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2 Sunday,March 2,2008 WATERTOWN DAILY TIMES
PROGRESS 2008
Samaritan Medical Center is beginning construction of a parking garage with a helipad and 112,000-
square-foot patient pavilion. It also plans to renovate 71,500 square feet of hospital space to expand the
WATERTOWN DAILY TIMES
maternity unit and create a new neonatal intensive care unit and construct a connection between the hospital
and Samaritan Keep Home.
Hospitals upgrade to handle expansion of services
GETTING BETTER:
Recruiting staff
among priorities
amid renovations
By STEVE VIRKLER
TIMES STAFF WRITER
Over the past few years, contractors
have been nearly as noticeable
at north country hospitals
as doctors and nurses.
And area hospital administrators
say that past, present and
future upgrades should not only
improve patient services but also
help entice new doctors to
practice at their facilities.
Physician recruitment “is an
important challenge, one we
identified two years ago,” said
Thomas H. Carman, chief executive
officer at Samaritan Medical
Center, Watertown.
“Our number one need for the
next one to three years is to develop
a system to recruit and retain
needed primary care and
specialists,” said Walter S. Becker,
Carthage Area Hospital’s administrator.
Doctors and graduating medical
students trained at state-ofthe-art
facilities likely will be
hesitant to work at an aging hospital,
said Mr. Carman, whose
facility is moving forward with a
four-year, $61 million expansion
and renovation project.
Suburban teaching hospitals
“have all the technology,” said
Mr. Becker, whose facility is finishing
up a $9.2 million capital
project. “They have all the specialists
in the world.”
Rural areas like the north
country also tend to have patients
with lower incomes than
in more urban locales, he said.
Hospital officials agree that
facilities and equipment alone
will not attract needed physicians
to north country communities.
Lifestyle issues are important
in physician recruitment, Mr.
Carman said. For example, it’s
difficult to recruit a doctor who
would be on-call every couple of
nights in a smaller hospital but
only once every week or two at a
larger one, he said.
“Obviously, we’ve got to make
sure the spouse is comfortable,”
Mr. Carman said.
Following is a look at how hospitals
— typically among the
largest employers and economic
engines in their respective
communities — are attempting
to progress.
SAMARITAN MEDICAL CENTER
Physician recruitment must
be done with the needs of the
community and existing doctors
in mind, Mr. Carman said.
“You want to make sure you get
the right balance,” he said.
To that end, Samaritan officials
in 2006 created a physician
“Whatever we do to benefit Fort Drum ultimately benefits the north country.”
Thomas H. Carman, chief executive officer, Samaritan Medical Center
development committee to research
community needs and
recommend the types of doctors
that should be sought.
That process began to bear
fruit last year, Mr. Carman said.
Samaritan officials added 19
doctors, including four internal
medicine practitioners,
three pediatricians, two general
surgeons and three obstetrician/gynecologists
at Fort
Drum who were authorized to
deliver babies at SMC.
They are working with existing
medical staff to recruit
physicians in the following areas:
general surgery, primary
care, gastroenterology, pulmonary/critical
care, ob/gyn
and urology.
Samaritan is beginning construction
of a parking garage
with helipad and 112,000-
square-foot patient pavilion. It
also plans to renovate 71,500
square feet of hospital space to
expand the maternity unit and
create a new neonatal intensive
care unit and construct a connection
between the hospital
and Samaritan Keep Home.
With about 85 percent of the
current hospital space built before
1972, the upgrades are
needed, SMC spokeswoman
Krista A. Kittle said.
Capital and service upgrades
are planned with the entire
community, including military
families, in mind, Mr. Carman
said.
“Whatever we do to benefit
Fort Drum ultimately benefits
the north country,” he said.
Soldiers and their spouses
typically are young and healthy
and tend more often to utilize
departments such as maternity,
emergency, mental health and
orthopedics, increasing the
need for those services, Mr. Carman
said.
He touted the Fort Drum Regional
Health Planning Organization,
which was created a couple
of years ago to provide better
health services to military families.
“It’s everyone coming together
to listen to the issues of Fort
Drum,” Mr. Carman said.
CARTHAGE AREA HOSPITAL
“Our biggest goal is now to use
our new building,” Mr. Becker
said.
With a new obstetrical/maternity
center featuring private
rooms and birthing suites, the
Carthage administrator said he
hopes to see 400 annual deliveries,
up from about 230 in the
past year.
“It’s a target I think we’ll hit,”
Mr. Becker said, adding that the
facility should prove attractive
to mothers-to-be from civilian
and military backgrounds.
The capital project, which is
nearing completion, also includes
expansion of the surgical
area and laboratory, addition of
waiting rooms and opening of a
full-time magnetic resonance
imaging service and coronary
intensive care unit.
Plans include the upgrading
of medical floors and nursing
stations, Mr. Becker said.
The hospital also plans to add
school-based health clinics at
Carthage Elementary and La-
Fargeville Central schools to its
five other school-based clinics
and 10 other health centers and
clinics throughout the region.
“We’re trying to get health
care out to the community,” Mr.
Becker said.
While recent building upgrades
have helped the hospital
recruit a surgeon and urologist
to the community, the administrator
said he’s not sure he has
ever seen a more challenging
period for physician recruitment
during his 37 years in the
health care industry. “It’s everybody’s
problem,” he said.
The hospital is looking to recruit
psychiatrists, family practitioners,
psychologists, dentists,
orthopedic surgeons and certified
social workers, Mr. Becker
said.
To combat the problem, the
state needs to provide more incentives
for medical students to
locate in rural areas, and the
community needs to be involved
in the recruitment
process, he said.
Mr. Becker said he hopes to
work with school districts to encourage
area youth to enter the
health-care field. “At some
point, these kids may come back
home,” he said.
LEWIS COUNTY GENERAL HOSPITAL
“Physician recruitment and
retention is a priority here,” said
Eric R. Burch, interim CEO at
Lewis County General Hospital,
Lowville.
The county-owned facility
has a strong track record in recent
years because hospital officials
have focused on working
with existing physicians to bring
in complementary doctors who
will provide needed services, not
Thomas H. Carman
just compete for patients.
“I think the medical staff here
is a huge plus,” Mr. Burch said.
“We’re partners.”
Mr. Burch, also the hospital’s
chief financial officer, has been
serving as interim CEO since
October. Hospital officials are
interviewing several candidates,
including Mr. Burch, for the permanent
job.
LCGH last year completed a
$4.1 million expansion and renovation
project of the diagnostic
imaging and emergency departments.
Eric R. Burch
Hospital officials are exploring
a major upgrade of its heating
and air conditioning system,
Mr. Burch said. “It’s about a $2
million project that pays for itself
in 10 years in energy savings,”
he said.
The hospital is working to
start a sleep lab, dialysis center
and full-time MRI service and
considering an operating room
renovation and finding a larger
site for its Beaver Falls clinic.
LCGH has added some physi-
See HOSPITALS, page 4
WATERTOWN DAILY TIMES
Work proceeds last July at Claxton-Hepburn Medical Center, Ogdensburg,
which is in the midst of a $9.9 million building project. A new
outpatient ambulatory surgery unit and expanded radiology department
and patient registration department have already been completed;
new mental health and ob/gyn units are expected to open this
spring.