The 2024 BNMC Block Party!

A huge thank you to everyone who joined us at the BNMC Block Party at Kaminski Park yesterday! The weather was beautiful and gave us the perfect backdrop to come together, eat, laugh, and dance.

Thanks also to our amazing partners and collaborators who made it all happen.

  • Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center
  • University at Buffalo
  • Hauptman Woodward Medical Research Institute
  • Jacobs Institute
  • Kaleida Health

Special thanks to NFTA, the Buffalo AKG, and all the amazing vendors who came to showcase their businesses and work in our community. Here’s a photo gallery by photographer Jean Rios to enjoy!

BNMC Impact Report

Today the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus (BNMC) shared its final report to the US Department of Agriculture on a multi-year Farm to Hospital project. Nine years ago, BNMC brought partners Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center and Kaleida Health together with a shared vision for what a culture of fresh, healthy, local foods in healthcare systems could look like. To advance this vision, BNMC applied for and received three rounds of grant funding from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA).

Together the partners worked to:

  • update institutional procurement and vending contracts,
  • implement a Harvest of the Month campaign,
  • host three Food as Medicine Symposia,
  • develop the WNY Food as Medicine Coalition,
  • install five new Farmhouse Fridges across campus.

As a direct result of their efforts, local procurement at Campus hospitals has increased by 333%. This matters, because for every dollar spent on local procurement (small to midsize farms, aggregators & distributors operated by our neighbors), 75-85 cents stays in the local economy when compared to conventionally sourced produce (largescale corporate food chain) where the revenue share to local farmers hovers around 14.9 cents. More data highlights are included on page 14 of the report.

The increase in local procurement meant that 42 local farmer entrepreneurs directly benefitted from the effort and grew their businesses. A further 10 local producers were able to expand their ability to sell into healthcare food systems by becoming USDA-certified in Good Agricultural Practices (GAP). Several other local businesses in processing and procurement also benefitted greatly from this work.

While the impact on local entrepreneurs in our healthcare food system is significant, campus hospitals have been able to greatly improve the quality of their procurement practices for the benefit of patient and visitor health. With new policies and operations templates in place, these practices will continue to grow well into the future.

You can read a full copy of the report here. Meet the partners, growers, and distributors in a short video here.

 About Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus  

For more than twenty years, The Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus organization (BNMC) has been a driving force in 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, and launching the IC Success (Innovation Community Success) program to support aspiring entrepreneurs from all backgrounds to help them start or grow a business. Program graduates will form the heart of Buffalo’s growing Innovation Community comprised of businesses large and small in an array of disciplines leading the region’s next wave of economic development and growth.   www.bnmc.org

Farm-To-Hospital: Fresh, Local Foods Coming to a Cafeteria Near You

Farm-To-Hospital: Fresh, Local Foods Coming to a Cafeteria Near You!

The BNMC’s Farm to Hospital initiative is designed to bring more locally grown and sourced produce, proteins, and other menu items to patients, visitors, and employees across the Medical Campus, in partnership with Kaleida Health and Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center.

Benefits of New York State Grown Foods

We all have heard the buzz about local foods.  But what does it really mean?

When businesses and institutions buy local it can have remarkable effects on public health, the environment and the local economy.  The mere questioning of where food is produced allows us to become more aware of what we put into our bodies.  And when the benefits are listed, there seems to be little question of the better option.

Wow, this stuff is tasty!  Locally grown food is at optimal freshness, picked at the peak of ripeness and therefore full of flavor.  Produce retains more nutrients and is higher in vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants.  With fewer steps between you and the source of your food, contamination is far less likely. As well, local farmers may be using less or no pesticides and herbicides, which is healthier for the body especially for those who are immunocompromised.

In Western New York we love our green spaces and blue waters.  And, our “City of Good Neighbors” nature can extend to helping the environment too.  Eating more local foods reduces C02 emissions through less food miles travelled, helping with overall climate change.  When our producers operate well-managed farms it help protect the naturally rich ecosystem by conserving our fertile soil and fresh water from Lake Erie, as well as sequestering carbon from the atmosphere.  Buying local protects our amazing natural resources for future generations to enjoy.

