SUMMIT,NJ — The Hersh Children’s Center, Overlook Medical Center’s newest facility, was unveiled to the public at a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Thursday, Dec. 9.
According to a press release, the newly built, state-of-the-art facility centralizes the hospital’s pediatric emergency, inpatient and specialty services in one family-friendly space. Also recently opened at Overlook are a new employee parking garage and the new Bouras Emergency Department entrance. Hospital construction officials also implemented another innovation, reengineered ventilation systems, giving the facility the ability to utilize outdoor air for full circulation throughout the Hersh Children’s Center and the Bouras Emergency Department.
Overlook Medical Center President Stephanie Schwartz said these are the first of many renovations for the facility.
“The project is a pediatric children’s center. … It’s child-centric, family-centric and it’s in a beautiful space. The physicians, nurses and technicians that take care of the children are able to do that all in one location,” Schwartz said on Friday, Dec. 10.
“Our spaces are not that old, but health care changes so quickly that we are going to renovate the spaces so that they can support new technology and new ways to care for patients.”
According to the press release, the new, nearly 12,000-square-foot center brings together the Meri and Sol Barer Inpatient Pediatric Center, formerly housed on Overlook’s sixth floor, and the Michael Gordon Reeves Pediatric Emergency Department for better coordinated care of patients ages newborn to 21. Fully equipped to handle the range of pediatric conditions, with streamlined care to ease stress on the family, the new inpatient unit offers such touches as sleep accommodations for parents, family lounges and a well-lit play area.
“The plan has been in development for several years, and health care construction is highly regulated, so we had a series of approvals to get from the city of Summit and others,” Clelia Biamonti, executive director of the Overlook Medical Center’s Overlook Foundation, said on Friday, Dec. 10. “We had received all of our approvals to proceed with the Hersh Children’s Center, as well as constructing an employee parking deck, to allow all of our team members who wanted to park on campus the ability to park there. So those projects were underway, and, because we are allowed to proceed with construction during an emergency situation such as COVID, we slowed down a bit but we kept going, and, regarding timing, we let it work to our advantage.”
Biamonti said that, in between the first and second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a pause to get feedback from their team. This allowed them to inspect the space and make it even safer and more efficient for team members. One big change was the sophisticated air filtration system, which allows both positive and negative pressure to be achieved through the entire center at the flick of a switch. This makes it a self-contained unit, something very desired during the pandemic.
“The other thing that would’ve really been helpful for us is to really have a space that we could sequester children and their families in, away from the adult population, so that concept was already underway. Another concept that was also underway was combining pediatric emergency care with inpatient care in one unit, where the staff is cross-trained to address both urgent needs as well as ongoing and chronic needs. It gave them an opportunity to be up-trained to acquire new skills, because you always want your staff to be engaged, learning and developing, so they were able to do that, and it allows us to be more flexible with staffing. We never knew there would be a health care worker shortage, but now that we have one, we are able to redeploy resources in new and different ways. We’re really blessed that those lessons learned were able to be incorporated. The Overlook Foundation was absolutely, 100-percent supportive of this and rose to the occasion and did the additional fundraising to meet this need.”
According to the release, the new center includes nine patient rooms, including two isolation rooms and Liam’s Rooms for patients with serious chronic conditions or life-limiting illnesses; eight emergency department rooms staffed by pediatric emergency physicians, pediatric subspecialists and pediatric nurses; one flexible room for emergency department patients or inpatients; in-room accommodations for parents to stay the night with their children; and numerous structural and design elements to enhance safety, comfort and security for patients and families. The Hersh Children’s Center has access to 100 pediatric specialists, who provide expertise both at Overlook and throughout the Atlantic Health System.
A $2.5 million pledge from the Nicholas J. And Anna K. Bouras Foundation funded the relocation of the Michael Gordon Reeves Pediatric Emergency Department, as well as additional adult emergency patient rooms. According to Biamonti, the entire purpose of the Overlook Foundation, which is a separate nonprofit organization, is to support innovation at Overlook Medical Center and provide funding for the planned renovations.
“Our largest contributor is Atlantic Health System, so we’re rebuilding Overlook together, and we’re roughly 50/50 partners in this endeavor. We are so grateful to the community investment improving health care at Overlook Medical Center and throughout all the communities that we serve. It really is only possible through the generosity of our donors,” Biamonti said.
Schwartz said she hopes to have the new center open by the end of the year, if regulators permit.
“For our ribbon cutting, we took people through the facility before we were able to see patients, because, once we are seeing patients, it’s difficult to have the public through the space,” she said. “So, we’re hoping around Dec. 26, right after the Christmas holiday, that we will be able to start seeing patients in that space. …
“This is a very innovative approach to taking care of children by allowing both the emergency room and the inpatient unit to be co-located. … There’s only a few of these in the state of New Jersey,” Schwartz continued. “It will really afford excellent clinical care that is centered on the patient and the family and will be better support for younger patients who do need care. An emergency room can be scary for a child or a family, so this will allow them to get that focused care.”
Dr. Walter Rosenfeld, chairperson of Pediatrics at Overlook Medical Center and medical director of Children’s Health for Atlantic Health System, praised the close connection the Atlantic Health System hospitals have with one another.
“The new Hersh Children’s Center at Overlook fits in beautifully with Atlantic Health System’s plan for having an organized way to deliver the right kind of care in the right place at the highest quality for patients throughout the entire region,” Rosenfeld said on Friday, Dec. 10. “We couldn’t possibly make that work if we didn’t connect all of our centers with each other and with our main area, which is Goryeb Children’s Hospital (at Morristown Medical Center), where we have the highest community care and the highest volume. Overlook is one of our busiest pediatric centers, and we’ve invested, over the years, many resources to provide that community with truly excellent pediatric care, primary care, as well as specialized care.
“Part of our plan for regionalizing children’s care is having a wonderful center like the Hersh Children’s Center,” he continued. “That is a center that can treat children with a very wide spectrum of problems, and we designed it that way. We have the staff and the physical facility to support that. But when a child requires even higher levels of care, that’s when we lean on the rest of our system.”
Photos Courtesy of Overlook Medical Center