out to have a technology foundation that can enable health care, energy, transportation.

I’m talking this campus. We have all the resources. I don’t think we’ll build a building for a college. We want to build an environment where local businesses, big companies, are going to have a presence here.

Our plan is to build out space to embrace the local economy. I think, for too long, a lot of local businesses have not been engaged, because there hasn’t been a vehicle.

I believe that if you look across as to what’s going to help strengthen local companies, they have to be a part of what we’re doing. I think we can all help one another. That is what this is all about. How do we build a platform and a foundation in technology for everybody? Tech is not the next chapter. It’s the current chapter. It’s really what is going to be our great opportunity for the future.

We’ll use the footprint of the existing (Osmose) space that we have. As of right now, we are not planning to build a new building in the near future. We are planning to renovate the existing space. I think, over time, various companies will start to come in, but within the year is our goal is to start to see this development really start to take off.

Q: What would you say to naysayers who didn’t think this vision for the campus would ever materialize in the fashion that it has so far?

A: If you stay together and you’re straightforward and honest with one another, great things can hwp-contenten. That is at the core of what builds all the great stuff that’s down here on the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus … If you look at the 4.5 million square feet of development, the $1.4 billion worth of investment, that was because people worked, planned, developed together.

Q: What is the greatest challenge facing the campus?

A: I think the greatest challenge is that people continue to work together and support one another … I think the biggest challenge you have is that sometimes people forget what got you here.

Q: Parking is a constant complaint or concern, and there’s a huge push to get people to use public transit more.

A: We have off-campus shuttles running. We have public transportation being utilized and programs in place. And it’s starting to work. People are actually trying it and it’s working. While it’s not perfect, it is an option. And so to me, we will always have a parking spot here for every patient and visitor that comes down here.

What we would hope to see is that more people live in and around the campus, in and around the subway station.

The mayor continues to talk about reinvesting in Main Street with infrastructure. He’s committed $10 million so far, going toward Canisius. We want to see the mayor continue on that and go all the way and connect us to Canisius College. … I believe if you continue to do that, you’ll see more residential units pop up on Main Street. You’ll see more people using the transit. That’s what we want to see.

Q: There are signs of spinoff development in Allentown. But for the Fruit Belt neighborhood, there always seems to be an undercurrent of concern, gentrification, trying to preserve the Michigan Avenue corridor, and a push for more parking. What do you foresee for the Fruit Belt?

A: For the Fruit Belt, I hope that there’s continued investment there in the infrastructure. The mayor has done a great job at fixing the streets, the sidewalks, the trees and the lights. I hope they continue to do that because I want to see more people invest in that neighborhood. … We believe that will be a positive if the community is part of the solution there.

I’m really intrigued by what’s going on in Masten, Fruit Belt and Allentown – to me, they’re very similar in the sense that they’ve always been engaged in a part of the process with what’s going on with the campus. Everybody’s always talked about it. Everybody’s had a light on it.

What I’m interested in is what is going on to the north. We believe there’s going to need to be more of an engagement there. I think it’s a community that people maybe have not paid as much attention to. But they’re on the border of all this stuff that’s going on here. So, it’s probably already hwp-contentening and we don’t know it.

BNMC to Create Smart Corridor for Main Street

Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus (BNMC) to Create Smart Corridor for Main Street

Plan to be developed to integrate smart transportation infrastructure and technology to create an innovative, greener, safer, and more accessible street

Buffalo, N.Y., January 11, 2018 – The Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus, Inc. (BNMC) has received $75,000 in funding to develop an innovative solution for smart transportation infrastructure and technology, on Main Street along the BNMC, in downtown Buffalo. The BNMC project will complement the City of Buffalo’s ongoing Complete Streets initiative.

The project, Creating a Smart Corridor Plan for Main Street in Buffalo, N.Y., will focus on the current conditions, best practices and opportunities for improving energy efficiency, emissions reduction, access and mobility, and traffic safety on a densely populated section of Main Street. The study will result in specific recommendations and anticipated costs for improvements to the City’s central thoroughfare that runs from downtown, northeast to the City’s northern suburbs.

The study, which is being funded by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority and New York State Department of Transportation, supports Governor Andrew M. Cuomo’s nation-leading energy goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 40 percent by 2030.

The study will be conducted at the same time that the City of Buffalo is beginning the design process for a large-scale $13 million streetscape improvement project on Main Street from Goodell Street to Ferry Street, adjacent to the Medical Campus. The BNMC and the City of Buffalo plan to work together to identify opportunities for the implementation of smart transportation infrastructure and technology at the same time. The primary goal of the project will be to create a more innovative streetscape to ensure a greener, safer, more efficient and integrated transportation system for the future.

Main Street in the City of Buffalo, already a densely populated, mixed-use street with a multiple transportation options, has undergone a tremendous amount of new development, particularly near the thriving BNMC. It has been identified as a top priority for reconstruction though multiple planning efforts.  As the area grows, there has been increasing interest in updating aging infrastructure, adding traffic calming measures, improving pedestrian and bicycling access and infrastructure, and improving access to the Metro Rail Stations along Main Street.

According to William Smith, Director of Access and Planning for BNMC, “The funding affords us the ability to identify opportunities to improve the street for pedestrians, bicyclists and motorists while at the same time, to plan for the future with new technologies such as sensing technologies, wireless communications, autonomous vehicles, and dynamic and smart parking technologies that can help Buffalo become a model of efficiency, safety, and more sustainable environmental wp-contentroaches.”  He added, “The timing is ideal, as we have the opportunity to work with the City of Buffalo as they embark on streetscape improvements that may allow us to integrate our recommendations simultaneously, vastly improving Main Street for all.”

“The Main Street corridor through the Medical Campus area is ripe for infrastructure improvements to compliment the development that continues to transform this area.  My administration has led the way in initiating the transformation of Buffalo’s transportation network following the Complete Streets model that accommodates bicycles, pedestrians and motorists in an equitable manner.  Working with the BNMC on this grant will afford the opportunity to advance the Complete Streets model with the latest technology,” Mayor Byron W. Brown said.

Work on the Smart Corridor Plan will begin this year and include developing an RFP process to choose a subcontractor who will work with BNMC and the City on smart corridor design considerations, anticipated benefits and associated costs; developing a project steering committee to guide the project, ensure coordination among stakeholders, provide relevant data, insight and information, and to review and comment on project findings; and developing a Smart Corridor recommendations report  which will include a review of existing plans, technologies and conditions, an outline of best practices and potential opportunities, and specific recommendations and anticipated costs.

