Local Hospital Closures Loom as Westchester Faces Health Care 'Squeeze'

Westchester residents will likely see fewer hospitals and a more streamlined, consolidated health care system in coming years, local medical leaders announced today.

Officials speaking at White Plains Hospital Wednesday morning said an intersection of issues—from an aging Baby Boomer demographic in Westchester to new federal health care legislation—has put a major squeeze on the local medical industry.

"The old model is broken," said Bill Harrington, chairman of the Westchester County Association (WCA). Harrington was flanked by members of the WCA's new Healthcare Consortium, a medical team assembled to help solve the local medical sector's ongoing fiscal crisis.

The consortium—comprised of doctors and hospital CEOs, university leaders and businessmen—aims to retool Westchester's hospitals while still maintaining a "vibrant, sustainable, affordable" health care network, Harrington said.

Westchester currently houses 10 acute care facilities that serves approximately 1,000,000 residents—an engine that employs about 30,000 and injects $10 billion into the economy annually, officials said.

But it's a system that is "unsustainable," according to Simeon Schwartz, CEO of WESTMED Medical Group.

Budget cuts, expense upticks and shrinking income have radically changed both the local and national industries, explained Jon Schandler, the CEO of White Plains Hospital. "We're being challenged to take care of more members of our community with fewer resources," he added.

And fewer resources means the inevitable closing of some hospitals throughout the region, officials said. Consortium members did not pinpoint which medical facilities could and would be shuttered, but did elaborate on the factors that will play a part.

"Certainly market forces will play a major role in that," said Bill Mooney, president of the WCA. "Lack of equity will play a role in that, and population and consumer demands will play a role in that, as well."

Mooney and others mentioned the near-closing of Long Island College Hospital, and the loss of White Plains' St. Agnes Hospital in past years, as indications of the future.

Port Chester residents already know the impact of the changing health-care industry. Every day thousands of village residents pass by the shuttered United Hospital property, which once served the area's medical needs. Today, property owner Starwood Capital Group is in the process of redeveloping the site.

While Starwood in 2012 proposed a development plan that called for more than 800 residential units on the property, there has been heated debate in Port Chester over the future of the site with many residents concerned that a large residential project would further stress Port Chester's already crowded public school system.

To ease the transition into a leaner health care system, the consortium will rely on preliminary findings from their study "Healthcare Insights." Patient flight is not an issue, officials said, with only 11-percent of Westchester residents traveling to Manhattan for care.

Additionally, since 1997, home-care has increased while maternity and pediatrics services have declined; Medicare has surpassed commercial insurance as a cardinal payment method; and the average length of in-patient stay declined 13-percent in Westchester.

Mooney said the coming changes will kick-off sooner rather than later, and that Westchester could see the revamped health industry in just a few years.

But patients will see "an improvement in the care that they receive," officials said, as more spartan medical staff are able to stamping out the pricey duplication of tests and work in tandem.