Money helps too!  Choosing local supports OUR farmers. More dollars stay within the local economy and provide the security producers need to continue in this rewarding yet challenging work.  We should all be proud.  New York State ranks nationally for its top agricultural products such as wp-contentles, maple syrup and pumpkins. We are third in the nation for our dairy, wine & grapes, cabbage, cauliflower and fourth for tart cherries, fresh market sweet corn, squash, pears.  Here in Western New York we are surrounded by rural farmland and in the past decade, urban farming in Buffalo has become a mainstay and hydroponic farms provide offerings throughout the year.

Grant-Funded Program Increases Access to Healthy, Local Foods in Hospitals

In 2018, the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus, Inc. (BNMC) was one of 44 organizations nationwide and one of just four organizations in New York State to receive a grant from the United States Department of Agriculture Local Food Promotion Program to help create a culture of healthy food practices and increase local food procurement.  “BNMC Fresh: Farm to Hospital Implementation” works to prioritize local agriculture within hospitals and enables farms to access new markets such as health care institutions.

Our Partners’ Role

From the beginning of BNMC’s commitment to supporting local agriculture, the food services teams at both Roswell and Kaleida Health have been leading the charge.  Devoted to providing the healthiest options, Roswell Park’s Director of Nutrition and Food Services Chris Dibble had this to say, “The culinary team at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center strives to procure and utilize local produce whenever possible. Our Farm to Table program not only supports local farmers, but also provides benefits to our patients and visitors.  Eating fruits and vegetables closest to their harvest times is always ideal because they are most nutritious at that point.”

RPCCC has encouraged their employees to take part in Community Supported Agriculture programs, extending these benefits to home dinner tables.  Their team has travelled to learn more about what other hospitals are doing to support regional local food systems.

Similarly, since the start of this initiative at Kaleida, Metz Culinary has worked with the BNMC team to build on their promise of healthy offerings as well as providing helpful information on where they are sourcing their foods from and the benefits of farm fresh local foods.

“Metz’s commitment to procuring locally grown and sourced produce and meats aligns well with Kaleida Health’s commitment to advancing the health of our community,” said Hank Cole, director of Rehabilitation Medicine and Ambulatory Clinics at Buffalo General Medical Center. “Through Metz, we’re able to provide our patients, residents, employees and guests with healthy meal options, made with the freshest ingredients, while also supporting our local farmers. It’s a win-win situation. “

Kaleida and Metz are launching a Farm to Hospital campaign to share information on fruits and veggies they use in their menu as well as introducing the producers. Recently they featured a pop-up Farmer’s Market in the cafeteria, which is a fun way of getting these veggies out into homes.

Stay Tuned!

The BNMC team are proud to showcase the hard work of our food service teams and our local farmers and are hwp-contenty to help provide the healthiest – and tastiest! – culinary offerings out there.  Throughout the upcoming year, our Farm to Hospital team will provide employees, patients and visitors with BNMC Farm-to-Hospital Implementation information about featured local produce, as well as introducing the amazing farmers behind the products.  Keep your eyes out for the latest informational messages coming your way. And enjoy the tastes of the season!

The Future of Medicine: Episode 50

Matt talks with Bill Maggio, a health care, medical diagnostics, and business development executive from Buffalo, New York. They talk about the Jacobs Institute’s recently released landmark report on The Future of Medicine, and the role of health care systems in transforming how care is delivered. Bill highlights his role as an investor as well as a leader in the local start-up community as past chair of 43North business competition to spur economic development in Buffalo. They touch on his lifelong love of music as a classically-trained pianist as well as the impact rowing has had on his life.

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

 

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

How the new Oishei Children’s Hospital came to be

How the new Oishei Children’s Hospital came to be

The new John R. Oishei Children’s Hospital that will open this week on the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus exemplifies state-of-the-art pediatric care.

The hospital tower offers the latest in medical technology and thoughtful design. A connected outpatient center replaces dated facilities that were costly to maintain and no longer met patients’ expectations.

The new hospital, together with a new University at Buffalo medical school under construction along Main Street, will solve a big piece of the puzzle on a medical campus trying to attract life sciences companies to start or move here.

It all looks like a major no-brainer. But it wasn’t always so.

