State planning agency approves emergency care center at former St. Vincent’s site

A key state health planning agency approved the plans for a North Shore-LIJ emergency medical care facility on the former campus of St. Vincent’s Hospital, according to Crain’s, at a meeting on Thursday.

Amid protestors urging state health leaders to hold out for a full-service hospital, the New York State Public Health and Health Planning Council signed off on a 140,000-square-foot 24-hour urgent care center in the O’Toole Building On Seventh Avenue in Greenwich Village. Next, the plan must be approved by the state health commissioner, which has already given some indication that it favors the plan, Crain’s said.

The $125 million project will technically be a two-bed hospital managed by Lenox Hill Hospital, a division of North Shore-LIJ Health Systems. It should be able to treat about 90 percent of medical cases and stabilize other cases so they can be transferred to nearby full-service hospitals. Prior to the approval, the health council was assured that many of the concerns surrounding the urgent care center — including whether ambulances will know when a patient can be treated in that particular facility — would prove non-issues. Construction is slated to being in December for a spring 2014 opening date. [Crain’s]