Suffolk County Police today arrested a nurse for assaulting a paraplegic man she was caring for at his Coram home last week.
Areatha Pickens, a licensed practical nurse, was caring for an 83-year-old man and Korean War veteran who became paraplegic in a 1975 motor vehicle crash, when she assaulted the man who was confined to a stretcher June 22. Pickens punched the man several times after the victim notified Pickens’ employer that she was late for work. The victim was treated at Stony Brook University Hospital for a fractured orbital bone.
Sixth Squad detectives charged Pickens, 44, of Coram, with second-degree assault. She was scheduled to be arraigned at First District Court in Central Islip.
For Huntington residents, going to the emergency room just got a little less painful.
Huntington Hospital unveiled its new $53 million emergency department Dec. 13, which is capable of handling 64,000 patient visits per year. The department starts treating patients Jan. 3.
The new ED is more than double the size of the old. In total it’s 28,000 square feet, with 47 treatment spots and 12 private waiting stations where patients receive results. The facility was designed with a mission to significantly improve patient care.
“Efficiency is the idea behind this whole department,” Michael Recupero, director of patient care services in the ED said at the opening.
An entirely new system was put in place for dealing with patients from the moment they enter the building, to ensure their stay is as short and effective as possible.
Michael Recupero shows how the lighting system will works. Photo by Victoria Espinoza.
Under the new method, patients are immediately seen by a nurse to determine if they need instant treatment in the main ED or treatment in one of the four intake rooms. The intake rooms are what Recupero calls “the game changers.”
“Traditionally you’d come in and be seen by a triage nurse, then you’d sit and wait in the waiting room for an undisclosed period of time, and then be brought to a room where you would wait some more,” he said. “Finally you’re seen by a doctor. But with this model, you’re seen by a nurse and then immediately placed in one of the intake rooms where a doctor will see you.”
The intake rooms feature a brand new lighting system that helps staff learn what step of care each patient in a room is at. The system, created by the University of Colorado, runs similar to a traffic light, but with four colors. If the light above an intake room is red, the patient is in the room and needs their vitals checked. If the red light is flashing that means vital check is complete. When the light is yellow, a provider is in the room and when flashing yellow, the provider completed their exam and the patient is ready to move. A green light indicates the room needs cleaning and flashing green means the room is clean and ready for the next patient. When flashing blue, the patient needs an EKG test done.
“It’s really amazing,” Recupero said. “With visual queues, we don’t even have to have a conversation. [A doctor] can see what’s happening in each room without anybody telling [him or her].”
On the wall of every intake room is a whip-off board with a checklist of certain tests a doctor may order.
“Within the first five minutes you’re getting orders done,” Recupero said.
One of the private waiting results stations. Photo by Victoria Espinoza.
He explained the ED is spilt into half of an emergency department and half of an urgent care center. Patients with less serious illnesses are taken to “super track” spaces where they quickly get antibiotics, or an X-ray, and are then sent to one of the 12 results waiting areas, which are private cubicles with lounging chairs and floor to ceiling windows.
The main part of the department will be divided into an east wing and a west wing, with a nurse’s assistant, doctor and three nurses on each side. Another doctor is designated to the trauma area, which deals exclusively with patients in extreme conditions.
Recupero said other standout features in the new ED are a pediatric wing that can treat up to nine children at once, a radiology section exclusively for the ED — meaning no other departments are allowed to take time away from ED patients to use the machine — a dedicated Ob/Gyn area and a behavioral health area.
Michael J. Dowling, the CEO of NorthWell Health, of which the hospital is a member, said the hospital plans to apply for level three trauma designation in 2017.
“It’s a new beginning here,” he said at the opening. “This is just a wonderful example of what you can do when a lot of people put their efforts together and have the communities and patients interests forefront.”
Leonardo Huertas, chairman of emergency services for the hospital, said the new treatment style at Huntington Hospital will be a win for patients.
“The emergency department leadership has envisioned a way to best care and manage our patients,” Huertas said. “The new ED was designed with an eye for innovation. We wanted to change the traditional sequential process which is riddled with bottlenecks and delays.”
A view of a healing garden at Mather Hospital’s new pavilion. Photo from the hospital
New facilities at John T. Mather Memorial Hospital aim to reduce infection rates and bring more doctors to the area.
The Port Jefferson hospital recently dedicated its new Arthur & Linda Calace Foundation Pavilion, adding more than 28,400 square feet of space to the north side of the hospital that is being used to house patient rooms as well as medical offices and conference rooms.
According to Mather spokesman Stuart Vincent, there are 35 one-bed rooms in the new pavilion. Rather than using the space to add to the hospital’s 248 beds, beds were moved from existing double rooms into the new pavilion, creating 70 new single-bed patient rooms throughout the hospital.
A view of a patient bedroom at Mather Hospital. Photo from the hospital
Taking away those 35 double rooms and adding the 70 single rooms means “for the first time, the majority of rooms at Mather are now single-bedded, which aids in both patient healing and in reducing the risk of infection spreading among patients,” Vincent said in an email.
The patient rooms in the new pavilion will be used for intermediate care and will each have their own medication cabinet and a computer for managing patient information, according to Vincent. The unit also keeps nurses close to patients, with nursing stations throughout the floor.
Joseph Wisnoski, CFO at Mather, said in a previous statement, “A single-bed patient room is no longer a luxury, but the standard for hospitals across the nation.”
That patient unit is located above two floors of new offices and conference rooms and a 180-seat conference center. When the hospital broke ground on the expansion project two years ago, officials said the office space would be used to combat a shortage of primary care physicians by training more of those professionals — who would then hopefully stay in the area — in a graduate education program that includes seminars and symposia.
The pavilion is Mather’s first expansion in more than a decade, and Vincent said it is the sixth expansion since the hospital opened in 1929. It was named for Arthur and Linda Calace, the primary donors on the project, who raised their family nearby and wanted to give back to the community. The Calaces and other donors combined to cover $5 million of the total construction cost.