The initial attempt nearly 18 years ago to move Women and Children’s Hospital from Bryant Street set off the fiercest of community battles. At one point, in 2002, thousands of people, including sports stars Jim Kelly and Pat LaFontaine, crowded Niagara Square in support of a campaign to “Save Our Children’s Hospital” and keep it where it was founded in 1892.

The unpredictable and stormy path that led to the $270 million building on Ellicott Street that will officially open Friday easily could have gone in a different direction.

It took time, but the end result was worth waiting for,” Dr. Steven Lana said.

Lana, a pediatrician, was one of a host of physicians active in the campaign that arose against the original plans to move Women and Children’s.

There were many other influential people along for the project’s meandering journey to completion. Kaleida Health administrators and board members, union leaders and a governor, physicians and patients, as well as shifting attitudes of the neighbors around Bryant, played a part.

Here is the story about how the new John R. Oishei Children’s Hospital came to be.

First proposal

The idea of building a new hospital downtown next to Buffalo General Medical Center surfaced publicly in early 1999, a little more than a year after Kaleida Health formed from the merger of Buffalo General, DeGraff Memorial, Millard Fillmore Gates Circle, Millard Fillmore Suburban, and Women & Children’s hospitals,

The late John Friedlander, then chief executive officer of Kaleida Health, sought to reorganize services, and to pursue an idea he and others advocated for consolidating hospitals on a medical campus downtown. Among other plans, he proposed expanding Millard Fillmore Suburban and turning Millard Fillmore Gates Circle into a center for geriatric care and rehab after hospitalizations.

There were other arguments for moving from Bryant Street.

Although parts of the pediatric hospital were in good shape, such as the Variety Tower and pediatric intensive-care unit, sections devoted to outpatient services were badly behind the times with a confusing layout, aging facilities, and a lack of modern amenities for patients and doctors. Obstetrician-gynecologists wanted a hospital where they could deliver babies and have access to medical specialists for adult women, especially if women ran into trouble during labor. Kaleida Health, facing financial trouble, also needed to cut costs.

The ideas caught people by surprise.

At the time, Kaleida Health was preoccupied with bringing together a group of hospitals with distinctly different medical cultures and staff loyalties. The Medical Campus remained a vision, with an uncertain future, and not the bustling district it is today. Meanwhile, Women & Children’s was a beloved and integral part of the Elmwood Village with a passionate constituency.

“Elmwood was different at that time, not like it is today. Businesses felt they were going to be badly hurt without the hospital there,” said Sarah J.M. Kolberg, former chief of staff to Sam Hoyt, who as an assemblyman at the time who played a key role in the debate.

Pediatricians resisted the proposal, particularly because Kaleida Health didn’t seem to have the financing muscle to build a facility they could support and didn’t have a detailed plan they could see. In an unprecedented initiative, nearly every pediatrician in the Buffalo area in 2000 signed a statement calling for Women & Children’s Hospital to stay put until a compelling architectural plan was devised with their input.

“I don’t think there was a pediatrician who would have argued with the concept of having a brand-new children’s hospital,” Lana said, “but it just wasn’t credible that we could move the facility we had at Bryant to another location. There was no land, there was no plan, there was no finance.

“What person would say, ‘Yep, let’s do it because you said so.’ We were aghast at the possibility that the crown jewel of the newly minted Kaleida Health would be imploded and cannibalized without a better alternative on the drawing board.”

Faced with opposition from pediatricians, staff, residents and business owners, as well as inadequate funding, Kaleida Health announced in late 2001 that it was indefinitely postponing a move into a new hospital downtown. The hospital system also noted that it was working with a national hospital consulting firm to help set its course for the future.

Opponents of the proposed move cheered, but not for long.

New plan to move Children’s

In early 2002, Kaleida Health unveiled a new proposal to move Women & Children’s into one of its adult hospitals, either Buffalo General or the former Millard Fillmore Gates Circle, and build an attached outpatient center.

There was a sense of urgency that drastic action was needed to stem the financial hemorrhaging and preserve the hospital system. Officials said Kaleida Health had lost nearly $53 million the year before, most of it at Buffalo General, but also at Women & Children’s. An immobilized hospital system of that size put the quality of health care in the community at risk, hospital officials warned.