As part of its effort to develop a set of recommendations on design and technology considerations, BNMC expects to focus on elements including wireless communications; sensing technologies; connected and autonomous technologies including connected safety systems; dynamic traffic control and crossing signalization; smart parking technologies; transit technologies including real time data and systems coordination; and renewable energy and energy efficiency wp-contentlications.

In addition to the City of Buffalo, BNMC expects to work with representatives from BNMC member institutions, transportation service providers, utility companies, surrounding neighborhoods, and local and national experts in the field of smart transportation and city planning. The overall project is expected to be completed in 12 months.

About the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus, Inc.           

The Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus, Inc. (BNMC) is a self-sustaining social enterprise successfully combining innovation, job creation, and urban revitalization. It serves as the umbrella organization of the anchor institutions that make up the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus located within the 120-acre campus bordering Allentown, the Fruit Belt and Downtown. The BNMC Inc. fosters conversation and collaboration among its member institutions, its partners and the community to address critical issues impacting them, including entrepreneurship, energy, access and transportation, workforce and procurement, neighborhoods, and healthy communities, with the goal of increasing economic development and building a strong community. www.bnmc-old.local.

 

For more information, contact:
Susan Kirkpatrick, BNMC, skirkpatrick@bnmc-old.local
716.866.8002(m)

New Year, New Look!

There’s a new gateway to the BNMC, for both pedestrians wp-contentroaching from the Allentown neighborhood, as well as transit riders disembarking at the Allen-Medical Campus station. UB’s new building, the state-of-the-art Jacobs School of Medicine, provides employees, students, and neighbors a new experience as they enter the Medical Campus. Transit riders come up the escalator into a gleaming new station, complete with bright public art and digital wayfinding. The Medical School, Buffalo’s signature transit-oriented development, allows passage through to the Medical School today, and will soon help connect employees and patients to many of the buildings across the BNMC.  In addition, the Washington Street side of the transit station has reopened, providing easy access into the heart of the BNMC.
Learn more about our healthier, sustainable and more affordable transportation options at GoBNMC.org.

 

A Look Inside New Home of UB Jacobs School of Medicine & Biomedical Sciences

Take a peek inside the new home of UB Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences on the BNMC! The $375 million, 628,000 sq. foot building is eight stories high and located at 955 Main St. between Allen & High Streets. The BNMC is thrilled welcome the 2,000 faculty, staff and students to our Campus in January! For more information on the Medical School and upcoming move, visit medicine.buffalo.edu.
   

    

 

Recent Media Coverage

UB Medical School opens with aim to be ‘catalyst for change’ – The Buffalo News

A look inside UB’s new hospital – The Buffalo News

First look: UB’s completed Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences building – Buffalo Business First

 

Oishei Children’s Hospital Now Open!

New Oishei Children’s Hospital Now Open!

After years of planning, the big day has finally arrived. Kaleida Health opened its $270M Oishei Children’s Hospital on Friday, Nov. 10th. A multi-year effort led by a number of stakeholders has given birth (so to speak!) to a remarkable new facility, one of only 43 freestanding Children’s hospitals in the country. Learn more about this exciting new development to the BNMC at www.childrensismoving.org.

Recent News Coverage

How the New Oishei Children’s Hospital came to be – The Buffalo News

Oishei Children’s Hospital: As moving day nears, a range of emotions sets in – Buffalo Business First

Take a look inside Buffalo’s new Children’s Hospital – The Buffalo News 

Playful Signage is the right message at Oishei Children’s Hospital – Buffalo Rising

New Oishei Children’s Hospital built with a family focus – WBFO

New John Oishei Children’s Hospital is almost ready – WKBW

 

Matthew K. Enstice, BNMC President and CEO, Joins National Commission to Slash Transportation Energy Use by Half

Matthew K. Enstice, BNMC President and CEO, Joins National Commission to Slash Transportation Energy Use by Half

“50 by 50” Commission Includes Leaders from Across Private and Public Sectors

Buffalo, NY – October 26, 2017 – Matthew K. Enstice, President and CEO of the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus (BNMC) will serve on a national commission launched today by the Alliance to Save Energy that will develop recommendations to reduce energy use in the U.S. transportation sector by 50 percent by 2050 while meeting future mobility needs. Enstice is one of only two representatives from New York State selected for the commission, along with Gil Quiniones, President and CEO of the New York Power Authority and the only representative from Western New York.

“With the growth of the Medical Campus and the continued renaissance in the City of Buffalo, we are acutely aware of the need to plan for transportation and energy issues so that we can take advantage of opportunities that emerging technologies present, and to plan for necessary changes to ensure efficiency, sustainability and to meet the needs of our community. I am delighted to share Buffalo’s perspective through this Alliance and to be part of developing sound strategies that will take us well into the future,” commented Enstice on his wp-contentointment.

As part of its role on the Medical Campus, BNMC focuses on comprehensive planning and implementation of transportation strategies to manage transportation, access, and parking issues on the 120-acre campus in downtown Buffalo. The non profit organization manages parking facilities, encourages alternative transportation modes, and has built infrastructure to encourage walking, biking and using public transit.  In addition, the organization also works closely with partner National Grid and others on energy issues to ensure efficient use of energy resources.

The Alliance Commission on U.S. Transportation Sector Efficiency (Commission) is comprised of leaders representing vehicle manufacturers, utilities, federal agencies, cities, environmental and consumer groups, infrastructure providers and public transit. The Commission is convened by the Alliance to Save Energy, the leading national coalition advocating for enhancing energy productivity – doing more with less energy.

Transportation represents roughly one-third of U.S. energy consumption. The sector is undergoing a transformational change – ranging from the increased viability of alternative fuels such as electrification to advanced vehicle technologies, automation and shared mobility – offering enormous opportunities to improve energy efficiency. Improvements in efficiency will create jobs, improve energy security, boost competitiveness, save businesses and consumers money, and reduce emissions.

The Commission will work through six Technical Committees (Light-Duty Vehicles; Non-Road Vehicles; Heavy-Duty and Freight Vehicles; Enabling Infrastructure; Information and Communications Technology (ICT), Shared Mobility and Automation; and Outreach and Implementation) to develop the regulatory, policy and investment pathways to achieve the “50×50” goal. Following an outside peer-review process, the Commission will publish a final report, and engage local, state, and national officials, key stakeholder groups and the public to act on the recommendations.

Kateri Callahan, President, Alliance to Save Energy, said: “Transportation in the United States is changing rapidly and it presents an enormous opportunity to improve mobility while at the same time saving energy. We’re bringing together experts from across this sector because we need a comprehensive wp-contentroach to maximize the energy efficiency gains. The response to our invitations has been overwhelming and we’re eager to see this group put their heads together.”

More information about the Commission, including the full list of commissioners, is available at:

www.50x50transportation.org

About the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus, Inc.              

The Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus, Inc. (BNMC) is a self-sustaining social enterprise successfully combining innovation, job creation, and urban revitalization. It serves as the umbrella organization of the anchor institutions that make up the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus located within the 120-acre campus bordering Allentown, the Fruit Belt and Downtown. The BNMC Inc. fosters conversation and collaboration among its member institutions, its partners and the community to address critical issues impacting them, including entrepreneurship, energy, access and transportation, workforce and procurement, neighborhoods, and healthy communities, with the goal of increasing economic development and building a strong community. www.bnmc-old.local.

# # #

 

Oishei Children’s Hospital: As moving day nears, a range of emotions sets in

Oishei Children’s Hospital: As moving day nears, a range of emotions sets in

By  –  Reporter, Buffalo Business First

With less than two days to go until the massive move of patients and equipment begins from Women & Children’s Hospital of Buffalo to the John R. Oishei Children’s Hospital, leaders say they’re feeling great, if a bit weary.

Emotions at the hospital have ranged from excitement and optimism to sadness as employees and patient families who have worked at the old hospital prepare for its shutdown after decades of memories.

“I’ve been talking with people, seeing how they’re doing and if they’re ready,” said Jody Lomeo, Kaleida Health CEO, who has been rounding at the old site with staff and workers over the past few weeks. “(Monday) was the first time I sensed the emotion of it all, I think because it’s the last week on that campus and the reality of the move is setting in.”

With 185 beds, the $270 million hospital is one of just 43 stand-alone children’s hospitals in the nation and the only one in New York. It will be connected to Buffalo General Medical Center on one side, and to the Conventus medical office building on the other, with ongoing connections to the University at Buffalo’s Jacobs School of Medicine & Biomedical Sciences.

With the five-year development coming to a close, anticipation for the opening is palpable, Lomeo said.

“The reality of the new building, the beauty and allure of the new building, is everywhere. Everyone loves the new building, and just what it represents, but I think the really interesting thing is the walk down memory lane that they’re all doing — and rightfully so,” he said. “That walk takes them to their personal side and who they’ve worked with, who they’ve healed every day. They’ve maybe parked in the same spot, walked the same route, ate in the same spot. And it’s where they’ve had holidays with their co-workers versus with their families at home because that’s just the reality of the world we live in.”

Beginning at 7:01 a.m. on Friday, the carefully rehearsed move will begin, with 150-180 patients expected to be transferred individually by ambulance from the old site on Bryant Street to the new hospital on the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus. A fleet of 15 ambulances from American Medical Response(AMR) will circle between the two sites over a period that’s expected to last nearly 24 hours.

An army of 1,000 volunteers will play a role in the move throughout the day, including serving as assigned ambassadors with patients, directing traffic in the parking ramp and serving water and food to all involved during move day.

The old hospital will stop accepting patients Friday morning, then will shut down department by department, floor by floor. Simultaneously, patients will begin to be accepted at the new hospital through the emergency room. Similarly, though the day will begin with double staffing, the employees will shift from one hospital to the next as patients are moved over.

“I’ve been using the example of a teeter-totter,” Lomeo said. “At the Bryant Street campus, we will have a full campus at 7 a.m., which will start to go down, and Oishei will continue to go up. Sometime after midnight, we expect we’ll shut the lights off on Bryant Street and say goodbye, and everyone will be in full go-mode at Oishei.”

THE ROUTE

CHILDREN’S MOVE

MAP COURTESY: GOOGLE/KALEIDA HEALTH

Patient Route WCHOB -> OCH

Bryant St, Right on Delaware Ave, Left on North St, Right on Ellicott St.

Ambulance OCH -> WCHOB

Ellicott St, Left on Ellicott St, Left on North St, Right on Delaware Ave, Left on Bryant St.

Intended to cross with Patient Transport in order to provide support if needed

Equipment WCHOB -> OCH

Bryant St, Right on Oakland Pl, Left on Summer St, Right on Ellicott St.

Truck Return OCH -> WCHOB

Ellicott St, Left on Goodrich St, Right on Main St, Left on Bryant St.

Families/Shuttle WCHOB -> OCH

Hodge St, Right on Elmwood Ave, Right on W Utica St, Right on Michigan Ave, Right on North St , Left on Ellicott St.

 Part of Normal Ambulance Route

UB med school begins move to Medical Campus

UB med school begins move to Medical Campus

By | Published | Updated

The University at Buffalo medical school is starting to move into its new digs on the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus.

Eight moving trucks recently began to haul boxes of files, equipment and other materials from more than 50 offices on UB’s South Campus to the new Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at Main and Allen streets, where construction is 99 percent complete.

The $375 million university medical school is expected to be a major advance for UB’s expanding medical program when classes begin there in January.

The eight-story, 628,000-square-feet building – which incorporates a Metro Rail station – will replace medical school classrooms and laboratories on UB’s South Campus, where the school has been based since 1953. It includes an advanced surgical simulation center for students to hone their operating skills in a robotic surgery site. It also will have clinical training areas for general patient care that are designed to look like hospital rooms, an obstetric delivery room, an emergency trauma center and other patient care facilities.

The building, which was designed by architects at HOK, is wrwp-contented in nearly 28,000 locally made terra cotta panels.

The building’s downtown location puts it in close proximity to its clinical and research partners, including Buffalo General Medical Center, John R. Oishei Children’s Hospital, Gates Vascular Institute and Roswell Park Cancer Institute.

A sign was installed on the new home of the UB’s Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences in August. (Derek Gee/ News file photo)

Most of the materials being moved now are administrative and related to senior associate deans, admissions and graduate medical education, said UB spokeswoman Ellen Goldbaum.

The first major movement of medical school staff and supplies started about a week before the planned opening on Friday of the John R. Oishei Children’s Hospital, a short distance away.