Pediatric specialists threatened to leave. Other critics tore into the idea,  saying there was a special environment in a free-standing children’s hospital that would be lost. They warned that such a move would leave Western New York with a civic mistake on a par with building the UB campus in a suburb instead of the city, or the expressway that cut through Delaware Park.

“To the doctors, Children’s was their baby, and Kaleida was trying to take it away,” said Kolberg, the chief of staff for Hoyt.

A campaign against the proposal snowballed. Opponents talked and planned constantly by phone and in meetings – in the Saturn Club, at the former Ambrosia Restaurant on Elmwood and at an Elmwood storefront Hoyt secured as headquarters for the “Women and Children First” coalition. An army of passionate parents, whose children were born or treated at the hospital, readily enlisted for the battle. Many politicians joined in, too, as did an assortment of local celebrities.

As spring wp-contentroached in 2002, the campaign reached a critical mass when thousands of supporters gathered in Niagara Square in a rally to keep Women & Children’s on Bryant Street. It was moms against managers. Kaleida Health found itself overwhelmed by a public relations disaster.

Changing course

A few weeks before the rally, Kaleida Health had brought in a new CEO, William McGuire, who made it clear that his priority was repairing the rift with the pediatricians. And a little more than a week after the rally, Kaleida Health changed course.

McGuire said it didn’t make sense to move forward without buy-in from doctors and staff. The hospital system shelved plans to move Women & Children’s and promised a collaborative examination of a physician plan to stay on Bryant Street. This included a new outpatient center on Hodge Street across the road from main pediatric campus, a facility needed to address the major shift in care away from long hospitalizations.

The saga was far from over. It wasn’t clear the physicians’ plan was viable. Doctors also were talking about making the hospital independent of Kaleida Health. How were they going to reach consensus, especially if Women & Children’s was financially weak?

Things reached a climax in late March 2002 in an 11-hour meeting in New York City that brought 14 representatives from all the sides together. Dennis Rivera, then president of the powerful Local 1199 of the Service Employees International Union, which represented the 1,600 workers at Women & Children’s, served as mediator at his offices in Times Square. His role was key.

Rivera and McGuire knew and respected each other from McGuire’s days as a hospital chief executive in New York City. SEIU was the nation’s largest health care labor group, giving Rivera great influence with former Gov. George Pataki, whose assistance would be needed.

An agreement was  reached that united doctors, staff, and Kaleida Health’s board of directors and management in a commitment to preserve the facility’s free-standing status. It also elicited a promise from Pataki to pursue money to help build a new outpatient center and fund other improvements.

The two-page memorandum of understanding was short on details, a sore point with many people back in Buffalo. Instead, McGuire and Rivera advocated a document more focused on building a relationship among distrustful factions who had been at war, said George Kennedy, then secretary-treasurer of Local 1199 Upstate SEIU.

“I’ve been involved in hundreds of negotiations, and this was one of the most exquisite solutions I’ve ever seen — for its simplicity, for the way they focused everyone on seeing how their interests might coincide,” he said. ”

Soon after reaching agreement, Pataki outlined the plan in front of a cheering crowd at Women’s and Children’s.

A major part of the deal was  Pataki’s  promise to help Kaleida Health resolve a legal claim for $30.8 million from the federal government related to the merger that created the hospital system. Two-thirds of the money was supposed to go toward a new outpatient center.

In a settlement that wasn’t reached until 2005, Kaleida Health received about half that amount, although the state also offered financial help.

Bryant Neighbors object to outpatient

Planning for the outpatient facility at the old children’s hospital on Bryant moved forward, this time in what participants described as a bottom-up, grassroots process that involved Kaleida Health, its doctors and labor.

They presented a proposal in 2007 that included the new center and other renovations, such as a surface parking lot. It might have looked great on paper, but nearby homeowners raised concerns about the project harming the character of a neighborhood lined with Victorian homes, and some filed  lawsuits to stop it.

It’s a generalization, but physicians and others felt as though the same people who once mobilized to keep the hospital on Bryant only wanted it if the hospital never changed.

“A portion of the neighborhood wanted the old children’s hospital, not an expansion, but that was not viable,”  Lana said.

“It was annoying,” said Kennedy, the local union leader. “We had done everything to plant the flag on Bryant. I know it wasn’t really the same people probably. But it was frustrating.”