UB administrative staff, including Dr. Michael E. Cain, dean and vice president for health sciences, are part of the first phase of the move.

The New York State University Construction Fund granted a temporary certificate of occupancy in early October, and staff and administrators are expected to begin working inside the new medical school soon.

The building is mostly now complete, though some final punch list items are still being done, Goldbaum said.

Final work includes data wiring and furniture coordination and installation.

“As the job goes toward the end, there are finishing stages and things change, technology evolves,” said William J. Mahoney, vice president of LPCiminelli, general contractor of the project.

The bulk of what’s being moved now includes files, office equipment and computers, phones and some pieces of furniture, but many offices are getting new furniture. Lab equipment will be moved later this fall, Goldbaum said.

On the exterior, workers are installing the last of terra cotta panels on the building’s east wing and finishing metal panels along a canopy section that extends over the sidewalks around the perimeter of the medical school.

Work on a one-block tunnel through the medical school that will extend pedestrian traffic from Allen Street to Washington Street is wrwp-contenting up, as well. “We’re finishing all the metal panels on the roof of the walkway,” Mahoney said. He expects that work to wind down by late November. “It’s really coming along nice.”

Meanwhile, makeshift pedestrian crossings and temporary dividing posts along Main Street used to shift traffic lanes during the school’s construction were fully removed last weekend.

Mwp-contenting the path of Children’s Hospital big move

Mwp-contenting the path of Children’s Hospital big move

Fewer than 100 days remain until Kaleida Health begins a strategic 24-hour move of patients, equipment and families into the John R. Oishei Children’s Hospital. That will officially shut down operations at Women & Children’s Hospital of Buffalo.

Though the journey is just 1.2 miles, planners have worked for 18 months to plan the move down to the last detail. In all, more than 400 individuals participated in the planning process via 28 activation teams, 17 task forces and four steering committees.

The ultimate goal is to safely move every patient, including babies just a few hours old.

The day of the move, the plan calls for staff and physicians to operate two fully functioning hospitals in tandem while systematically transferring patients one at a time via ambulance through city streets.

Among those involved in the move will be hundreds of volunteers, as well as three main players, each of whom gave Business First some behind-the-scenes knowledge of what it will take to move the hospital.

The administrator

Children’s Hospital President Allegra Jaros has been involved since the start five years ago, overseeing construction for the last three years on Oishei Children’s Hospital, a $270 million, 12-story hospital with 183 beds. Also involved are physicians, nurses, staff, volunteers, patient families and community members who are determined to make sure nothing is overlooked.

Jaros will manage staffing needs for the big day: Children’s professional staff, physicians and employees at all levels as well as others throughout the Kaleida Health system. That includes people who participated in moves from Millard Fillmore Gates Circle Hospital to Buffalo General Medical Center, and from Deaconess Center to HighPointe on Michigan.

Jaros also recruited clinical team members who helped with moves of other children’s hospitals and adult hospitals.

“We brought them in at a time when we utilized their knowledge base along with a consulting company to ensure that 18 months ago, we were thinking ahead of time of all the expenses and needs to safely move our patients,” she said.

In all, moving Children’s is expected to cost upward of $7.5 million, with more than half the costs tied to labor and training ahead of time and the day of the move. Jaros will play a supporting role and will travel between command centers at each site, assess any barriers that might arise and then help team leaders figure out what to do.

“We’re planning our drills with oddities, like what if this type of thing hwp-contentens or this person or patient arrives at the door,” she said. “I haven’t had that crazy dream yet. We have such a great, talented team of care providers, so as long as we stay focused on the patients, we will knock it out of the park.”

The planner

Cassandra Church is one of the people Jaros is counting on.

Church is clinical project manager and president of Clinical Project Consulting LLC, a company she started last year to help move hospitals. A neonatal intensive care nurse, she brings experience from helping to move two Washington, D.C.-area hospitals over the past decade: Children’s National Medical Center and Inova Fairfax Hospital’s children’s division.

Church was a NICU nurse when Children’s National moved that unit from an open-bay design to a private-room model. At Inova Fairfax, she was senior director for nursing and oversaw all pediatric services when the entire 226-bed children’s hospital moved to a new building on the campus.

The Buffalo move is the first time she will rely on ambulances versus walking patients in hospital beds through tunnels and internal passageways. Though the move via ambulance might sound scary or risky to outsiders, Church said Children’s Hospital moves hundreds of patients every year to and from hospitals both in and out of town including Pittsburgh, Cleveland and New York City.

“We move them in, we push them out and from a neonatal perspective, we will often do back transfers once infants are stabilized and a little closer to going home,” she said.

She has run a series of mock moves involving representatives of every unit in the hospital.

One recent event used colored gift bags to represent patients, patterned balloons as their mode of transport (isolette incubator, crib, etc.), Duplo bricks for medicine, candy bars to represent nutritional requirements and rubber gloves for infectious disease/isolation garb.

As the prep teams “left” the old hospital, they had to remember to scan the patient’s bar-coded bracelet before handing off the bag/patient to a paramedic to be transported, then checked in at the new hospital.

The exercise led to suggestions for items that might make the process easier. For example, instead of transporting the most serious cases all at once, the schedule calls for starting with patients who aren’t as sick, then moving one who is a bit sicker, then the most serious before starting over again. That will result in what Church calls an “acuity bell curve” so caregivers aren’t overloaded.

The mock move also generated some serious questions: What hwp-contentens if a patient codes on that 1.2-mile trip? Should the ambulance turn back?

A paramedic in the room shouted out, “No. You go faster.”

“You never turn back,” Church said. “Once you’re going forward, it’s all forward momentum. You never turn back.”

After participating in two other hospital moves, move coordinator Cassandra Church brought some do’s and don’ts with her:

Focus on hands-on training. At Children’s National, she said staff were prepared only with classroom training and a tour of the new facility. The move at Inova Fairfax involved more hands-on training with practice for timed patient moves. That’s the wp-contentroach Church implemented here.

“When you look at the adult learner, we learn by doing; we don’t learn by looking at a PowerPoint. So we made all our training scenario-based,” she said.

Know your technology. The monitors to be used at Oishei Children’s might be the same as the ones she used at other hospitals. Still, it’s important to ask questions and to practice when integrating technology. Church found out the hard way that flashing colored alarm lights outside patient rooms at Inova Fairfax also had speakers, which led to a very noisy unit for a few hours.

“Give yourself time to test,” she said. “Here, we were ahead of the game in the install. We already have monitors in, computers in and the nurse call system. So we’ve given ourselves more time to test and make sure there aren’t any surprises.”

Don’t rush things. Church said that during the mock moves and other training, no one should try to get ahead of themselves. Each part of the move for each patient is timed for a reason. It’s OK to fall behind a bit. Delays are expected since no one can predict how stable each patient will be at their assigned move time. But getting ahead of schedule will only cause problems for other parts of the move.

 – Tracey Drury

The (people) mover

Leading the ambulance crew is Scott Karaszewski, a 20-year paramedic and chief EMS officer at American Medical Response, the region’s largest ground provider of emergency services. He and his colleagues provided transport during the Millard Gates and Deaconess moves and have other experience moving patients between hospitals.

For move day, the company will schedule at least 30 prople to staff 15 ambulances, including two new specialized ambulances that provide pediatric transport and neonatal care.

Though the move will be more fast-paced and continuous than a typical shift, AMR is accustomed to moving critical-care patients. Having nurses and other pediatric staff of Children’s Hospital along for the ride will absolutely ease the process.

Karaszewski said participating in the pre-planning with Church and others was the best preparation.

“We have a good partnership there and it’s nice that we can all bounce ideas off each other,” he said. “Come November, it’s going to be like a Swiss watch.”

Practice for the move goes to the next level at the end of this month with ambulances taking the route. Next will be a mock move in September with volunteers standing in as patients.

Like Church, Karaszewski won’t admit to any fears or reservations about the move.

“We have planned for every possible scenario, so we are as ready as we can be,” he said. “In EMS and medicine, we can adapt and overcome as long as nothing’s wrong with the new building, but we’ll know that well in advance. Otherwise, we’re well-prepared for anything that could head our way except a Mother Nature event, and even then we could work around that.”

Who are the volunteers?

More than 400 individuals have stepped forward to participate in the process, with teams of students from St. Joseph’s Collegiate Institute and Buffalo Seminary going through a pre-check of every single room in the new hospital to make sure that outlets work and nothing is missing.

On moving day, individuals who are regular volunteers at the existing hospital will become ambassadors, assigned to families and responsible for keeping them up to speed on the time and logistics surrounding their child’s move from one hospital to the other. They’ll also greet the family at the new site and escort them from the parking ramp.

Dozens of other volunteers will serve food and beverages for patient families, physicians and staff all day.

What about security?

Just a few of the new hospital’s entrances will be open on day one, and everything will have controlled entry with badge swipes. Extra security will be posted at each level of the new hospital to limit access to patient families.

Employees will be encouraged to bring the minimum items they’ll need for the day, carrying just their car keys, phone and wallet versus purses and bags. And families whose children are long-term patients will be encouraged to take toys and personal items home in the days leading up to the move, then bring them back to the new hospital once the patient is settled.

A 1.2-MILE ROUTE

HOW MUCH TO MOVE A HOSPITAL?

Hospital planners say the typical cost to move a hospital is 2 percent to 3 percent of overall project costs, but how do those costs break down? Not surprisingly, the biggest costs are labor expenses before the move and the day of the move.

 

How New York Is Building the Renewable Energy Grid of the Future

How New York Is Building the Renewable Energy Grid of the Future

This is a story of ripping up old incentives that encouraged selling as much electricity as possible, then unleashing the entrepreneurs.

BY LESLIE KAUFMAN, INSIDECLIMATE NEWS

MAY 25, 2017

The energy start-up Opus One is helping New York understand how power from distributed resources interact with traditional power flows. Credit: Opus One

New York State is making a $5 billion bet that by making its power cleaner, it can become a magnet for the clean energy jobs of the future.

Its efforts stand out among the many states racing to integrate more renewables into their power grids—such as Massachusetts, Hawaii and California—not necessarily for the technology but because of what’s hwp-contentening behind the scenes: New York has launched a Herculean effort to turn around an antiquated system that has deterred innovation for generations by rewarding utilities for selling more electricity.

To get utilities to embrace a changing electricity system, the state is establishing ways for the companies to be reimbursed for some of the savings from energy efficiency programs that are reducing demand for their services. It also is allowing them to reap more return on their investments in equipment needed to bring more renewable energy into the grid. And it is investing in entrepreneurs who are inventing the technology to make it all work.

The state is so gung-ho that its rules require utilities to come up with demonstration projects that test out a new business model, in partnership with at least one private sector company.

The result, say the state’s regulators, is that New York is already attracting hundreds of innovative companies of all stripes. The plum opportunities are not only in installing wind turbines and solar panels, which are generating new employment opportunities across the country, they are also in emerging technologies related to smart grid management and storage. These jobs are largely invisible to the public and, in some cases, didn’t even exist a few years ago.

While the state hasn’t yet projected overall how many jobs are in the new energy economy, they have released enticing tidbits. In January, the New York State Energy and Research Development Authority (NYSERDA) released a report projecting that by 2030, New York’s energy storage industry could realize annual revenues between $5.6 billion and $8.7 billion, with total job growth between 17,300 and 26,800 employees. Jobs in the energy storage industry already grew by 30 percent between 2012 and 2015 to 3,600.

“We are now the leading market for energy storage companies,” boasts John Rhodes, president and CEO of NYSERDA, pointing to companies like NOHMs Technologies in Rochester and BessTech in Troy. “And probably microgrid technology as well.”

One of the companies that has been drawn to New York’s new markets is Opus One Solutions. New York’s vision relies on distributed, independent power operations that ramp up and down with the intermittent sunshine and wind, as well as with the fits and starts of demand for power. Opus One has software that can understand how those waves of power from distributed resources interact with traditional power flows. Just as important, its software can make real-time price estimates for the value of those local power sources.

“Why New York?” asks Alison Smith, the start-up’s director of markets, gazing out at the Manhattan skyline from a conference room at the Urban Future Lab, a state-sponsored incubator for start-ups.

“It is the most forward-thinking state in North America in considering how we build the critical elements of a distributed grid,” she answers.

Incubating Clean Energy Innovation

Three years ago, New York announced that it would spend $5.3 billion toward meeting its goal of having 50 percent of its electricity come from renewable sources by 2030. (The state only had 24 percent renewable generation in state this year.) Mandates related to these standards have resulted in significant additions of wind and solar to the grid—but that is just the most readily visible part of the changes New York is undergoing.