Faced with neighborhood opposition, a physicians committee began to look at construction of the outpatient center on the downtown medical campus, and in 2010 urged Kaleida Health to locate it in a new medical office building, Conventus, along Main Street. It would be the first step toward the eventual move of the entire hospital.

Changed conditions made the decision to leave Bryant Street easier.

Kaleida Health’s management, then headed by CEO James Kaskie, was continuing McGuire’s philosophy and working collaboratively with the doctors and staff. The hospital system’s finances had improved. It had purchased land for a pediatric hospital and shown it could take on big projects with construction of the Gates Vascular Institute. Further incentive was UB’s move to build a new Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences on the medical campus. All of which coincided with a renewed interest in downtown development.

“It was no longer build a children’s hospital, and the people will come. It was like all the pieces were fitting together. Kaleida Health did it the right way, and for the right reasons,”  Kennedy said. “And it turned out to be a better idea than anyone had when all this started.”

The Future of Medicine Book Inspired by the Jacobs Institute

Western New York may seem an unlikely place to invent the future of medicine. But in fact, Western New York—and the many communities like us around the country—are where the real battle over the future will take place.

While we are not home to the biggest pharmaceutical companies, nor are we the home of famous biotech and healthcare unicorns, we are where their creations are inevitably headed. Silicon Valley may be their pilot market, but places like Western New York are their proving ground. As you’ll see in Trickle-Up Innovation (p. 28), breakthroughs can—and, increasingly, will—hwp-contenten everywhere. But no matter where an innovation originates, until it works on Main Street, under our constraints, the future of medicine hasn’t really arrived.

Our challenges in Western New York are typical of so many other places around the country. With 2 million people, we are plenty big—so we’re no small challenge. Few in our community have the wealth reserves to pay for super-premium care; the vast majority have to accept what their insurance alone can cover. The health of our population shows the wear and tear of long winters, lives spent working on our feet and a steady diet of hearty but not heart-healthy comfort food. We’re aging, and presenting the typical signs that go hand in hand with aging—higher rates of stroke, cancer, Alzheimer’s and heart disease.

L. Nelson “Nick” Hopkins, MD, FACS Founder & Chief Scientific Officer The Jacobs Institute

Those of us who take care of this com- munity feel deeply invested. We care not just for our patients, but for the greater community and the healthcare system itself, across all providers. We’ve built the Jacobs Institute on the premise that fostering innovation is the most important thing we can do to ensure improved quality of care for current and future generations. We commissioned this report to rally and prepare local medical communities for the impending future. Our hope is that this report brings the stakeholders in our community and yours to the table to form long-term strategic innovation plans.

The report accurately describes the current state of affairs in major cities, and it wp-contentlies here. Providers are swamped with new mandated reporting requirements and are competing at too many levels, from primary care through specializations, rather than focusing on what they do best in the market, and getting ever better and more efficient at it. Our brands lack clarity, so patients feel confused and uninformed. All this accomplishes is slowly leaking market share to outsiders. Today, it’s patients choosing to get care down in Pittsburgh—or at Walmart. Soon, as the report warns, it’ll be national and global health brands reaching out to our patient population with virtual care. The same way Amazon has run roughshod over retailers’ business models, it—or Google, or Apple—could suddenly turn healthcare on its head by digitizing medicine at scale.

As mighty a challenge as it was to gaze into the years ahead and envision med- icine’s future, the even harder work will be done here, locally. It’s somewhat like solving a Rubik’s Cube—you understand what it’s supposed to get to, but it’s a puzzle to get there, one twist at a time. As you read this report, we encourage you to ponder how the future depicted creates new opportunities and might shape our strategic development plans for the years ahead.

Download the Report

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.

 

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.

Welcome New Children’s Hospital Employees!

Earlier this month, the first round of employees from Children’s Hospital Outpatient Center settled in their new offices on the third floor of the Conventus building at 1001 Main St. located on the northern end of Campus. We’re thrilled to share that both patients and staff had “a remarkable response to the new space and facility,” commenting on how inviting, safe and accessible it is.
The move will occur in several stages throughout 2017, with more clinics moving in April and then a final round of employees coming over in October. The opening of Children’s Hospital and the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences will lead to nearly 15,000 people working and learning on the Medical Campus within the next year.