According to Richard Kauffman, the state’s chairman of energy and finance, it didn’t take long to figure out that “New York cannot cost effectively make this transition just by bolting wind and solar onto the grid of Westinghouse and Tesla,” referring to two of the original creators of the grid, George Westinghouse and Nicola Tesla. Instead, New York wants a new “hybrid grid” that integrates intermittent and distributed resources like wind or solar or microgrids.

At the core of the problem to getting that grid was a stodgy, legacy financial model for utilities that didn’t support innovation. Utilities have historically been rewarded with 9 percent rate increases when they add capital expenditure for transmission and distribution to new central power stations, which in New York are historically gas and coal with some nuclear and hydro. The result is that New York has added so much base load capacity to meet peak demand (largely in these traditional forms of energy generation) that on an average day the state uses just 54 percent of generation capacity.

“Technology is not what is holding us back,” said Kauffman. “Could I tomorrow install smart meters in every home and save energy? Absolutely. But until now, there has been absolutely no financial incentive to do this.”

So, New York began changing regulations to reward utilities for integrating new business models that support advances like battery storage that are needed to scale up wind and solar. It has mandated the demonstration projects. Seventeen are already up and running and another dozen or so are in the works for wp-contentroval.

It is also offering other stimulants such as grants and assistance through incubators like the Urban Future Lab.

Every few weeks, the state announces another competition. In February, it gave $15 million to develop renewable heating and cooling technology. In March it gave $11 million in grants to winners of a microgrid contest. In April it made $15.5 million available to support the most promising energy storage projects.

New York is distributing this money with the idea of leveraging as much from the private market as possible. Since 2009, NYSERDA says, it has invested $14 million in six clean energy incubators where clean tech start-ups get a boost by being connected to utility officials and investors. The return to the state on that $14 million investment: 155 of the new and emerging companies coming from those incubators have attracted over $284 million in private investment.

There is broad consensus that New York’s financial game plan is particularly sophisticated in theory. “New York is not the only one grwp-contentling with grid modernization,” said Lisa Frantzis, a senior vice president with Advanced Energy Economy, a business group working on alternative energy. “I can tell you that many states are dealing with the same issues but no one is dealing with it as holistically as New York.”

However, some clean energy advocates are not sure if the execution yet meets the ideals of the plan.

Jamie Howland, director of the Climate and Energy Analysis Center at the Acadia Center, an advocacy organization, said this is all still a work in progress. “It is going to take some time to know how well it’s working.”

Meanwhile, he worries about what New York hasn’t done to prime the economy. “New York has to import all its fossil fuels, so for every dollar spent on energy efficiency, the economy grows by five dollars. And New York can clearly do more on energy efficiency. It is lagging states like Massachusetts and Rhode Island.”

In Buffalo, from Hospitial to Clean Energy Producer for the Region?

The partnership between Opus One and National Grid is a prime example of how the new demonstration model is supposed to open up New York’s power grid to innovation that speeds renewable energy.

Last year, the company was looking to aggressively expand operations out of Canada and into the United States. The key was to find a home base with utilities that were both able and willing to integrate radical new technologies.

For the highly regulated industry, it was a tall order. But because of those mandates that utilities partner with third parties, New York fit the bill.

And, in fact, no sooner had Opus settled on New York State than it was picked in September 2016 by National Grid, the utility for greater Buffalo, to partner on a two-year project on cutting-edge technology that could help Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus expand its back-up energy supply to include an expansive portfolio of renewables.

With seven institutions on 120 acres and 17,000 employees, the medical campus is practically a small town. Like all critical care facilities, BNMC is required by law to have a backup power generation system, and like many hospitals, it has relied on one of the dirtiest forms of fuel: diesel.

As BNMC considers how to upgrade its power structure, one option is to invest beyond its own needs and become a clean power producer for the local region.

“There is no doubt to us now that the technology is out there to provide energy from zero-emissions sources,” said Paul Tyno, director of energy investments for BNMC. “The question is the economic feasibility of it.”

“We need to know what kind of return we will get for our investments,” he said.

This is where Opus One comes in. Opus can take just a few limited pieces of information from the grid and, using advanced computer modeling, show comprehensive power flows in real time—as well as accurately predict them in the future.

The transparency also allows Opus to calculate demand for supply and then come up with prices for energy based on where it is being distributed. This is potentially a big breakthrough. One of the problems states like California and Nevada have faced is that they have not yet calculated what they should be paying individual customers for the solar power they generate.

National Grid asked Opus to work on a demonstration project with BMNC to provide a model of a real-time market for its distributed clean power.

“This demonstration is essential in providing us with a better understanding of the technical requirements required to integrate, operate and fully optimize a distributed system,” said Carlos Nouel, vice president of National Grid’s New Energy Solutions group.  If it works, he added, there is potential to scale to the entire area.

Tyno said that New York’s insistence on pilot projects is the foundation of all this experimentation.

“To me, the ability for a customer asset to provide relief to the central grid strengthens that central grid,” he said. “If you’ve got a strong grid that is consistent and reliable and has manageable costs in this day and age, I think you are going to attract business to your area.”

Editorial: Forward-looking Medical Campus is working on parking crunch

Editorial: Forward-looking Medical Campus is working on parking crunch

By

The Buffalo News

Credit is due to the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus for encouraging employees to use greener and healthier means of getting to and from work by taking advantage of public transportation and pedal power.

It is a good strategy for easing the parking crunch that will only get worse with thousands more workers about to join the workforce. And it will help those employees and medical school students develop lifelong habits that will benefit themselves and the environment.

The grounds of the Medical Campus have been bustling. Gates Vascular Institute and the University at Buffalo’s Clinical and Translational Research Center opened in 2012. Conventus Medical Office Building and Roswell Park Cancer Institute’s Clinical Sciences Center opened within the past year.

The John R. Oishei Children’s Hospital and the University at Buffalo’s Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences are scheduled to open by the end of the year.

There will be an astounding number of people in a relatively small space. It would be virtually impossible to create the parking infrastructure that would be needed if everyone drives to work.

Instead, the BNMC is taking a proactive wp-contentroach in getting its expected 15,000 employees to work each day. The nonprofit umbrella organization coordinates transportation and other neighborhood initiatives on the 120-acre Medical Campus.

Officials recently hired a new program manager, Thea Hassan, to work on neighborhood transportation initiatives. Hassan is trying to get folks out into the sunshine and fresh air by persuading them to bicycle to work.

For those concerned about which route to take or  who want to brush up on the rules of the road, Hassan is creating the Bike Sherpa. It’s an ingenious buddy system designed to ease the nervousness beginners might feel about a bicycle commute.

GoBike Buffalo and Reddy Bikeshare have been an integral part of the effort to replace pushing the gas pedal with pushing the bike pedals. Reddy Bikeshare had more than a half-dozen rental bikes on campus last year. This year a second station on the Medical Campus is being added, bringing the total to 200 bikes at 35 stations throughout the city. The bikes rent by the hour or through a yearly $55 membership. There will be a free trial membership to encourage employees to bike to work.

The Bike Sherpa service would be available once every few weeks for a limited time and is free and open to Medical Campus employees.

The nonprofit will also work to make it easier for commuters who want to use Metro Rail. The newly renovated Allen-Medical Campus Station is inside UB’s new medical school building, making it very convenient for workers, students and visitors. The Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority is providing even more incentive to take public transportation with a six-month trial of a corporate discount program that could cut the cost of a $75 monthly pass to as low as $38.50 for some bus and rail commuters.

Parking crunches are signs of the growing importance of the Medical Campus. Plans to ease them show forward thinking.

New ER will be ‘clean slate’ for Children’s Hospital trauma team

New ER will be ‘clean slate’ for Children’s Hospital trauma team

By The Buffalo News

Dr. Kathryn D. Bass is a master at staying calm and juggling the big stuff.

As medical director of trauma for Women & Children’s Hospital of Buffalo, her focus is on the mission ahead – moving the Emergency Department and other related services to the new John R. Oishei Children’s Hospital in November.

On a simplistic level, it’s akin to moving to a larger home. And that’s a good thing for Bass, who oversees coordination of surgery, the helipad and Emergency Department.

The current space for pediatric emergency services will double at the new facility on the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus. On the rooftop of the new Oishei facility is a new helipad, ready and waiting to be used.

“We’ve really outgrown our space,” Bass said.

[Related: Children’s Hospital devising plan to move tiniest, most critical patients]

Bass spoke recently with The Buffalo News for an ongoing series of interviews with key Children’s Hospital staff ahead of the November move from the Bryant Street hospital to the new site on the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus.

Q: How will the new trauma and emergency service area be different from the existing hospital?

A: We had an opportunity with the new hospital to design the space to meet our needs, where in our current facility we’re more or less fitting into what we have. We’ve really outgrown the space that we have. So the new space is an opportunity to have a clean slate, and to take the process of caring for a seriously injured child and to create a pathway and a flow of care in a physical space that makes more sense.

Q: How does the size compare?

A: We have larger resuscitation rooms and our rooms are all oriented around a central space, a core space and are closer to the ambulance drop-off location. We’re not too far away now, but we have patients that come from the helipad that have to descend through the hospital and around corners and such and the ambulance bay and throughout to our current rooms are not too bad. We’re more or less replicating that and getting a little more efficiency around helipad transfer.

Q: You’ll have two helipads in close proximity – one at Buffalo General and now the Children’s Hospital one. How is that coordination going to work?

A: (Buffalo General) and (Gates Vascular Institute) service the stroke center, and have their own set of patients they are taking care of. As a trauma center, we are also servicing urgent care for the pediatric patients. So it just essentially keeps the flow of patients uncongested and streamlined into specific urgent care.

Q: How will your ER operations be improved?

A: We are definitely going to gain more space in the new ER. In the trauma resuscitation rooms, we are a little bit bigger and we’re cohorted together near the CT scanner. So we’re going to get some radiology resources, and that’s new. Right now, we have to get on an elevator and go up one floor. And in the new facility, we’ll have the CT scanner in the ED department, so we’ll have a dedicated scanner which we will use frequently for trauma patients. The ED is definitely going to be bigger and better organized. We’re coming from smaller operating rooms that were designed years ago before we had all the technology that we’ve come to rely on in the operating suite. We’ve outgrown our current space. Getting into the new hospital is going to give us a much more comfortable operating room than we have right now.

Q: How will this transition go to the new hospital?

A: We’re doing a staged move so that we have resources here, and we have resources there, already in place. We’ll basically have staff available here, as we’re moving. We’re not going to open and be fully servicing that (new) emergency department until we have all of our patients and all of our staff moved over there. Once we get everything operational and up and running there, then we’ll close down here. I think moving and delivering care, and ramping up to have that available, that’s something we’ve been planning for the last two years.

Q: Say you have a trauma patient who needs surgery at 2 in the afternoon the day of the move, when does that patient get moved over?

A: We’ll do all that patient’s surgery and that patient’s recovery here, and as soon we have the staffing and the bed available there, we’ll make the transition by ambulance.

Q: What’s the most challenging part going to be?

A: Getting all the processes to work in the new space. It’s going to be beautiful and everyone is very excited, but we’re in a new space. We’ve mocked all of that and done a dry run. We have a sense of practicing that, and then it will be just living through it for the first week or so. Like anything, you are moving into a new house and unpacking and making sure that you know where everything is.

Q:What will it be like being part of a booming medical campus?

A: It’s incredibly exciting. It’s an opportunity to really reap the benefit of everything that we are as a university and health care system because we have the combination of University at Buffalo medical school and the clinical operations of Kaleida for children and adults, and the vascular GVI and the translational research center. So it’s very exciting. It’s really bringing us to a new plateau. It’s a quantum leap from where we are right now. And it brings us on par with some of the major players in the industry.

Editorial: Forward-looking Medical Campus is working on parking crunch

Editorial: Forward-looking Medical Campus is working on parking crunch

By The Buffalo News

Credit is due to the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus for encouraging employees to use greener and healthier means of getting to and from work by taking advantage of public transportation and pedal power.

It is a good strategy for easing the parking crunch that will only get worse with thousands more workers about to join the workforce. And it will help those employees and medical school students develop lifelong habits that will benefit themselves and the environment.

The grounds of the Medical Campus have been bustling. Gates Vascular Institute and the University at Buffalo’s Clinical and Translational Research Center opened in 2012. Conventus Medical Office Building and Roswell Park Cancer Institute’s Clinical Sciences Center opened within the past year.

The John R. Oishei Children’s Hospital and the University at Buffalo’s Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences are scheduled to open by the end of the year.

Credit is due to the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus for encouraging employees to use greener and healthier means of getting to and from work by taking advantage of public transportation and pedal power.

It is a good strategy for easing the parking crunch that will only get worse with thousands more workers about to join the workforce. And it will help those employees and medical school students develop lifelong habits that will benefit themselves and the environment.

The grounds of the Medical Campus have been bustling. Gates Vascular Institute and the University at Buffalo’s Clinical and Translational Research Center opened in 2012. Conventus Medical Office Building and Roswell Park Cancer Institute’s Clinical Sciences Center opened within the past year.

The John R. Oishei Children’s Hospital and the University at Buffalo’s Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences are scheduled to open by the end of the year.

There will be an astounding number of people in a relatively small space. It would be virtually impossible to create the parking infrastructure that would be needed if everyone drives to work.

Instead, the BNMC is taking a proactive wp-contentroach in getting its expected 15,000 employees to work each day. The nonprofit umbrella organization coordinates transportation and other neighborhood initiatives on the 120-acre Medical Campus.

Officials recently hired a new program manager, Thea Hassan, to work on neighborhood transportation initiatives. Hassan is trying to get folks out into the sunshine and fresh air by persuading them to bicycle to work.

For those concerned about which route to take or  who want to brush up on the rules of the road, Hassan is creating the Bike Sherpa. It’s an ingenious buddy system designed to ease the nervousness beginners might feel about a bicycle commute.

GoBike Buffalo and Reddy Bikeshare have been an integral part of the effort to replace pushing the gas pedal with pushing the bike pedals. Reddy Bikeshare had more than a half-dozen rental bikes on campus last year. This year a second station on the Medical Campus is being added, bringing the total to 200 bikes at 35 stations throughout the city. The bikes rent by the hour or through a yearly $55 membership. There will be a free trial membership to encourage employees to bike to work.

The Bike Sherpa service would be available once every few weeks for a limited time and is free and open to Medical Campus employees.

The nonprofit will also work to make it easier for commuters who want to use Metro Rail. The newly renovated Allen-Medical Campus Station is inside UB’s new medical school building, making it very convenient for workers, students and visitors. The Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority is providing even more incentive to take public transportation with a six-month trial of a corporate discount program that could cut the cost of a $75 monthly pass to as low as $38.50 for some bus and rail commuters.

Parking crunches are signs of the growing importance of the Medical Campus. Plans to ease them show forward thinking.

Medical Campus grows to more than 150 companies

Medical Campus grows to more than 150 companies

By

The Buffalo News

The number of companies on the 120-acre Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus has grown to more than 150, according to the nonprofit organization that oversees the campus.

In 2002, when the campus was in its infancy, there were three companies.

Companies counted by the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus Inc. include those located in its entrepreneurial hub; University at Buffalo’s Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics and Life Sciences; UB Gateway; Hauptman-Woodward Research Institute; Conventus; 73 High St. and 847 Main St. It also includes services providers and tenants that have offices within one of the buildings on campus but may be headquartered elsewhere.

The campus is a diverse mix of companies and not solely focused on health care and life sciences. Social impact and technological-based companies also are on the uptick, along with a major push of those interested in starting or growing a business.

[PHOTO GALLERY: UB’s downtown medical school nears completion]

The number of people working on the Medical Campus will expand this fall when UB’s Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences opens to faculty and then in January to students. Women & Children’s Hospital of Buffalo operations will move to the new John R. Oishei Children’s Hospital in November.

The state recently awarded $625,000 to the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus to expand its business development program. In the past year, there has been $750 million of investment and 700 construction workers on the campus, according to Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus Inc.

Campus workforce to hit 15,000 as hospital, med school move

Campus workforce to hit 15,000 as hospital, med school move

By Stephen T. Watson
The Buffalo News

Published Friday, Jan. 27, 2017

The Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus is a focal point for development in Buffalo.

Over the past 12 years, the University at Buffalo, Roswell Park Cancer Institute, Kaleida Health and Hauptman-Woodward Medical Research Institute all have finished construction on major research or clinical centers on the campus. In the new buildings, doctors treat patients, scientists seek cures for deadly diseases and entrepreneurs build companies.

When the organization that oversees campus operations formed in 2001, 7,000 people worked at its existing institutions. Once the John R. Oishei Children’s Hospital and UB’s Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences complete their moves to the campus this fall, 15,000 people are expected to work there.

Work is taking place across the campus, but two projects are at the center of attention.

Workers broke ground on the $270 million John R. Oishei Children’s Hospital in fall 2014, and construction was 80 percent complete as of December.

[See the rest of Prospectus 2017: Unveiling the New Buffalo]

The 12-story, 410,000-square-foot facility has 185 beds. It is smaller than the existing Children’s Hospital on Bryant Street but is designed to give patients, their families and staff a better experience.

In November, the Children’s Hospital inpatient and emergency departments will make the highly choreographed shift to 818 Ellicott St.

[Gallery: The John R. Oishei Children’s Hospital]

The University at Buffalo this fall is expected to complete its Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, a $375 million undertaking that began in October 2013. The eight-story, 628,000-square-foot building is the largest construction project in UB’s 170-year history.

The new school will bring 2,000 students, faculty and staff to the Medical Campus from their current home on UB’s South Campus once it is finished. The building is 75 percent complete now.

[Gallery: UB Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences]

Many other projects will take shape on the Medical Campus in 2017. Notable projects include:

• Construction should begin in March on the $90 million Campus Square project, a redevelopment of the 12-acre Pilgrim Village affordable housing complex into a community with apartments, commercial space and parking.

• The Medical Campus should begin renovations to 980 Ellicott St. this spring and complete them by the end of the year. The complex has a mix of office and laboratory space.
The organization acquired the facility because it is running out of room in its Thomas R. Beecher Jr. Innovation Center, an incubator for startups. The campus spent $3.75 million to buy the buildings at Ellicott and Best streets from Osmose Holdings.

• Ciminelli Real Estate Corp. has selected a design for an 11-story medical and research building to cost up to $140 million. The architectural firm Perkins + Will is designing the new clinical, research and office building at 33 High St., the site of the old Langston Hughes Institute building, which will be torn down. The project is across the street from Ciminelli’s successful Conventus medical research and office building, at Main and High streets, and the new building would be similar in size and scope. The developer said it hopes to begin construction on the project in 2017.